Performance High over the I-70/I-70 Interchange

Description: This was an undergraduate student project by Jonathan Imler for John Kelleher's ARCH 442 course, Winter 2005. This project involved analysis of the site and building strategy. The site is a stage. A stage exists wherever there is a dialogue between audience and performer. This relationship parallels that of the site where a stage defines a clear boundary between the two yet allows restricted interaction. In cases such as karaoke the audience is permitted to cross that boundary and become the performance. If the site is to be a stage a foreign object must be introduced that maintains the given boundary of I-70/I-71 yet induces interaction between downtown Columbus and German Village. The stage is presented to downtown as an Industrial and Performing Arts High School which allowing visual connections. To German Village the site becomes a stage in the form of a park that blurs the boundary of stage. The building strategy is derived from the relationship of the ballerina slipper and foot. Underneath the silk veneer (of the slipper) all notions of grace and beauty are forgotten as the sweat and bunioned foot is exposed. On the urban scale the building is exposed to downtown while the park acts as the veneer to German Village. At a smaller scale the school program further blurs the boundaries between performance, practice, and public space. -- Jonathan Imler