I am designing a luthier school in downtown Fargo. It will be a 2 yr program where students learn the craft of making and repairing string instruments. The programs calls for at least 16 student residences, work space/classrooms, and a public interaction area/retail.

I contemplating ideas with a roof top bar where students could play the instruments and perform. scratched that idea and went with a repair store as my public engagement.

Concrete construction was the task of this studio project. I first looked at pre and post tensioning systems. i saw a correlation between the taught steel cables and the string instruments. i explored structures like suspension bridges and contemplated somehow hanging or suspending my floors from a solid and stable roof structure. this, although ambitious, seemed a bit too extreme so i favored a structure that dealt with precast elements in compression, concrete's real strength. i settled on a system that to me resembles that of an aquaduct or highway structure. i wanted the edge of my building to cantilever so it still had that suspended feel to it. i achieved that with my concrete structure. the building is enveloped in a curtain wall system.

this is my progress thus far ... feel free to comment