Enclosure Art Studios

1512 Oak Hill Ave Lawrence, Kansas 66044

1000 Sq Ft

This artist studio, located on the University of Kansas’s campus, is a designated space for the art students of both the campus and Lawrence as a whole. The site was located on an unused area, ruined by the severity and inaccessibility of the slope and it’s narrowness, but was beautiful and bare of anything expect trees. The shape of the building was influenced by the shape of the site in it’s entirety in effort to maximize the available space, and enhance the visual effect of the rolling hill.

The building is designed to navigate around as many of the existing trees on site as possible to preserve the natural beauty of the site. The two tallest trees on the site specifically also needed to remain untouched due to the size of them, and the work that would have been required to tear them down. The curved exterior walls stretching from retaining wall to retaining wall across the extend of the site, maximizes the perceived scale of the building, while also inducing a sense of isolation by the user when actually inside. These leading lines direct the users throughout the building, forcing them to make to the conscious decision to explore beyond the boundaries and paths provided.