并不是每个设计团队能够从头开始构思一个学术校园。在德国私立Thaden学校的委托下，学校为大约500名6-12年级的学生提供服务，这所学校位于本顿维尔，占地32英亩，Arkansas-EskewDumezRipple (EDR)和Marlon Blackwell Architects (MBA)抓住了这个难得的机会，他们的冒险精神与教育建筑先锋设计方法相适应，并为总体规划和建筑提供了方案。

沃尔玛（Walmart）创始人领导的非营利组织沃尔顿家族基金会（Walton Family Foundation）设想，这所学校是将这家零售巨头的家乡打造为一个复杂且担负全球总部使命的场所，在人口增长破纪录、新建筑不断增加的情况下，它仍保持着宜人的居住环境。

Thaden School by EskewDumezRipple, Marlon Blackwell Architects and Andropogon
It’s not every day that a design team gets a crack at conceiving an academic campus from the ground up. With their commission for the private Thaden School—eventually serving about 500 students in grades 6-12, on a 32-acre campus in Bentonville, Arkansas—EskewDumezRipple (EDR) and Marlon Blackwell Architects (MBA) seized this rare opportunity with an adventurous spirit befitting the pioneering approach to education that informed the master plan and architecture.
Envisioned by the Walton Family Foundation, the nonprofit led by the founders of Walmart, the school is part of the mission to groom the retail giant’s hometown as a sophisticated global headquarters that, with record-breaking population growth and new construction, remains pleasantly livable.



2015年，在一项可行性研究之后，该基金会聘请普林斯顿大学（Princeton University）副院长Clayton Marsh创办并领导一所全新的学院。Marsh在谈到这所男女同校、无宗派、专注于创造力的大学预科走读学校时说：“学校的开放性让人耳目一新。为了营造学校的包容性，每个家庭将根据他们的能力支付学费。学生群体具有社会经济多样性，大约80%的家庭支付的金额低于学费的最高限额。”

In 2015, following a feasibility study, the foundation recruited Clayton Marsh, then deputy dean of the college at Princeton University, to launch and head a brand-new school. “The brief was refreshing in its open-endedness,” says Marsh, about the planned coed, nonsectarian college-prep day school with a focus on creativity. To foster inclusivity, families would pay tuition based on their resources. (Marsh says the student body is socioeconomically diverse, with about 80 percent of the families paying an amount below the maximum.)



为了开发新课程，Marsh从现场获取线索。例如，他说：“你不能忽视骑车文化在这里越来越受欢迎，本顿维尔自称世界山地自行车之都。”马什回忆起一位普林斯顿大学的前同事，他利用拆卸和重组摩托车的过程，让学生们学习数学、物理和工程的原理。他认为自行车是Thaden的媒介。为了与社区组织合作，他还考虑了让附近的烹饪学院帮助学生深入研究盘子的经济性、政治性和生物化学性。此外，他还考虑了当地电影节的角色和阿肯色州西北部的艺术制作历史。因此，Thaden的车轮（Wheels）、饮食 （Meals） 和里尔舞（Reels）,这三个具有文化标志性的内容，将引导跨学科的学习方法，并强调制作过程。

To develop the curriculum, Marsh took his cues from the locale. For example, “you could not overlook the culture of cycling that was gaining traction here,” he says. (Bentonville calls itself the Mountain Biking Capital of the World.) Recalling a former Princeton colleague who used the process of disassembling and reassembling motorcycles to engage students in the principles of mathematics, physics, and engineering, Marsh considered the bicycle as a medium for Thaden. And hoping to partner with community organizations, he also thought about how a nearby culinary institute could help students delve into the economics, politics, and biochemistry of the plate. In addition, he considered the role of a local film festival and the history of art-making in Northwest Arkansas. Thus evolved the three signature programs of Thaden—Wheels, Meals, and Reels—that would guide an interdisciplinary approach to learning, with an emphasis on making.





在整合课程和师资的同时，Marsh帮助设计了一个校园RFQ，该校园将补充新兴的教学方法，无论是在规划上还是在物理上，都将成为城市结构的一部分。为阿肯色州西北部创建了一个设计卓越项目的沃尔顿基金会（Walton foundation）邀请了一批公司参与到该项目。EDR和MBA被选中在校园总体规划和建筑方面进行合作。Marsh说：“EDR和MBA的区别在于他们能够将我们对学校的愿景转化为建筑形式和空间。”

While putting together the curriculum and faculty, Marsh helped craft an RFQ for a campus that would complement the emerging pedagogy and become part of the city’s fabric, both programmatically and physically. The Walton foundation, which has created a design-excellence program for Northwest Arkansas, invited a short list of firms to submit for the project. EDR and MBA were selected to collaborate on both the campus master plan and the architecture. “What set EDR and MBA apart,” says Marsh, “was their ability to translate our vision for the school into architectural forms and spaces.”











该场地以前是县级市，现在是一片开阔的田野，周围是独栋住宅和轻工业，一条南北通向本顿维尔附近的主广场的街道将其一分为二。规划的挑战包括协调项目所需的少量空间（仅13.6万平方英尺）和巨大的土地。EDR负责人兼设计总监Steve Dumez说：“我们需要制定一个总体规划，既要考虑地缘景观，也要考虑建筑景观。”校园规划合作者Andropogon巧妙地处理了景观。在早期的谈话中，Marsh曾令人难忘地说过：“建筑必须回应我们对于教室无处不在的想法，每一个空间都都存在内外部，这有利于学习。天冷的时候，孩子们需要感受天气，下雨的时候，他们需要淋湿身体。”EDR的项目建筑师Christian Rodriguez说，“这一指示使我们很早就形成了多孔校园的概念。”多孔校园由几个低矮的单层结构组成，而不是一个大型建筑，通过许多开口将它们与草地、蔬菜和雨水花园、草坪、水柱和蜿蜒的小路连接起来。在最近的一个下午，暴雨来袭，孩子们在有屋顶的走廊上犹豫了一下，然后掀开连帽衫，穿过院子奔向下一节课，这是一种了解大自然母亲的变幻莫测的有效方式。

The site, a former county fairgrounds, was an open field, bordered by single-family houses and light industry and bifurcated by a street running north–south to Bentonville’s nearby main square. The planning challenge involved reconciling the small amount of space required for the program—just 136,000 square feet—and the enormous plot of land. “We needed to develop a master plan that was as much about the landscape as the buildings,” says Steve Dumez, EDR principal and director of design; campus-planning collaborator Andropogon adroitly handled the landscape. “And it had to respond to Marsh’s idea of the classroom being everywhere, with every space—inside and out—conducive to learning.” In early conversations, Marsh had memorably said, “When it’s cold, the kids need to feel the weather, and when it rains, they need to get wet.” According to Christian Rodriguez, EDR’s project architect, “That directive led us to arrive early at the concept of a porous campus” of several low-slung single-story structures—rather than one large building—with many openings connecting them to meadows, vegetable and rain gardens, lawns, water features, and meandering paths. On a recent afternoon, as a rainstorm moved in, children hesitated on a covered porch before flipping up hoodies and dashing across the quad to their next classes—an effective way of learning the vagaries of mother nature.



学校是分阶段开发的，首先是由EDR设计的临时模块化设施，该设施于2017年开放（现在已经消失）。四座主要建筑的中心有一个宽敞的庭院（地下有地热井）。每座建筑都体现了一个文化标志性的元素：Wheels是一个柔软、蜿蜒的数学和物理教学楼，还包括一个自行车车间，Reels是另一座蜿蜒曲折的学术建筑，用于社会科学、艺术、电影和行政管理，Meals或是家园式建筑，一个锯齿形结构，有一个高耸的餐厅，一个测试厨房，和图书馆。

The school was developed in phases, starting with a temporary modular facility designed by EDR that opened in 2017 (and is now gone). Four main buildings embrace a generous quad (with geothermal wells underneath) at their center. Each of the buildings embodies a signature program: Wheels, a lithe, snaking classroom building for math and physics, including a bike workshop; Reels, another serpentine academic building, for social sciences, art, and film, as well as administration; and Meals, or the Home building, a zigzagging structure with a soaring dining hall, a test kitchen, and library.





在将校园一分为二的街道对面，一个独立的自行车仓库是一个鲜红色的跳跃屋顶，自然通风的木结构建筑，毗邻运动场和自行车车道。谷仓作为体育馆和骑行者使用的步道网络中心。最近增建的表演大楼，容纳了最先进的礼堂和练习室，它位于校园的西北边缘，允许公众进入。一个例外是小巧的白色隔板Thaden大楼，这是本顿维尔出生和长大的先驱飞行员Louise Thaden（学校就是以她的名字命名的）重新安置和翻修过的童年住宅。Thaden大楼楼设有招生办公室，坐落在落客区旁边，旁边是一片枫木广场。

The Bike Barn—which sits by itself across the street that cuts the campus in two—is a bright red gambrel-roofed, naturally ventilated wood structure, abutting playing fields and a pump track for bikes. The barn serves as a gymnasium and hub for cyclists using the network of nearby trails. The most recent addition, the Performance building, houses a state-of-the-art auditorium and practice rooms; on the northwest edge of campus, it is easily accessed by the public. An outlier—the diminutive white clapboard Thaden House, the relocated and renovated childhood home of Bentonville born-and-bred pioneering aviator Louise Thaden, for whom the school is named—contains the admissions office and sits along the dropoff area, next to a maple bosque.







受景观设计中家禽棚的启发，团队最初将校园设想为一系列东西走向的线性体量。建筑师划分了结构设计，EDR设计了大型住宅建筑，MBA设计了教学楼、表演中心和谷仓。随着项目的进展，表单也在不断变化。对于该建筑，EDR将设计体量安排成z形，并通过立缝屋顶的“悬垂”组合创建了一个有凝聚力的整体。对于“车轮和卷轴”建筑，MBA设计了线性形式，并增加了切口，比如门廊和通风通道，以打破长而窄的建筑墙壁。这些切口，以及住宅建筑的开口，在整个院子的结构之间建立了对话，可以用于户外学习。对于屋顶的接合，MBA校长Marlon Blackwell喜欢称之为“倾斜和滚动”，其定义了室内空间和区域。建筑师说:“我们认为这是一种外壳，墙壁和屋顶使用相同的材料。这些表面的褶皱形成了天窗，将阳光引入双层走廊。”MBA项目经理Josh Matthews指出:“客户认为，学校的生活就发生在走廊里。”
  
Inspired by the poultry sheds that dot the landscape, the team originally conceived the campus as a series of linear volumes running east–west. The architects divided the design of the structures, with EDR taking on the large Home building and MBA the classroom buildings, performance center, and barn. The forms evolved as the project progressed. For its building, EDR arranged the programmatic volumes into a Z-shape, and created a cohesive whole by “draping” the assemblage with a standing-seam roof. For the Wheels and Reels buildings, MBA cranked the linear forms and added cut-throughs, like porches and breezeways, to break up the long, narrow buildings’ walls. These openings, along with those of the Home building, establish a dialogue among structures across the quad, and can be used to bring learning outdoors. The articulation of the roofs—what MBA principal Marlon Blackwell likes to call “pitching and rolling”—defines interior spaces and zones. “We thought about this as a type of carapace, where wall and roof are of the same material,” says the architect. Pleating on these surfaces formed clerestories to bring daylight into the double-loaded corridors. “The client believes the life of the school takes place in the hallways,” notes MBA project manager Josh Matthews.





虽然两家公司的建筑作品都使用了一般正式的设计语言，都是通俗易懂的作品，但他们在材料的使用有所不同，MBA主要研究的是包有盒肋金属板系统的钢结构，而EDR使用的是2*6承重框架，包有纤维水泥板和木条，凹槽部分内衬雪松。Dumez指出：“碳中和成本决定了材料的选择。整个室内采用了实用材料，如胶合板和混凝土，强调了这是一个可实际控制的环境。”

While the two firms’ work shares a formal language, with ground-hugging, vernacular-inspired volumes, they depart in their material use, with MBA working largely with steel structures clad with a box-rib metal panel system and EDR using load-bearing 2-by-6 framing clad in fiber-cement board and batten, with recessed portions lined in cedar. “Carbon and cost” drove the material choices, notes Dumez. Throughout, interiors employ a palette of practical materials, such as plywood and concrete, underscoring the fact that this is a hands-on environment.



Thaden学院希望在校园的每一平方英寸都能找到学习的机会，而设计师们紧密而独特的方法具有明显的教学价值。同样重要的是，这个合作团队所创造的大胆的建筑和景观可以体现人们冒险的价值，并点燃对未来的想象力。

The Thaden School hopes to find a learning opportunity in every square inch of its campus—and the designers’ cohesive but distinct approaches have clear didactic merit. No less important, the intrepid architecture and landscape this collaborative team has created can teach the value of risk-taking and ignite imaginations into the future.