WENTZVILLE PUBLIC SAFETY FACILITY
Wentzville, Mo
AIA Design Excellence Award

The design strategy is inspired by the previous form of occupation of the land, (agriculture) establishing a series of “bands “ across the length of the site, designating uses for each one of these: parking, landscaping, and building. This intention to occupy-albeit metaphorically, the full terrain-, is akin to the action of harvesting. At a perceptual level, this intention also endorses the strong presence of the horizontal as a condition prevalent in the mid-west of the USA, intensely embedded in agricultural practices that manifest by creating a pattern of color and texture over the land.

As a registration of this condition, the building shape is informed by some of the typical structures of the area, like barns or sheds, although not as static elements in the landscape but rather as objects in motion, elongated by the gaze of the observer passing by…