A School for Our Shared Future Part 2 Project 2014 Fiona Thaddeus Robert Gordon University | UK This proposal is part of a brief with an overarching theme of the ‘parochial’, whose noble aim is to look at building types which are of a local scale, however extensively being built currently in the UK. By uniting some of these types, it could provoke further development and thinking into the objectives of such buildings. In a world where we often focus of the peripheral, connected virtually on a global scale to lifestyles and issues which are remote to us, perhaps taking this inward glance to a more local scope could provide a different focus and generate more specific questions as to how we behave with one another, as communities and how we transcend this logic to our future generations. The project is situated in a derelict piece of land in the heart of Aberdeen city, a city which has transformed and expanded over recent decades thriving off new affluent industries, yet in doing so has lost its interconnectivity it once had through past industries which formed key pathways for community integration. And instead focusing on the needs of those providing income to the city, and neglecting those who will live on to nurture its growth into future decades.A childs’ position within a city is often restricted to institutionalized settings, environments perceived as safe for them, without freedom or exploration or any means of connecting with other social groups due to the dangers and deprivations that are now deemed to be inextricably linked to their unsupervised existance. This stigma, is one which will not change immediately, however if we are to nurture a future generation who are more collaborative, active and vocal within their communities, we need to offer spaces which ease this transition, and aid social sustainability.The design concept represents this theory with the school raised above the solid structure of the public spaces, rooted within their context, with the school appearing to seamlessly float above, light penetrating down from every connection. Allowing the school to become this vast open space in the canopies of the trees, a space for imagination…exploration…an unrestricted place of limitless possibilities. Fiona Thaddeus Tutor(s) Professor Neil Gillespie