M A A D

MAAD is a new vision for a UAA UNIVERSITY school.  Straddling the line between past and future, the new home for the center for Media, Art, Architecture, and Design  (MAAD) aims to provide a new identity for the newly reorganized Aalto University.

Historically referential or forward looking?  Urban and dense or idyllically natural? Iconic preservation or bold identity creation? There are a number of competing narratives that must be addressed with the development of a campus center that so profoundly changes its identity, but the past does not need to be forsaken for the future. MAAD creates a center that respects Aalto’s original design for the Otaniemi campus while creating a new vision and icon for the school. Developing an urban proposal that transforms the circulatory heart of the university, MAAD nonetheless preserves the campus’ profound relationship with nature. Creating a building that is aesthetically bold and inherently contemporary, MAAD still references historical and material guidelines originally developed by  Aalto. Developing a dense urban core, MAAD nonetheless preserves historic relationships between nature and picturesque. MAAD creates a center that references both the past and the future, just as Aalto did over fifty years prior.