The Plaza Mason is not the name of a building, yet the name of an idea - an idea that you could build with plazas just as you could build with bricks. Building with the void becomes just as deliberate, if not more, than building with the solid. In the Spanish culture, plazas are very popular places that initiate the exchange of ideas and goods. This project redefines the college campus as a world that doesn’t seclude itself from the public, but engages with it tenfold through every day interactions. Using a separated brick-like form, this cultural campus in Madrid frames multiple plazas at both private and public levels. These plazas become the catalyst for social interaction between students of different cultural backgrounds, as well as the catalyst for the intellectual interaction between the college campus and the larger community.
