The RELAY Graduate School of Education – NYC’s first accredited graduate teaching school in 80 years commissioned Method to design new Operations and Classroom space. The studio’s proposal focused on analysis of Relay’s pedagogy and operations structure, and developed a planning strategy that treated all constituents–including administration, finance, operations, faculty and students – as functional groups. These functional groups were assigned loosely defined ‘territories’ with advantageous proximity to related functional groups. A combination of flexible meeting space and functional islands of shared program expressed as material environments achieved the ‘setup,’ without creating overly prescribed space. The result is an architecture of social interaction, a ‘mini-urbanism’ of spatial types and material environments. All photos shot and copywrited by Amy Barkow Photography.