The project brief for the Flemington Jewish Community Center called for both school and sanctuary which would be expandable with the growth of the community. The project developed as a continuous ramp, in which the various programmatic elements spiral up, surrounding the sanctuary and an external/internal garden. The relationship between this continuous yet transforming section and the sanctuary is symbiotic. As faith and study are iintertwined, the sanctuary relies on the support programs to give its shape. The spiral’s center, the sanctuary, is thus neither completely internal or external, service or served - a place where both education and application exist simultaneously. The sanctuary has no edges of its own, but relies on tactical co-opting of edges from other programmatic pieces to give size and shape, thus becoming somewhat flexible and reconfigurable, depending on the ritual and use requirements.

The spiral houses all of the program except the Sanctuary. It begins at ground level with the administrative offices, continues into the entry lobby, and rises as it passes along the edge of the classrooms, Nursery School, Youth Lounge, Library, and eventually the Social hall. The future expansion of the FJCC is also integral to this logic - the spiral would continue, with new classrooms developed above the existing, and new nursery school rooms planned above as well. The structure would be developed to carry the future loads of new classrooms.

The seeming linearity of this spiral/program organization is constantly fractured with the introduction of a secondary logic of circulation. A tactical response that short circuits the spiral and allows for oblique local connections, and potentially different zoning logics. For instance, the stair to the roof at the east end of the building would become the communicating stair for the two classroom levels once the addition is complete, and through the relocation of the curtain wall enclosure at the school entry, the now enclosed staircase would alleviate the necessity of traveling along the spiral to get from lower level to upper level. Similarly the ramp/stair that connects the social hall and sanctuary also leads directly to the library at mid level, making small services easily accessible from either of the two entries. And finally, perhaps the most significant relationship that the spiral accommodates is the sectional relationship between the social hall and the sanctuary, allowing for a diversity of service sizes. The two spaces which directly open into one another have the ability to be partially or fully separated through the use of a moving transparent partition.