The thesis project outlined herein investigates the essential nature of a high school as a learning institution. Underlying the research and subsequent design proposal is an experimentation with locating a high school in an urban setting - a challenge to the reality that many high schools are located on a suburban campus, arranged as a loose collection of inwardly focused and separated pieces. When strategically located within an urban context, the design of a large-scale learning institution such as a high school presents an opportunity to highlight the institution’s essential components, evaluate their critical adjacencies, and more clearly weigh the possibilities for its spaces to be fully utilized by both the students and the community as a whole. The architecture of the enclosed thesis proposal represents one of many possible results of such a critical evaluation of the essence of the learning institution. / Master of Architecture