Where the corners of a new public school building in West Philadelphia form knuckles in plan, angular stairways topped by clerestories reconcile the skewed U-shaped geometry imposed by the site, creating diagonal vistas, intriguing views, and diverse spaces illuminated by an abundance of ever-changing daylight. Reconciliation, in fact, could be the theme of this 87,000-square-foot structure, hosting two schools, designed by the New York firm Rogers Partners Architects+Urban Designers. Programmatically, the corner joints reconcile the distinctive pedagogies of the Samuel Powel Elementary School and the Science Leadership Academy, a middle school, each of which occupies its own floor, serving a total of 746 pupils. The relatively small scale of the building draws the fine 19th-century row-house grain of the adjacent Powelton Village neighborhood into a large new commercial and academic development rising around the school, undertaken by the real-estate developer Wexford Science & Technology in partnership with Drexel University, the landowner and sponsor of the school.