MEDIA ARCHIVE
an integrated cultural venue
Program: a media archive dedicated exclusively to the discipline of music. It is a composite facility composed of library, gallery space, recital hall, instrumental practice rooms, retail space and café.
Since the late 18th century it has become acknowledged that the state is responsible for the preservation of its documentary heritage, and throughout Europe public archives are readily accessible in record offices maintained by the state. In general a central repository is provided for central government archives, and in the larger countries there are also provincial repositories. — François Lesure et al, “Archive and Music” in New Grove Dictionary of Music (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries Inc., 2000)
Studio 5 has two distinct objectives: gradual development of general ideas into a substantial program with heavy attention to the development of physical design concepts, and during the process, developing a sensibility to manipulation of (mainly natural) light. Compared to Urban Life, It is more a multi-directional study than a linear, step-by-step process. An initial installation (“Window,” based on a personal reflection essay) serves as the foundation of the project, one upon which the later form making decisions can be anchored. An intermediate product is the development of a series of shadow studies (the Light Gallery), including the model of light-sensitive space built in large-scale, further refinement of the space into free-standing structure, and tonal drawing of the space. Application of the archive building program comes as the last stage of the design. Bridged by a brief site analysis preformed in the context of the preceding studies, the final form of the archives echoes that of the initial window installation, thus bringing the project full circle.
Description
“Window” itself is developed from a short essay on some personal experiences (the memory of a window). The choice of transparent and linear material aims to express the three qualities described in the essay: transparency, protectiveness, and three-dimensional axiality. The design of the Light Gallery extracts and develops the weaving form of the window, although it later departs from this theme and focuses primarily on responding to interior lighting and shadow conditions.
In the Site Analysis, neighboring structures are observed and elements from earlier designs are brought in. The study attempts to apply the bending, crossing and layering onto the site — this isn’t simply a blown up version of the earliest designs, but more an interaction of the original concept with the site.
Using the Site Analysis as a starting point, the final Archive Building incorporates the program (with specific area requirements) into the ongoing concept. Responding to the window as well as the site, a void is left in the inner corner of the site, and the main building entrance faces this court. Users are guided from outside to an interior green-space where they enter the building, and they circulate around interlocking layers of functional space. Compared to the opaque roof of the Light Gallery, the transparent material in the Music Archive design allows a new dimension in the manipulation of light.
