All cultures for all
Sundsvall is about to receive a public program of major importance for its citizens: a new arts and theatre center. What is crucial about the project is its flexibility- it shall address the ever-changing arts and cultural events that this developing city embraces and also motivate and encourage a wide range of generations to use it continuously. The project is a receptacle of cultural and urban exchange.
Our project has understood this focal need and proposes a single element to gather and answer all needs, desires, dreams.
Void
The main idea of the project is to compose with voids rather then with solids: the buildings flows and open programs are arranged first, subordinated to them are the technical spaces. The auditoriums are understood as voids, placed carefully to be welcoming from the foyer and directed to the bay and the river, as their back wall is fully openable to take advantage of the beautiful natural scenery.
The project is organized as a big public space, the origami foyer, climbing the technical program towards the artists spaces, office and theatres smaller programs. Each main program is separated as its own compartment by a void that lets light come down to the foyer.
Exchange
the origami foyer is a place of exchange. The caf, restaurant, exhibition hall, box office and cloakroom all gather there and can function as a whole. The foyer is a the citys room byrum and functions as such: mostly open and accessible to all, its a meeting place as much as a place for calendar events to take place. Its plateau-like architecture allows for informal events to take place. It can serve as an open stage for an innovative theatre piece or as a large forum space for a political rally. It culminates in the exhibition and restaurant plateau that overviews the whole bay and river.
Stone Town
The project can be seen as a collection of mineral elements gathered to celebrate the arts and culture. They reflect the past of the Stone Town textures but crystallize in a new configuration of contemporary expression. Those new stones are elevated and vibrate at the cultural buzz of Sundsvall and Norrland.