#educational

The Auditorium is a fluid project made of soft volumes, sinuous lines chasing each other and drawing a great organic sculpture which expresses the spreading of sound waves. A parallel project: architecture and sound, releasing a sequence of shapes, volumes, views: the focal point is the central stage where attention is immediately centred on the lower level of the hall. The space where sound is formed is a magnetic nucleus for the audience, that is "wrapped round" the musicians, drawing attention to the musical event and making its image fully central. The architecture has been created to exicite emotions, but the acoustics, studied by the acoustics engineer Yasuhisa Toyota, also become a strong point of the hall. The architecture tries to... More

The focus of this renovation revolved around creating a space that was more accessible and functional for the user, that also complimented the existing architectural elements from the early to mid century. Complicating the design solution was the 1960s architect’s decision to bury half of the first floor behind a berm so that the three-story building appeared to be less dominate on the campus. As a result, entrances were at mid-level.  Upon entering the building, one was confronted with a half flight of stairs up or down to reach a main floor. There were no accessible points of entry.  (An accessible but remote ramp was added in the 1980s from an alley to the lowest floor.)The new entry needed to be at grade so the berm was r... More