The proposal seeks to encourage celebration, collaboration, and gathering by building on themes of transparency, connectivity, and light. Using a simple design language, the building supports, rather than dictates creativity and progress, offering a blank canvas instead of a solution. The building is a loom for the ever-changing tapestry of architecture and design.
The site dictates the proposal’s design. The massing forms a boomerang that connects each street to the primary public space while sheltering the site from the busy train tracks. The planted trees and raised terrain serve to insulate the site from the noise and lights of the neighboring context as well. The landscaping also reintroduces a low maintenance ecology native to Dessau that supports a rich and robust variety of species to revive the old, depleted field.
The exhibition space is designed to play with natural light. The orientation and angle of the accordion panels ensure that no direct sunlight enters the space. Iridescent tiles reflect sun rays onto the inside of the neighboring panel, creating a bright pattern that changes as the sun moves across the sky. This indirectly lights the space, while creating a dynamic light show across the interior walls. Light and transparency also forms the visual connection between the rest of the structure, using line of sight and glazing to create the covered urban street, transparent workshops, and private dormitories.
