OLIVER BURTON.
INCIDENTS OF AN ARCHITECTURE STUDENT.
 

Dialogues of Use & Form

January 2014.
 

Buildings often have the ability to assume the identity of any one given place. Sydney, Bilbao and New York, each provide examples of architecture that have the potential to illustrate and create the character of a place. The buildings resonate their image and purpose allowing the city itself to become synonymous with a specific individual building, and with that, a specific culture. The aim with regards to this brief is to create a music school with social undertones that does just that to Poole.  Despite the Music schools apparent lack of connection to Poole’s cultural heritage, it is this void that presents to one an opportunity to exploit the cultural gap and through the correct application of design and architecture,  the music school is able to act as a catalyst for the creation of a new cultural identity throughout Poole.

It is therefore in this sense that music becomes a social tool for the creation of dialogue with the populous through an informed architectural intervention. 

 

The briefs technical demands state for the proposal to create a school for music that can host events both day and night, adhering to its contextual surroundings and be no more than 2 stories tall. providing access to both the student population and the public, service entrances must also be accounted for. My personal aim with regards to the concept concerned the architectural phenomenon of transparency, both literal and psychological in an attempt to achieve social inclusion.

 

This need to integrate public interaction within the building lead the design to resolve the issue through the use of transparency as basic principal.

As an architectural parti, transparency can initially be read as an attempt to encompass its surrounding context via subtle means, suggesting, hinting and enticing the viewer through the exhibition of interior activity and function.

This literal definition of transparency; that of being pervious to light and air, does present favourable properties with regards to public architecture, as we as humans posses an inherent demand for that which should be easily understood.

This analysis can be understood as literal definition of transparency being utilized to engage and draw the public to a social space that reflects the musical character and function of the building.

 

The basic principles for the music school to be successful focused on social inclusion, this was achieved at a surface level initially through the literal application of transparency as a material. However through contextual analysis the design was able to shift, moving to focus around suggesting activity and generating public inquiry to the space, this architecture then can be said to engage the public at a more conscious level, the building is not just a container in which music can happen, the atmosphere and purpose created generates an identity for Poole.

This master plan look at the design aims to reintegrate artistic culture into the town and use the music school as an icon and catalyst for the regeneration of Poole as a cultural hub.