Project description

A synopsis of sorts

“As the vitality of towns dwindle in the midst of a digital and pandemic age, our notions of gathering are with it, transitioning into the non-tangible, pulled by ‘zoom’ classes and online shopping, and drifting further from being grounded in physical space. Our needs to spend time in nature, for its positive effects on health and wellbeing, is followed closely by our innate human desires to gather in the built environment, posing the question: what type of civic town structures still hold relevancy in this age, and what traditions and cultures of gathering should be preserved, abandoned or progressed?

In the context of a Scottish town, like our site of Dalkeith, typical town issues such as a diminishing requirement for retail, poor investment in town centres, and an ageing demographic, present both economic and societal parameters in which this question must be carefully and urgently addressed. The High Street must be revitalised through a new centre of gathering, while a connection to the land must be reignited.

Through careful consideration from site visits, this project fashions two architectures around the facilitation of sound; namely natural ambient sound in the land and the experience of music in the town, which form the drivers for a typological and tectonic agenda. The overall proposal sites a key walk from the edge of the High Street, across Dalkeith Country Park and into the woodlands as being the primary route which links both the town and land environments. Through recording, drawing, iterating and synthesising, the intent of the project is to create two nodes of gathering along this walk: A sound pavilion or 'An Ear to Ambience' in the woodland, and a cultural centre for music or 'The Instruments of Assembly' on the High Street."

sound doc pics
A printed map to be held.
sound doc
'Mapping Ambience.'
Atmospheric Isometric
Plate 1: 1:50 Isometric
Atmospheric Orthos
Plate 2: 1:75 Plan and Section.
An Ear to Ambience

The proposal is a pavilion structure located in the woodland of Dalkeith, motivated by the capturing of forest ambience, specifically scattered forest light, and the sound of the running River Esk. Its tectonic form is guided by the primary purpose to harness the river's sound via a giant 6m tall cone, in which a person can stand and experience contemplative listening, while being suspended over the water. The proposal responds to the disconnect between the town and the land of Dalkeith, at the site of a former bridge (where two stubs remain), but aims not to rebuild a route but rather to provide a new place to stop and dwell in the land.

The pavilion creates an intimate meditative experience, through the activation of the human senses within the constructed atmosphere.

 

1-20 plan
Atmospheric Detail Plan of Cone. Drawn 1:20 / 297mm-wide detail paper.
1-20 section
Atmospheric Detail Section of Cone. Drawn 1:20 / 297mm-wide detail paper.
The Instruments of Assembly

Present-day Dalkeith offers few spaces of public gathering, where current community buildings, such as several churches, a rugby and football club, and even a masonic hall, accommodate only exclusive get-togethers, catering for a particular group of people with particular interests, rather than a place for all. The closest thing to a town square, is Jarnac court, which is more of an expanded street corner than an urban centre.

The second proposal aims to respond to these issues, through revitalising a historic route, and using music as a way to bring together the separated communities of Dalkeith. The proposed assemblage of buildings, is formed around a central courtyard, and house a multiform hall (for musical performances, exhibitions and workshops), a record library, a recording studio, two ensemble rooms, and a live-music bar.

The material tectonics adhere to the atmospheric and acoustic intent of each programme. The three main volumes are generally ordered in lateral layers, from a heavy, ‘carved’ concrete base to a superimposed mass-timber structure, spaced by a strategic dynamic of light openings. The main hall volume is formed by an inner CLT ‘shell,’ clothed by a lightweight glulam skeleton holding translucent polycarbonate facades. The material choices are guided by the play between inside and outside spaces, between dark and light, and between loud and quiet.

Much of this proposal was shaped by the working process itself, specifically through pencil hand-drawings on translucent sheets of paper, which became not only a medium of representation, but a central tool to the design thinking. 

axo
Elevational 90-degree axonometric. Drawn 1:200 / A3 tracing paper.

“Architecture emancipates us from the embrace of the present and allows us to experience the slow, healing flow of time. Buildings and cities are instruments and museums of time. They enable us to see and understand the passing of history, and to participate in time cycles that surpass individual life.”

– Juhani Pallasmaa, The Eyes of the Skin, p.56.

process
Selected Process.
process
A table of thoughts.
Student list
open list
close list