SO?, an Istanbul-based architecture office shared with us their mention winning competition proposal for a Concert Hall, Art Center, and Municipality Building for Ankara, Turkey. See more images and architect’s description after the break.
Broadcasting Sound Being located in a site surrounded by two diverse urban characters, the competition area offers valuable possibilities for a public building. On the northwest, lies a convenient highway which is one of the main arteries of the capital city, Ankara. However, on the southeast, the site is adjacent to a neighborhood packed with residential and commercial units. What we decided to do was to add two more characters to the remaining elevations of the site. So, we would have four characters on four elevations, such as
*being adjacent to a neighborhood *lying along a highway *adjoining a park *comprising a passage which links the highway and the neighborhood
The fourth one allows access to the municipality section which was a part of the brief as well as being a new pedestrian connection between two streets. The question of how to design a building that reacts with these four urban characters, led us to a proposal which stands there as a heavy structure due to its dense function, while counteracting the urban situations in the ground floor where its doors and facades are all open to the public.
We would achieve the idea of proposing a forthcoming, hospitable building by balancing its immutable image that comes from its function with the never-ending public buzz in the ground level that is created by its specific inhabitants as well as the locals. The programme allows such an organization since it includes workshops, cafés, learning centers as well as two concert halls. UCE Concert Hall stands there with its diverse characters, just like a music box, spreading different kinds of music to the city, and vacuuming people inside.
