| Brown University Arts Building
design concept, 2007
DBPA's design concept for an interdisciplinary arts building at Brown University organizes specialized spaces for production, performance, and collaboration behind the building's west and most public facade. Depending on their function, these rooms, which are stacked vertically, each address specific and often divergent needs for privacy, daylight, acoustic control, and equipment.
Recognizing the building's true mission as a catalyst for collaboration that spans multiple disciplines, DBPA's design exploits the interstitial spaces between the specialized rooms. These flexible 'mix rooms' allow for both impromptu and planned collaboration. The 'mix rooms', in fact, are not simply the places where discrete artistic disciplines overlap – they are the places where these separate fields coalesce into something new.
The 'mix rooms' and their coalescence into a unique whole are represented on the building's west facade, which uses a system of panels to vary the opacity of a glazed, double-skinned curtain wall. |
