NPAK
Armenian Center for Contemporary Experimental Arts / Competition Entry
For this competition, we had to work with an architectural object receded from the street and locked between neighboring buildings, not allowing for a pedestrian flow around the structure. Its massiveness and scarcity of openings created a beautiful pure shape at the cost of heaviness, uninviting at ground level, closed and hidden from the city. We also faced placing new complex functions into existing structures, challenging existing floor areas, while trying to preserve much of the existing complex.
First we worked with volumes and connections. Our proposal links Buzand and Tchaikovsky streets, by piercing a passage between NPAK and the neighboring municipal building, creating an axis aligned to Kotchar’s ‘Melancholy’, and that serves as sculpture garden. This inner street is critical for organizing access to all parts of the program.
From the side of Buzand Avenue we lower the level of the existing recess, thus creating a sunken atrium in front of the exhibition lobby, while over Chaikovsky street we create a lobby for the educational program, these ‘bell’ halls are connected by a mound which stands over the core services of the building. The experience of the interior public ground is multi leveled, with double heights and open spaces.
In the new inner street, we place a truss bridge volume containing the storage, stainless steel cladding reveals its service nature. This cantilevering structure has independent access, and holds the residential part which can function as a hospitality component. The proposed suites and facilities become an art hotel, a rooftop wooden village resting over a closed metal volume, we name it 33 ½ as a reference to old Firdusi (district 33).
To reduce the heaviness, we remove the solid walls of the first two levels, making them glazed as a symbol of openness, breaking the heavy tectonics of the old facades, allowing fluidity and visual connections.
In it’s current state, we consider the existing volume of our composition to miss an iconic element, we also needed space for the new exhibition halls. We transformed this part of the program into a crown –literally-, replacing the existing roof with a white fluid volume. This ‘white cube’ cladded in metal sheets is held by a glazed perimeter, creating an orangery that can also become part of the exhibition space.
The dark vertical tower containing a fire stair is a reinterpretation of the old basalt stair. This volume holds the main sign of the ACCEA, and it’s meant to look as a beacon, signaling the way to the new revived center.
In terms of interior materiality, raw concrete beams and columns are left exposed in the public areas when possible, combined with warm wood and travertine stone recalling Armenian building traditions, and new elements such as channel glass, neon and tube lamps, which build a warm, minimal and open atmosphere.
Metal C profiles are used where the old tuff and tufa and glazed or concrete parts join. Wood also appears on the facades and thatched roofs of the art-residences. It will weather with time as symbol of the new project settling into the old site.
