Second prize for the Oculus
29 January 2010
Studio Gang Architects ended second place in the international design competition for the new Pop Music Center for Taipei. The design, called ‘Oculus,’ includes a large indoor and outdoor concert theater as well as several smaller live houses.
The large indoor concert stage is a hybrid between a larg ‘Zenith-genre’ live music center and a large musical theater. The design concentrates on pop music. Theaters tend to limit the possibilities traveling pop music shows because of the position of the proscenium. In this proposal, the proscenium is made very large, and the separation to the side stages kept flexible. This way, the venue area does not impede traveling pop and rock shows.
For theater productions, the overhead grid has been designed to anticipate both Broadway theater, which anticipates a more traditional theater stage house configuration, and European traveling musicals, which tend to depend on their own truss system as the main suspension point, similar to pop and rock shows.
The large outdoor stage is designed as a semi-enclosure that is designed to keep the direction of the sound as well as its level in grip. This is important for the audience, but also for the housing blocks that are grouped around the site.
The live houses are each designed with a unique character, with fully adapted technical facilities such stage lighting and sound reinforcement systems. A central recording complex can connect to all performance venues or be used with a suite of dedicated recording rooms. The project includes ample public space that meanders through the building, providing many visual connections to and between performance and technical spaces.
The concept of the project and the carefully developed architecture made this design proposal a very strong contender. Despite having lost, the project received much praise and acclaim from many inside and outside Taiwan.
We look forward to further strengthen the approaches developed for this project and make them even more convincing.
