Program: Conservatory of music, school of dance, concert hall with 500 seats, multimedia library, exhibition spaces.
Client: Ashkelon Development Company
Main architect: Manuelle Gautrand Architecture
Associated architect: Bea architects and town planners (Tel Aviv)
Green design: Breeam certification
The project is a multi-purpose building mixing very different types of cultural facilities, from digital arts to a ballet Academy, passing through a school of dance, a theater with 500 seats, exhibition places and workshops for contemporary arts and a restaurant.
The site is located on a main entrance to the town, and it only allows a vertical building in a context containing some very high buildings.
Each element of the program has precise and strict impositions, giving volume’s constraints more that surface’s constraints. It has inspired us in respecting precisely each programmatic volume, and assembling them in a very clear way, one on the top of the other: the result is a sort of vertical sculpture, where each volume corresponds to a distinct function. The combination allows a lot of terraces protected from the sun, to explore outdoor artistic work and ephemeral installations. All those volumes are directly connected to a central core, which has to assemble, to link and bring together each type of public in the project.
The façade of the building consists of metal panels with more or less large openings; these are beautiful generous windows that will offer fantastic views.
