Goal: to transform an old industrial building of a distinct form into a modern public art-space with various functions; to create a community cluster with possibility of smooth integration into different spheres of city society’s activity (creative, economic, social, spiritual etc.)
Means of achieving the goal: it’s obvious that the project requires ultimate preservation of the main structure, existing image and distinct historical spirit of the building while creating modern interior.
We started by analyzing all the functions that were to be combined in one volume. The implementation of these functions involves sophisticated technological processes that require a large amount of areas with strict regulations and proportions. As a significant part of the building under reconstruction is planned to be dedicated to an exhibition of valuable art objects, a theatre, a cinema hall and foodservice facilities, requirements for separate engineering systems of the center (ventilation, heating, air conditioning, smoke extraction, fire protection and security) were heavily analyzed.
As a result, lots of functional areas were combined into unified groups and subgroups continuing and supplementing each other, the interior space was optimized and reorganized. Some areas were brought out into open outer space close to the center in order to expand the emerging city-planning significance of this territory.
Such functionality is rather difficult to implement in an old building. But by virtue of the conducted research we managed not only to rationally place, accumulate and arrange all functional elements on the existing areas but also to enhance volumetric characteristic without changing the configuration of enclosing parts of the building.
With the benefit of high height of the existing rooms we managed to create two-level spaces in several part of the building. Thus cinema hall is located under the theatre auditorium; coffee-shops, utility rooms and cloakrooms are under the coworking area, and tribune - lecture halls for lectures, presentations and performances were set up on the descends from the second level.
Long industrial building was split into two main groups: cultural-exhibitory-educational and transformable community group (with the possibility of vertical and horizontal adaptation and transformation for certain events and processes).