DRAWING THE CURTAIN
Harvard GSD * 2024
Harvard GSD * 2024
SITE: EARL’S COURT, LONDON
INDIVIDUAL PROJECT
ADVISED BY HANIF KARA & AMIN TAHA
The project investigates stone as an apparently soft, plastic and translucent material through a new exhibition and event center. A billowing and rippling curtain in the middle of the city, returning the spirit of wonder and spectacle to Earls Court in London.
What appears to be a monolithic carved rock is in fact a porous stone wall acting as a robust superstructure. Created by tools used in the typical core-sampling process in quarries, the composition of punctures allows the outer walls to become transparent and blurs the movement and objects inside the building. On the exterior, the center appears enigmatic and shroud-like. The thinness of the volume is revealed by entering the structure, passing through the double wall. The entrance peels out towards the street and is supported by a bronze curtain pole - tall and massive and acts both as “autonomous detail” yet receives the weight above, gleaming to signal entry. Pretensioned stone beams seem to push and pull at the stone faces, reminiscent of the relationship between fabric and structure of tents and stages. Acting as an “articulated detail”, the bronze caps at the ends of the beam catch and reflect sunlight to render the curtain as decorative fabric. In Gottfried Semper’s words “completing the tectonic assembly as culturally emblematic ornamentation”.
The interior experience is diaphanous and sheer. The stone becomes a light filter; the east face absorbing the morning sun and the west face receiving the afternoon and setting sun with apertures sized according to meet light levels of internal program.
A carbon calculator based on EN19578, the globally agreed measure of carbon across a building’s lifespan, was continuously used throughout the design process to evaluate the CO2 emission as a result of the building material and structural decisions. Acting essentially as double glazing, the stone wall creates a tempered buffer zone around the building which blocks direct sunlight and facilitates heat exchange. Timber joists sit in between the stone beams and support a raised timber floor system sandwiched with stone tiles and finishes. The building draws renewable energy through ground source heat pumps and implements photovoltaic interlayers within the glazing to reduce the overall embodied carbon and operational energy. The resulting in-between space frees up the central open plan to host expansive exhibition spaces, a large theater, and flexible workspaces while also accommodating, in its varying depth, all auxiliary spaces, such as corridors, toilets, stairs, and elevators.
The Curtain is stiffened and strengthened by its curved form to create an undulating (& deceptively massive) curtain in the middle of the city.