Art Center of Aranya / Atelier Archmixing

Conversation between the Building and the Site. The art center in the mountain locates on a ridge line. It stands beside a winding path that starts from the foot of the mountain. It connects the typical boundless northern mountains, also the community in the valley on the other side of the ridge line. When residents or visitors go up along the winding path, this art center will greet them first. Its east and south sides face the mountain road below it and enjoy a view of the continuous mountains. Its north side oversees the villas spreading down along the hillside. Its west side is next to the community and acts as an end of the street. Due to this special location, the art center is both an entrance landmark and a hub for the community.

For the site strategy, this design aims to make the small building a proper landmark in nature. It should be neither too humble nor too arrogant. At the same time, it should be in harmony with the human scale of the community street. A volumetrical thick sloped polygon roof and a volumetrical base that wraps around combining the retaining wall give the building a monumental scale facing the mountains. At the same time, the careful design of the height and the slope of the roof give the building a low facade facing the community, responding to the scale of the villas.

The base of retaining walls surrounding the site along the road is integrated with the building as a whole. It adjusts the scale feeling of pedestrians through its form and materials. The triangular platform of the base is ended with a 2.1 m high shuttle-shaped form. Pedestrian steps are placed between this end and the retaining wall of the adjacent villa. Visitors can walk up step by step to the art center or turn into the internal street of the community. The base forms a small square on the side of the building facing the mountains. The seamless paving makes it difficult to distinguish the inside and outside of the building. This place is a spatial ending for this site, drawing people’s eyes up to the mountain and the sky. 

Sixteen Brick Pavilions. Another challenge is how to tackle the relationship between the building and nature. Visitors from the foot of the mountain have already enjoyed the full scenery, so how can we create a new experience in this building?

The 15 brick pavilions of various functions are organized together to form a large covered brick pavilion. Between the pavilions, the experience of the surrounding landscape becomes an ‘encounter’. The complete landscape is divided into fragments by the pavilions and then linked together in the imagination. This technique of interrupting and disrupting the whole creates a special viewing method of the surrounding mountains, at the same time it sculpts a special “interiority”. The solid brick pavilions form the character of the building, providing an interesting visual and spatial impression of the exterior.

The brick pavilions have different functions. They are a reading pavilion, kids’ hut, viewing belvedere, entrance pavilion, staircase, lift, pantry room, and toilet. The interior space is divided by the 15 brick pavilions into three areas: the entrance and service area, the lounge and coffee area, the large event space, and its auxiliary space. The other spaces are arranged around the central event space. The spaces of different scales are combined together – space for two or three people to interact, also larger space for gathering. The “pillar-like pavilion” and the space it forms are both everyday and eternal.