hinge – July 2019

hinge 275_50

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A renovation plus extension to an existing facility in Berlin, this project inserts

a new cubic box as high as the older edifice, which acts as the hefty fly tower,

and a glass-enclosed cafeteria at grade that similarly smiles up against the

older volume. Extensive alterations were made to the older structure: notably

cutaways at one end to accommodate the new additions. It is a 20th-century

set-piece of sorts, with authentic period characteristics – a respect for the

contextual cornice height, an array of diminishing puncture windows climbing

its elevations, a white, industrial-ish facade treatment – and is generally a no-

nonsense bulk that lays across its site in pragmatic fashion. The new addition

decidedly contrasts with the mundane exterior of the larger building, by being

clad in a lacework grid of timber slats over a bracing grid of X-frames. It is

translucent and almost dematerialised, which helps to reduce its massing bulk,

and it makes a bold statement to the street.

That timber frame encloses an inner ‘box’ that is solid and holds the

programme, creating a perambulatory full of light around itself; a delightful

circulation zone alive with students and performers. After dark, of course,

that outer porous skin brings the box invigoration in the form of seeping

light and moving shadows. It is a bit like spying on the backstage efforts of a

theatrical production.

The interiors left O&O a choice: how far to go in changing what was there? Not

far. The building’s spaces have been stripped almost raw, leaving concrete and

steel and unpainted drywall, etcetera, as a general ambience of potential and

interpretation. This too feels appropriate to the programme, which after all

deals with an art form reliant on spontaneity and creative interpretation. The

architects made a single move that is both bold (in concept) and subdued (in

result): they established a datum of 2.1 metres’ height, running through all the

interior spaces. Above this they left everything stripped and as found, regardless

Berlin, Germany

O&O Baukunst

Ernst Busch University of Performing Arts

Photography by Simon Schnepp & Morgane Renou or as noted

Photography by Horst Stasny