Hasta La Ideas

Four steel and concrete pavilions linked by glass bridges make up the Tianjin Juilliard School, which New York studio Diller Scofidio + Renfro has completed in northeastern China.

The 32,500-square-metre performing arts institution next to the Hai River in Tianjin is the branch campus of the Juilliard School in New York, which Diller Scofidio + Renfro also created.

Like its US counterpart, the Tianjin Juilliard School has a mix of performance and teaching spaces, alongside communal areas and large portions of glazing that offer glimpses inside.

“Our design for the new Tianjin Juilliard School takes much of its DNA from Juilliard’s New York campus, which we completed in 2009,” said Charles Renfro, the studio’s partner-in-charge.

“Both projects seek to increase engagement with the public through openness and transparency; offer informal spaces for students to mix and gather, and provide teaching and performance spaces with world-class acoustics.”

The four pavilions that make up the Tianjin Juilliard School contain a 690-seat concert hall, a 299-seat recital hall and a 225-seat black box theatre, alongside offices and rehearsal spaces.

They are linked together by the five glass bridges, which span a 2,260-square-metre, column-free foyer at the heart of the building.

Externally, these pavilions read as one building, unified by their stainless steel, glass-fibre-reinforced concrete and Parklex wood cladding, and large areas of glazing.

Continuous stone paving and reflective pools wrap around the building to create a large external plaza for the public. The paving continues into the lobby to draw visitors inside.

Tianjin Juilliard School’s primary performance facility is its 690-seat concert hall, which has a reconfigurable stage and is lined with warm eucalyptus wood.

The seats enfold the stage to create “a more intimate relationship between the audience and performers”. A glass facade with retractable blackout blinds features at one end and frames views of the river.

The black box theatre is primarily used for multimedia performances, while the recital hall is described as the school’s “acoustic workhorse” – used throughout the day by students.

Like the concert hall, the recital hall is also wrapped in eucalyptus wood and has a glass facade that frames a nearby park and the reflecting pools on the plaza.

The fourth pavilion is dedicated to large rehearsal rooms that double as performance spaces, alongside a library, bookstore and offices.

Another large rehearsal space, specifically for orchestras, is positioned above the main concert hall and leads onto a planted roof terrace with views of the Hai River.

Tianjin Juilliard School’s central lobby is lit by four skylights and provides access to all three concert venues. It is publicly accessible all year round via six different entrances.

“In Tianjin, the ground floor lobby acts as a continuation of the surrounding park, accessible through multiple entries open to the public,” explained Renfro.

The lobby is intersected by glass-lined bridges that contain classrooms and practice rooms and allow visitors to observe and listen to the students. Where the bridges meet the edges of the building, Diller Scofidio + Renfro has created double-height seating areas.

“All of the teaching and practice spaces occupy five glass-clad bridges that span between the performance pavilions, bringing daylight and views to and from these education spaces while broadcasting the activities of the school to the general public,” Renfro said.

Alongside the plaza and lobby, Tianjin Juilliard School is complete with a “digital learning environment” for the public called the Imagination Space, in which people can learn about the schools.

This space features interactive displays and is capable of hosting live-streamed concerts between both campuses.

Diller Scofidio + Renfro was founded in 1981 by Elizabeth Diller and Ricardo Scofidio. Renfro became a partner in 2004 and Benjamin Gilmartin became a partner in 2015.

Other recent projects by the studio include the US Olympic and Paralympic Museum in Colorado. Plans for its pyramidal Centre for Music in London have recently been scrapped in favour of a “major renewal” of the nearby brutalist Barbican estate.

Photography by Zhang Chao, courtesy of Diller Scofidio + Renfro.

Project credits:

Design architect: Diller Scofidio + Renfro
Executive architect: East China Architectural Design & Research Institute (ECADI)
Landscape: Hargreaves Jones
Structure/MEP: ECADI with Arup
Acoustics: Jaffe Holden Acoustics
Theatre: Fisher Dachs Associates
Curtain wall: Front
Lighting: Tillotson Design Associates
Climate: Transsolar
AV/IT: Shen Milsom Wilke
General contractor: MCC Tiangong Group Co., Ltd.
Facade glazing: Luoyang North Glass Technology Co., Ltd
Facade wood cladding: Parklex International S.L.
Performance hall wood veneer: SanFoot

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Dezeen Showroom: concrete flooring is enhanced through a colour-changing chemical reaction using the Acid Stain finish by Italian brand Ideal Work.

Acid Stain gives concrete a variegated, coloured finish, created when the acidic solution containing metallic salts reacts with free lime.

Ideal Work describes the effects created by the stain as similar to the nuances of natural stone or weathered materials, and says it gives concrete “a rich and natural beauty”.

The finish result is unrepeatable but customisable, and seven standard colours are available — Fern Green, Amber, Terracotta, Brown, Turquoise, Ebony and Jade.

Ideal Work tailors each project according to the type of usage and traffic it will see.

Acid Stain is easy to maintain, and since the dye becomes part of the concrete rather than coating it, the finish won’t fade, spoil, crack or peel.

As well as flooring, Acid Stain works on stairs or even walls and vertical surfaces.

Product: Acid Stain
Designer: Ideal Work
Brand: Ideal Work
Contact: gfontebasso@idealwork.it

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Dezeen promotion: Metalform creates custom partition walls from steel and glass to section off homes and interiors without obstructing the flow of light.

Metalform, which has offices in the UK, Sweden and Norway, specialises in designing screens made of slim steel metal frames or wrought iron fitted with krypton-filled, double- or triple-glazed glass.

The products have a wide array of architectural applications. For homes, they can be used for partitioning rooms, creating walk-in showers, or even floor-to-ceiling glass walls and doorways.

The glass is available as clear, for maximum visibility, or as reeded and frosted panes for more privacy without compromising on translucency.

“Custom-built partition walls with doors create the visual appeal of open plan living, whilst maintaining the ability to separate rooms when required,” said Metalform.

“Bespoke steel and glass doors promote light flow between rooms, illuminating the darker corners of a space whilst offering a modern solution to traditional door design.”

Metalform undertakes commercial commissions, designing bespoke solutions for retail, hospitality and office settings.

“Clients enjoy the dedicated service of an in-house designer to help them realise their dream design project – whether direct or as part of a Metalform/interior designer/architect collaboration,” said the brand.

“The versatility and bespoke nature of the products means they sit perfectly across architectural movements past, present and future – from Arts and Crafts to Baroque; loft-style living to new heights of modernism.”

More information about the company, and its offering of products and services, can be found on its website.

Images courtesy of Metalform.

Partnership content

This article was written by Dezeen for Metalform as part of a partnership. Find out more about Dezeen partnership content here.

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Architecture studio Morris + Company has built a sculptural block wrapped in anodised aluminium that contains an energy hub, cafe and nursery at Elephant and Castle, London.

The studio designed the multifunctional block to stand out from the residential, brick-faced buildings that surround it and which it provides with power and hot water.

“The core concept of the design was to express the hybrid programme in an engaging way,” said Morris + Company founder Joe Morris.

“The energy hub seeks to stand in contrast to the adjacent buildings, to express its identity clearly and act as an anchor point in the master plan,” he told Dezeen. “It does so in its materiality, its form and the loose configuration and size of windows.”

The combined heat and power facility, which provides energy to 3,000 homes, occupies the first floor and half the ground floor, which it shares with a community cafe positioned alongside a small park.

Above this, a nursery that opens out onto several large terraces occupies the building’s upper two stories.

Morris + Company aimed to both express and hide the block’s unusual combination of functions.

“We strove to conceal the hybrid nature of the building’s wide and varied programme into one sculptural and engaging whole, wrapping the parts in a continuous perforated skin of anodised aluminium,” said Morris.

“This skin is punctured in places by large-format flush bonded windows to emphasise internal functions. Whilst in other parts, the skin wraps over the same internal programmes, concealing them.”

Set on a concrete plinth, the entire building, including the corner tower containing a chimney, is wrapped in a translucent skin of anodised aluminium.

This is broken by windows of varying sizes with several feature windows designed to give glimpses inside and mark the building’s various functions.

The power plant machinery can be seen through a long window on the street side of the building, while the cafe has views out onto the park.

Other windows are hidden behind the aluminium skin.

“This design strategy ensures that the precise internal adjacencies are harder to distinguish, meaning the building reads as a singular sculpted form, rather than a composition of expressed programmes,” explained Morris.

“What we are hoping is that the articulation of the form through material and windows encourages people to engage with it and the new pocket park it frames, including a massive landscape format window revealing the energy plant.”

Although Morris + Company didn’t intend to reference the area’s distinctive name – Elephant and Castle – Morris acknowledges that the colour and massing evokes the appearance of an elephant.

“The colour and form of the building emerged through a process of iteration, which was open, expansive and drew upon a wide range of model making techniques,” said Morris.

“At no point was an iconographic narrative placed within the process. However, the result has been described as part Elephant and part Castle, and perhaps on a subconscious level, we have been influenced by the strong cultural reference point of this important London hub.”

Morris + Company is a London-based architecture studio founded in 2018. The studio has previously completed a brick retirement home in Hampstead and a vaulted wooden restaurant at a retirement living scheme in Kent.

Photography is by Jack Hobhouse.

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