Mohammed ElAdl

advisor

https://eng.asu.edu.eg/

Egyptian

Conceptual architecture Exterior design Interior design Landscape design Urban design City planning… more

Dear Elizaveta,

I hope you are doing great.

Regarding your design project, here are a few comments that might help you with your project. First of all, your site has a special location and context, which would give your project a great importance; added to that that your project is a music hall, which is indeed where it would perfectly fit. I admired your conceptual approach, in terms of the massing. The special telescopic extrusion of your highest mass, works in harmony with your concept.

But my matter of concern is that when your look at the master plan, and the landscape surrounding it, you will find that they are not in harmony, as if the building fell into that location laying no impact on the surrounding landscape. You can either let the building master plan lay an impact on the surround landscape, or vice versa; taking into consideration all the entrances and exits, to and from the main hall. I know that you have to respect your contour lines causing difference in land plot levels. But I advise you to rethink their relations.

Your facades treatments should be with respect to their orientations, where to put glazing and where to keep it solid. But, they look fine to me, they just need some refinements in terms of environmental consideration, in addition to, some variance in the materials used… since it’s a musical building, we should feel some kind of art impact on the facades which could be translated in architecture through using different cladding materials.

Section 2-2 and 1-1, look neat and well-studied, but regarding the structure system used for the telescopic extrusion causing the existence of the sloped roof; I don’t think that it would be needed to add space truss members to support, and it can cause discomfort for the users of the last floor as it might cause clear height discomfort. Your wall section as well, looks very good with good effort exerted, though the image is not clear enough for me to see all the details but I can indicate.

As for your plans, concerning the hall in the lower levels, their escape exits should be studied and clear to all the users; on both sides of the hall. There are some dead ends that need to be revised. Any designed escape stairs should be enable user to directly exit the building to the landscape level outside, not the inside of the building again. For the last floor plan, the outdoor terrace can be used as a break area between concerts. Your project’s structural elements must be put/indicated in the plans. Other than that, your plans are well designed and coordinated.

In the collective board, the upper right exterior render would be my favorite so far, as of the composition, and tells me who the building is important and well situated, the rest of the shots may just need some adjustments in the composition choice and maybe the angle from which the shot is taken.

To sum-up, your project shows tremendous effort, which is obvious through your concept, massing, plans, exterior and interior shots as well. I might just ask you for your next project to add both; your forms generation steps and how it was affected by your program, site context and environmental aspects, and the other aspect to add is some environmental treatments that are implemented in your project, in terms of systems, energy harvesting.

I hope that the previous feedback is beneficial to you, and good luck.

With all due respect,
Arch Mohammed ElAdl