Urban Stage

What is architecture? Of course there are many different types of answers, but personally, I believe that architecture is founded on boundaries, promoting certain human behaviour. However, paradoxically, sometimes architecture can play a role in blurring boundaries, which is the aim of this project. This project aims to blur the invisible boundary which exists on the site - boundaries between past and present, stage and backdrop, multicultural ethnicity.

While it is known that this site has a rich history, particularly concerning the Victorian era, it was not easy to find architecture that represented this history, apart from some structures on the bay and large machines. This felt like there was an invisible boundary between its past and present, something that I wished to address. It was my aim to design this stage as a notional bridge that connects the past and present, blurring the invisible boundary I had felt.

I firstly looked for overlapping themes between the past and the present. Interestingly, the presence of varied ethnicities in the population was one of the main characteristics of the site that had derived from the past. Next, the idea of Eisteddfod as an event which encourages integration amongst citizens in Cardiff bay in the present day was looked into. It was found that the labour song ‘The Black Pig’ was one popular amongst workers of the Victorian era. We can assume that this song played a role in the integration of workers of different races who spoke different languages. The musical notes of this song was then interpreted into elements of with spatial quality.

Further to this, an effort was made to use a combination of early and more modern methods in the development process. Two different types of design methods were used. The first is a renaissance style approach, which designs architecture according to sacred numbers. The second is a computational method which makes use of technology to apply simulations and test feasibility for physical aspects, such as the C-value and the effect of climate conditions.

Upon reflection, I believe this project has met its original aim to design a piece of architecture that blurs and boundaries of the past and present of the site, in the elements and methods used. However, there is space for improvement in the interpretation of the music. While in this project the pitch of the musical notes were solely translated into coordinates for the building’s columns, this could be developed further to include in the programming process the rhythm, phrasing and lyrics.