HIVE by Studio Gang, latest at the National Building Museum
11/07/2017.
Summer 2017. National Building Museum [Washington DC] USA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
metalocus, JOSÉ JUAN BARBA
Hive’s form recalls other built and natural structures such as Saarinen’s Gateway Arch in St. Louis, Brunelleschi’s Dome at the Florence Cathedral in Italy, vernacular Musgum mud huts in Cameroon, and the curvature of a spider’s web. By utilizing the catenary shape, each chamber will balance structural forces and support its own weight, while attaining a height that enables a unique acoustic signature. The tall yet intimate forms allow visitors to inhabit the installation at the ground level and to experience it from the Museum’s upper-floor balconies, providing a variety of exciting perspectives.
Explore how a structure can modify and reflect sound, light, scale, and human interaction. Hive’s smaller chambers feature tubular instruments ranging from simple drum-like tubes to chimes suspended within the space. Each chamber has a unique acoustic properties that will affect the instruments’ tone, reverberation, and reflection as well as visitors’ perceptions. The large main chamber is topped by a soaring dome that filters the natural light of the Great Hall and creates intricate light and shadow patterns in the space. Just outside the installation, Philadelphia-based design educator Alex Gilliam’s notched cardboard Build It! Disks provide a hands-on cooperative building activity.
Jeanne Gang. American architect and MacArthur Fellow Jeanne Gang is the founding principal of Studio Gang. Jeanne is recognized internationally for her bold and functional designs that incorporate ecologically friendly technologies in a wide range of striking structures. She has been sought out by numerous organizations to engage her creative approach for mission-oriented architecture and design.
Jeanne and Studio Gang have produced some of today’s most compelling design work, including the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, the WMS Boathouse at Clark Park, the Nature Boardwalk at Lincoln Park Zoo, and Aqua Tower.