The site for the Savannah Cultural Arts Center is located in the Historic District of Savannah, GA, contained by Oglethorpe Avenue by the North, MLK Boulevard by the West, Turner Street by the South and Montgomery Street by the East Side.
A municipal building has to be treated as a public space where pedestrians and tourists feel attracted to stay. This space have to provide comfort and enjoyment, so the families feel connected to it and therefore spend more time on it. I based my ideas in this connection of interiorizing the outdoor spaces.
I considered many factors for the creation of this space: transparency, which provides views and emotions within the building; spatial and natural thermal comfort, where the building surrounds and protects the green areas from the roads by creating a courtyard; also the integration of sculptures which call the attention of the pedestrians and identify the main entrances.
I considered many factors for the creation of this space: transparency, which provides views and emotions within the building; spatial and natural thermal comfort, where the building surrounds and protects the green areas from the roads by creating a courtyard; also the integration of sculptures which call the attention of the pedestrians and identify the main entrances.
A curtain wall provides views to the linear gallery located inside the building. It is visible from the outside to invite and arouse curiosity of the pedestrians at the courtyard to the interior. Also, this gallery distributes through all the functional spaces of the building.
The program of this project holds a Community Theater, a Blackbox Theater, Galleries, Studios, Classrooms, the Savannah Department of Culture and the Savannah Archives.
As a public building, with its galleries, theaters, classrooms and studios, it's expected for the building to be open to the general public. But as the Headquarters of the Savannah Archives and the Savannah Cultural Arts Department, the building works itself with dividing the areas in public and private without conflict.
