BIG designs Hamburg State Opera as "landscape of concentric terraces"

Architecture studio BIG has unveiled designs for a waterfront home for Hamburg State Opera, which will be enclosed by a series of interconnected terraces.

Set to be built on a peninsula within the German city’s HafenCity quarter, the 45,000-square-metre venue will contain production and performance facilities for the State Opera and Hamburg Ballet.

BIG described its design as a “public building within a park” – consisting of a main volume and landscaped garden that will rise to meet elevated terraces on its upper floors.

“The opera will appear like a landscape of concentric terraces – emanating like soundwaves from a central beating heart of music, expanding outward into the harbor like ripples on the surface of the sea,” said studio founder Bjarke Ingels.

“The result is a three-dimensional public park open and accessible from all sides, with expansive views in all directions – to the old city and the new, to Lohse Park and the industrial port,” he added.

The quayside opera house, which will be situated close to the city’s Elbphilharmonie concert hall by Herzog & de Meuron, will be used in place of the State Opera’s existing 1950s venue.

Renders of the venue reveal a central volume, which will contain the performance facilities, flanked by planted walkways at each level.

Gaps between the curving walkways will form expansive glazed openings across the facade, offering views and additional entry points into the interior.

“Visitors can move along the facades and glimpse into the foyer, rehearsal rooms, backstage areas and offices, revealing the complexity behind a working opera house,” studio partner David Zahle said.

Around the main volume, an extensive garden designed by BIG’s landscape studio will draw its shape from “the movement of water” and manage storm surges through terraces, dunes and wetland gardens.

At ground level, stone walkways will lead visitors through the park’s staggered topography to a glazed entrance. Inside, a lofty foyer described by the studio as an “urban living room” will feature two sinuous timber staircases that rise through the building.

A main performance hall will have a similarly sinuous design composed of “concentric wooden rings” that form curving balconies. Other spaces will include a smaller studio stage, rehearsal rooms and back-of-house facilities.

Other projects recently unveiled by BIG include the Suzhou Museum of Contemporary Art, which will be topped with a ribbon-like roof, and a solar education centre for the renewed East River park in New York.

The renders are by Yanis Amasri.

The post BIG designs Hamburg State Opera as “landscape of concentric terraces” appeared first on Dezeen.