Herning Center Of The Arts
The Herning Center of the Arts unites, for the first time, three distinct cultural institutions: the Herning Art Museum, the MidWest ensemble and the Socle du Monde. The new Center is intended to be an innovative forum combining visual art and music. The Center includes permanent and temporary exhibition galleries, a 300 seat auditorium, music rehearsal rooms, a restaurant, a media library and administrative offices.
Steven Holl Architects winning competition design proposal arises from a fusion of landscape and architecture and aims at building the site. In transforming a flat field, a new inspiring bermed landscape of grass mounds and pools conceals the parking and service areas, while drawing focus onto reflecting pools positioned in south sun.
Gallery spaces are simple, orthogonal and finely proportioned for art. Overhead curved roof sections transport natural light into the spaces and internal gallery walls of lightweight construction are movable, providing flexibility of movement in anticipation of changing exhibition and functional requirements.
The curved roofs are made of stress skin structures comprised of carbon fiber strands within a resin matrix. The undersides of the painted white textured surface of the roof structure are visible from within the interior spaces. Roof stability is ensured through the introduction of thin rods within the window mullions that act as tension elements to counterbalance uneven forces over the center support, like a see-saw tied down on either side.
Green rooftops are covered with a thin layer of sedum which is possible due to the advanced improvement in rooftop mesh fabric technology. The fabric theme is carried throughout the elevation in the textured white fabric of the concrete walls. An aerial view of the new building bares a striking resemblance to a collection of shirtsleeves. Other green aspects of the design including a geothermal HVAC system and grey water recycling, set this apart as an exemplary design for 21st century museum architecture.
Building Height: 8.5 meters
Number of Floors: 2
Basement: Mechanical and Storage
Ground Floor: Permanent and Temporary Exhibition Galleries, 300 Seat Auditorium, Rehearsal Rooms, Restaurant, Media Library, Administrative/Museum Support
Materials: The curved roofs are stress skin structures in carbon fiber strands with a resin matrix. Green rooftops in sedum are very thin due to the fabric mesh rooftop growing technology. A fabric theme is carried in the fabric formed texture of the white concrete walls of the exterior. The floors are recycled terrazzo and recycled glass aggregate.
Associate-in-Charge: Martin Cox
Project Architect: Noah Yaffe
Project Team: Cosimo Caggiula, Alessandro Orsini
Mechanical Engineer: Transsolar Climate Engineering, Matthias Schuler
Structural Engineer: Robert Silman Associates, Nat Oppenheimer