graz6
MUR ISLAND
Graz, Austria
2003
Engineers: Zenckner & Handl; Kurt Kratzer
Contractors: SFL
A twist in the river, a node in the river: the node is an island. The island is a circulation-route: a dome that morphs into a bowl that morphs into a dome.
The bowl functions as a theater. Bleachers wave in and out; when the bowl isn’t used as a theater, it’s a plaza -- you sit face-to-face, in everyday conversation.
The dome functions as a café/restaurant. The entrance canopy twists down to make lounge seats around the dome. Curved triangular tables and stools are movable; they’re joined together, for different-sized groups of people. The rubber edge of the terrace above twists down to make multiple bar counters, at different heights. Water pours down the shell of the dome; up on the terrace, you sit under a waterfall.
The warping of dome into bowl, and vice versa, forms a playground, a space frame that functions as monkey bars, a tubular slide cuts through the grid. Functions are mixed on this island: the playground doubles as the backdrop of the stage and as a wall and ceiling.
Light streams up from beneath the bleachers, in the bowl, and down from the roof structure, in the dome.
This project view belongs to Mur Island, and is threadged with:
(I,
L,
T,
A)