The planetarium project
The desire to offer Montreal a scenographic, striking and sustainable building that contributes to the intensification of urban life and to the success of the ensemble formed by the Montreal Nature Museums supports the approach adopted for the design of the new Planetarium.
The new Planetarium is the result of a collective work that is both intuitive and poetic:
_ spatially and perceptually what architectural and urban spaces are proposed for visitors, Planetarium employees and citizens in general?
and scientific :
_ how best to meet program requirements, decide on sustainability strategies, and fully integrate them into the project while staying within the budget?
In the development of the project, these aspects inform each other. From the beginning, a first idea became clear, it was to map the universe, to build the sky in some way and to translate into architecture the wonder that we can feel under the sky, its depth and its impalpable scale to communicate it subtly. This idea guided a work of conception of space, where the blurring of the limits and the depth of the built spaces and the envelope take a great importance. Moreover, from a rational analysis of the site and the program and to achieve the best connection to the Biodome a path that, paradoxically, leads from light to dark was drawn from level 100, which is actually the basement, to the upper levels.
In a perspective of vertical stretching of our planet towards space, this paradox is however not devoid of logic.
Elementary strategies of sustainable development quickly crystallized the geometry of the building and established the importance of a solar wall which, by crossing the interior on three levels, becomes an architectural landmark and a strong scenographic element around and in which the distribution and pre-conditioning of air flows are organized: The approach to sustainable development is inseparable from the architecture; it is part of the scenography. Since the Planetarium's mission is to make the public aware of and appreciate the natural sciences, and since it is one of Montreal's Nature Museums, the integration and expression of landscape and building features that contribute to minimizing, or even alleviating, the exploitation and wear and tear of our own planet is essential. The principles of sustainable development are also linked to the ambition to intensify urban life in a place that tends to be invaded occasionally, then deserted, rather than occupied on a daily basis. Already, the Planetarium program alone will contribute to increasing the flow of visitors. Its exterior development by demineralizing the Olympic slab (the new Olympic garden?) and by creating a variety of appropriable spaces reinforces the link to the very bucolic botanical garden and will also incite the walkers to come there and to continue their wandering from one to the other...
The starry night
The approach which underlies our proposal could be assimilated to a primitive rite by which one would try to reconstruct a physical interpretation of our universe, to build a cartography of the sky. The geometry of the construction testifies to negotiations between an envelope developed from a transposition of a deployment of the celestial vault (a sort of starry canopy), the existing construction and the programmatic and ecological intentions announced. In a sense, the non-orthogonal geometry of the building evokes in a playful, primary and easily readable way the close relationship that has long linked geometry and astronomy. The figures formed by drawing a line between the stars (lines and points) recall both the great bear and children's games...
The depth of space
The materiality of the main envelope of the building gives it an unsettling depth similar to that of the celestial vault. The superimposition of expanded and black anodized aluminum sheets on the Klein blue building envelope blurs the perception of the envelope. This perceptual blurring of depth, a phenomenon known as the Ganzfeld effect, is not foreign to the work of contemporary artists such as James Turrell and Anish Kapoor. It is particularly appropriate in the context of this project.
A heuristic, immersive and functional project (phi)
Vaguely aware of the immensity of the space, the visitor progresses naturally from the reception level to the large volume at the top. The spectacle that is the universe is revealed as one ascends to the large theaters hidden in the sky, the salle des pas perdus and the exhibition hall... the perception of dimensions and surfaces and the darkness that settles in as one ascends gives the space a fluid immensity. The visitor loses the sense of limits and depth. At the same time, here and there, from the atrium, the restaurant, the exhibition spaces, the daily functioning of the Planetarium is revealed to him as in a game. The building is efficiently organized on three levels connected by the atrium adjacent to the solar wall.
It is on level 100 that groups and the public are welcomed. All the services common to the Planetarium and the Biodome are deployed around the inclined ecological garden that anchors the project in the site of the partially demineralized Olympic square while flooding Level 100 with natural light. Visitors are gathered in a large hall vibrant with activity and bathed in light.
Level 200 is the main entrance. The Planetarium's administration, the boutique, the restaurant and its terrace are located here, as well as the Rio Tinto space, a lounge adjacent to the staircase leading to level 300 where the history of the Planetarium and the philanthropic relationship between the private company and research are presented.
The 300th level contains the exhibition spaces and theaters. The visitor climbs quietly to the main floor, the room of the lost steps (the BIG BANG room and the starry night). Views of the Olympic stadium are carefully revealed through the solar wall that controls light and absorbs energy. Throughout the ascent, artificial and natural light are controlled as the space becomes increasingly darker. A dramatic display of carefully controlled lighting effects modulates the interior envelope of this important public space.
A total environment
The new Planetarium profoundly transforms the place where it is located. The cartography of the sky is deployed on the scale of the building and the site. It extends into the walls, the canopy and the marquee and reaches down to the ground, the mounds and the courtyard-garden modulate and vegetate the slab. The mapping exercise is also an exercise in transformation, in the metamorphosis of a parking slab into a more habitable, more sustainable space that makes us aware of the environment on several scales, that of the individual, the city, the Earth and the Universe, and that makes us aware of the immensity of time: a program that is both humble and ambitious, but also friendly and open.
The new ecological garden anchors the project to the site. One could say that the organization of the Planetarium program is generated on site from the garden and the solar wall. The southern orientation and the underground connection to the Biodome dictated this anchor point from which the entire Planetarium program is organized, tending to settle and find its own logic rather than formalizing a recognizable and fixed architectural geometry. Under its generous envelope, the building is flexible enough to allow for adjustments to seasonal climatic conditions but also to adapt to the evolution of the institution's scientific, cultural and environmental mission. The spaces are generous and relatively flexible, the geothermal exchange network can be extended further, it is entirely possible to increase the volume of water treatment as well as the production of energy in situ, and to intensify biodiversity.
In the Planetarium, the container is the content. The architecture and landscape are scenographic, immersive and sustainable. The Planetarium offers a total environment.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
Strengths :
The plan is simple, elegant and functional; this is the strength of the project.
The plans are well defined on the 100 and 200 levels and the public spaces are well proportioned and compelling.
The team offers the best LEED expertise.
The ideas are good and the connection between geometry and astronomy is appropriate.
Weaknesses:
The concept lacks sustainability due to the ephemeral quality of the object.
The ideas lack architectural resolution.
The imagery of the celestial map is broken by the heaviness of the volume; the green roof does not match this image.
The exterior massing does not match the quality of the plans; the architecture does not marvel from the outside.
The complexity of the form of this pavilion is at odds with the site.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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