CREDITS
HDA : COURTYARD FABRIC ROOF AND FACADE DESIGNER
CLIENT : SIA LASALLE
ARCHITECT : RSP, SINGAPORE
HDA TEAM : Cathy Shortle (Project Leader), Frédéric Bindji Odzili, Carla Zaccheddu, Alberto Rubin Pedrazzo.
DATE : 2003-2006
The Lasalle College of the Arts consists of 6 independent buildings disposed around a central pedestrian courtyard and its lateral streets, all of which are covered by a single roof. HDA was commissioned to design the interior and exterior facades of each building block, along with the roof cover for the central courtyard.
The roof had initially been foreseen in glass, but HDA proposed to clad the whole with a white tensioned PTFE fabric, in order to maximise daytime clarity whilst still providing the facades and the internal public spaces with protection from direct sunlight. The internal courtyard facades are irregular by design, with the facets of glass creating an evocation of naturally eroded canyons. These facades are in clear laminated glass on a compact steel subframe. Despite the appearance of total irregularity, the cost of the project was optimised by HDA, through the invention of a geometrical layout based on trapezoidal modules, repeated and handed.
In contrast, the external facades are rectilinear and aligned with the urban layout of the streets, and their cladding is a composition of light aluminium panels and natural stone, much like a protective shell.
