BAMIYAN CULTURAL CENTER / Competition
Location: Bamiyan, Afghanistan
Program: exhibition hall, performance hall, education spaces, reasearch space, teahouse, administration
Architect: Aleksandar Shinolov
Client: UNESCO, Afghanistan
Year: 2015
Site Area: 37670m2; Bldg. Area: 1345m2; Grоss Floor Area: 2320m2; Bldg. Scale: Stories above Ground 3, Stores below Ground 0; Structure: reinforced concrete; Materials: reinforced concrete,rammed earth, wood, frameless glazing; Parking lots: 30; Max. Height: 12.00m;
Putting the focus on culture, heritage, history and tradition this project has role of recognizing that ideals and with its form, position and function to enhance them as much as possible. Buildings’ morphology is a derivation of two main volumes that follow the direction of two main axes. The first one is north –south “urban axis” and the second one is east-west “building axis”. The determined two orthogonal grids also define the landscape formation later in the design process. The shape of the building is a summary of basic volumes that are a translation of the common Afghanistan geometry of architecture. Even though it is in a way primitive as an idea it can be easily recognized as transformable form that gives a possibility of adjustments according to certain needs. So basically the form starts as a single volume, an extension of the terrain. New cutting volume is added as a response to the need of communication between the levels of the building and also for the unification of the multileveled terrain. In order to make less impact onto the surrounding the building is embedded into the landscape with intension in future to become even more involved into the nature with greenery.
