Stochastic Resonance by Glacial Vibrations
Musical culture in Boston is multifaceted and diverse ranging from international classical groups to local modern rock and electric groups. With venues already available for the established classical genre a multi-use venue for the other sounds of Boston is essential. Stochastic Resonance is the enhancement of contemporary digital music styles through urban noise. It becomes the mixing board of Boston’s eclectic culture capturing, tuning, and enhancing the sounds of the city. Set on a site keyed as the mediator between some of Boston’s most prominent districts a frozen composition manifests in three primary elements based on the notions of a glacier, cloud, and sound wave. Each thematic element is considered in site, program, and material, with primary formal ideas of the glacier as performance, cloud as social interaction, and the sound wave as a protector and intermediary between the two. These formal ideas manifest the generational collection of elements and formative tectonics diversity, and connections guide the primary objective of a daily hub of interaction. Imaging each surrounding district as a musical component the site becomes an urban mixing board, collecting each district as an urban sound wave establishing the arrangement of programmable spaces. Physically opening to receive program in some areas and closing around to capture others the site begins to playback the city. Literal at times and phenomenal in others with related programs such as the main auditorium responding to the Theater District. Likewise a study of the highway infrastructure surrounding the site is considered to determine peak noise pollution and how to guard against and utilize this unique environment of urban noise to enhance the systems of the music hall. Layered over the three musical aspects of melody, harmony, and rhythm, program is composed of interfaces for input and manipulation producing a public driven outcome. Analog instrument installations are set up to periodically record sounds made from public interaction as samplings fed into a digital network, which provides these recordings as loop samples accessible through touch screens to play in the Mixing Room and Cafe. Performance spaces are established for the headliner, the local band, and the street performer giving a voice to all levels of music delivery. The Collectively these interfaces unite the city with the music hall on a daily basis giving certain control of the resulting site to the public. Material and construction are seen thematically as the inverse of each elements primary physical as a gas becomes a solid. The sound wave is interpreted as a visually invisible unit and becomes a physically tactile glazing system, with Kawneer blast mitigation systems. This intermediary curtain wall is the second layer of defense against Noise pollution behind the elevated concrete walls, but is the primary element of protection. The versatile products provide all the glazing, physical security, and aesthetics desired for the building.