Musée Sans Frontières | Cultural Museum, Marseille 3rd Year International Project (Spring & Summer 2018) | [p

04 Musée Sans Frontières | Cultural Museum, Marseille 3rd Year International Project (Spring & Summer 2018)

1. sketch illustrating the nature of the Le Panier 2. site sketches analysing vernacular architecture 3. site plan 4. map of le panier highlighting public squares public squares site

3. 4.

Marseille is a hotbed of multicultural activity. Home to one of the Mediterranean’s busiest ports, the city contains a wide range of political and religious ideologies.

A museum of culture is typically imagined bringing together all of the surrounding cultures and harmonize them. However, this is not the want of the inhabitants of Marseille as they have always enjoyed co-presence rather than co-existence, where everyone’s presence is acknowledged, never rejected. While exploring the tall narrow streets I could instantly see how the inhabitants use the outdoor space as an extension of their home. Sketching the spatial qualities of my surroundings I was inspired by the relationship the inhabitants had with the street.

The sketch included adjacent, illustrates the narrow & vertical quality of the street and the private rooms which open up onto it, creating a lively public space where all share the right to inhabit the space as they wish.

With this project I was tasked to create something which promotes co-presence and rejects racist and other anti-human rights, beliefs, and attitudes. It had to reflect the cultural relations of its surroundings in the old streets of Le Panier whilst providing a positive outlook for the future. These streets wind through the historic district. At their intersections, open public spaces provide a breath of fresh air from the narrow streets, opening up views to the rest of the town and offering places of rest & reflection. My site inhabits one of these spaces.

My initial plan of intent was to internalise the street. Using a series of narrow and large spaces to create a sense of arrival along routes in which the rotating exhibitions co-exist. I began by storyboarding the experience of the user, introducing programme into key points along the route while allowing flexibility in the possible routes taken.

This project was my first attempt at a high-density, multilevel scheme. Models allowed me to explore the plan spatially, to analyse the staked form, understanding the impact of voids and comparing the massing within the context.

My site sat within the boundary of two public spaces with opposite degrees of success. One, a boules club with a supportive eatery. Raised it benefits from lots of sunlight and fronted by the surrounding buildings it feels safe & secure even at night. The other less successful, littered with the remains of an abandoned playset this sunken space felt dark & lost. The first gesture of my scheme was to bridge the two spaces, improving their pedestrian connections & surveillance. This is achieved by extending the flank wall out, creating a solid base for the museums plant & auditorium. An external staircase provides this pedestrian connection.

Upon the base the galleries & support spaces are separated, shifting the gallery spaces north for diffused light & services to the south for solar shading.

The gallery spaces are further lifted to create an open public foyer that acts as an extension of the public realm. Feathers of terracotta fins wrap the gallery spaces, further protecting them from the Mistral winds.

External terraces are introduced to provide external breaks through the journey of the exhibitions, allowing key views over the harbour city.

1. 1:500 site model - greyboard & card 2. plan diagram 3. entrance level (foyer) plan 4. third floor (restaurant & exhibition) plan 5. top floor (admin & rooftop terrace) plan

The plan operates around a simple zoning strategy.

To the south is the core, shielding the building from overheating and reducing in size as the building height increases to respond to the context.

The exhibition spaces, foyer and admin spaces are all positioned to the north, here they have views which open up onto the two adjacent public spaces and further out to the context.

Connecting these two is the vertical street, positioned to the west. Here it acts as a thermal buffer zone from the setting sun, reducing glare and containing views over to the Centre de la Vieille Charité.

2. VERTICAL STREET EXHIBITION

CORE

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1. long section A-A (through vertical street) 2. short section B-B (through exhibtion voids) 3. west elevation (across boules yard) 4. south elevation (stepped core responds to context)

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c a The terracotta facade blankets the building, reciprocating the contextual language of the vernacular roofs found in Marseille but here used as a solar shading device. This detail was inspired by the response to climate recorded through my site studies.

The tessellating panels open up as they move upwards, creating a sense of progression through the vertical circulation as the quality of light changes throughout.

The sections illustrate the spatial relationships created through the double height spaces and the vertical streets which connect them.

As the exhibition spaces extend vertically the opening external louvres allow more light and external views outward this creating a contrast of lower inward facing gallery spaces and higher gallery views with an emphasis on surrounding context.

a. foyer b. auditorium c. plant d. vertical street e. external terrace f. admin/office g. exhibition

1. 1:50 tectonic section model 2. perspective visualisation - vertical street 3. perspective visualisation - upper exhibition (views) 4. perspective visualisation - intermediate breakout cafe 5. perspective visualisation - lower exhibtion (internal)

With an aim of internalising the street the tectonic of the interiors is governed by continuing the external, hard-wearing finishes internally.

Inspired by the raw qualities of the nearby friche la belle de mai, a former tobacco factory turned arts district, I have chosen a palette of raw exposed concrete and wrought ironwork which brings texture to the exhibition spaces, capturing the varying qualities of light & providing thermal mass for cooling in the warm climate.

The muted palette provides a backdrop for the terracotta used not only as solar shading devices on the exterior but as a motif to highlight points of contact like step treads, bench tops & as wind protecting balustrades for the external balconies.

1. The Masterplan

St. albans rd

School Entrance

Penn Square

Central Mews

Watford Junction

Podium Gardens Green promenade

future connec -tion to Watford School Square

Mews playground

Penn Square

Central Courtyard

Green Promenade