Riverwalk Opera & Performing Arts Garden
Professor Maged Guerguis | Partner Alexandra Robinson| Fall 2018
The concept behind this project stems from a desire to increase circulation between the Chicago riverwalk, North Columbus Drive, and East North Water Street. At 250,000 sqft, this enormous structure is a result of Maged Guerguis’ Super Boolean Block Studio. The goal of the studio was to design beautiful, functional, and structurally-feasible piece of architecture through the use of additive and subtractive boolean operations and form-finding.
This project proposes a street-to-river-level public space which serves as a walkable, performing arts garden. Entry through a street-level gift shop leads the visitor to a descending grand stairway which winds down into the earth, revealing a subterranean opera house. The subterranean space houses an enormous Great Hall, capable of seating 10,000 spectators. Additionally, two smaller theaters can be found here, below the earth, designed to seat 300 spectators each.
In opposition to the subterranean opera house, a readily-accessible ascending stair unites the garden with a superterranean, semiprivate conference center.
Various methods of mechanical and digital form-finding were utilized to pinpoint the optimal form for the building. Additive and subtractive boolean operations were utilized to carve occupiable spaces from the super boolean block. Intersections of the booleans were strategically manipulated and planned in order to create ideal openings for both fenestration and egress. After countless iterations, the end result yielded a form that was both beautiful and functional.
Voids left by the intersections of the ellipses allow a great deal of natural light to flood the upper conference center levels. The truss system and a punched steel skin cast beautiful shadows on just about every surface.
In certain locations, spaces between the upper booleans leave voids large enough for light to shine all the way through the conference center and down to the Arts Park below. One such void even directs a beam of light directly down the center of the Grand Stair at midday, reaching all the way down to the lower opera house levels.
The ground of the public arts park is punched with a pattern of glass, allowing additional natural light to enter the opera house levels during the day. At night, light projects upward from the opera below, illuminating the public space above.
