Energy, Landscape and Culture
Immersive with the surroundings
A music retreat for the client, Big Noise, El Sistema, at the Balloch Pier, Balloch, West Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
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By establishing music communities, called `nucleos` for young people within vulnerable societies, El Sistema`s method to dwelling is found on unique and inexperienced places.
A `nucleo`, described as a growing organism with big pores to the community, suggests a method of integration to an existing place.
For El Sistema to assemble a music retreat on the site of Balloch Pier, the approach is to respond to the established heavy masonry boat-service-pier, and the newly grown woodlands behind it. By lifting the internal spaces on stilts, the site`s flood risk, due to its juxtaposition between Loch Lomond and river Leven, is avoided, and further creates big and small openings/pores of new playful spaces and circulations. This interprets a new vernacular, which gives the dweller a chance to feel El Sistema`s activities and community in a local and special atmosphere.