Balloch Music Retreat
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The scheme provides a Residential Music Retreat and Performance hall situated on the edge of the Balloch Pier overlooking Loch Lomond, Scotland for the client Sistema Scotland.
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Design Statement
The beauty of music is that it can be played anywhere without the need for a specific environment or space. The proposal looks to offer coherent objects and spaces, both internally and externally, that promote the spontaneous playing of music. The client, Sistema, has a clear philosophy to provide an environment that nurtures young, disadvantaged children through the medium of music, that impacts on their whole being and development.
For the Balloch community, the proposal reinstates a physical and visual link with the pier that has become abandoned over time. Its strategic positioning and elongated fingers stretch into the landscape creating a physical axis that encourages the public to use the pier again. It was important for the scheme to remain sensitive to the surrounding natural world in massing, scale and materiality.
Capturing the spirit of Sistema, intriguing ‘tree worlds’ have been created that provide an unconventional living space, both exciting and stimulating for its users.