‘Why Don’t We Do It On The Stairs?’ is the winning proposal for won the architectural design competition ‘Build What Here?’ organised by the Danish Architecture Centre and Roskilde Festival, to create an architectural design for the Culture Zone at Roskilde Festival 2011. The project is designed by architecture collective Re-Make / Re-Model consisting of Anders Grivi Norman of Oslo, Norway and Victor Serrander of Stockholm, Sweden. The design will be built for the Roskilde Festival and will be featured in an exhibition in the Danish Architecture Centre in Copenhagen opening on the 7th of May.
More on this project after the break.
‘Why Don’t We Do It On The Stairs’ is an open and flexible concept providing a variety of spaces to accommodate all sorts of activities throughout every hour of every day of the Roskilde Music Festival. The festival is one of the most vibrant urban areas in the world with 120.000 people gathering in a field to celebrate music, culture, life and each other. Because the event is so much about the personal experience the architects approached the competition with the question: … Why Don’t We?
‘Why Don’t We Do It On The Stairs’ celebrates the unique experiences of the festival by creating two large stairs offering seating with views of the festival grounds and filling them with activity boxes where anything can happen. Between socializing, playing music, sleeping, reading, enjoying the landscape, or dancing Re-Make / Re-Model designed spaces that could be used for any of these activities.
The strategy is multi-faceted. First there is the need for seating, which is organized in a 27m x 27m x 10m triangle constructed from re-used plywood with scaffolding as structural support, they become a natural meeting and gathering point for the entire festival. From the top one can look over to the Orange stage and all the way back to your tent in the camp. Another triangular seating area facing the first is intended to be used as a space to watch other festival attendees. The different orientations allows you to choose whether to sit in the sun or in shadow all throughout the day. It also creates an area that is ideal for sports, public events or improvised concerts.
The third strategy was to create a sheltered seating area by cutting out the underside of the stairs and creating a giant roof covered area that can be enjoyed under any weather conditions. At night this space turns into a dance stage. The complex arrangements of structural supports, lights hanging from the ceiling and art installations creates a world of inspiration and mystery. Lastly, by placing several activity boxes in varying sizes in the stairs the architects provide areas where people can create their own spaces and organize version of the festival.
