New Children’s and Youth Theater and Expansion of Theater Ulm

Theater Ulm is to be enhanced with a children’s and youth theater and augmented by additional rehearsal rooms and workshops. Our design, which was awarded 2nd prize, features a new and discrete building that marks the street corner as a clearly defined form, thus creating a distinctive identity to strengthen and anchor the theater within the urban space.

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The outer shell of the building consists of concave-sculpted cast glass elements. It acts as a filter between inside and outside and lends a certain softness to the building’s squared-off form. Large, purposefully positioned window openings reveal aspects of the goings-on inside. The entry condition is given particular emphasis, elaborated as the sole indentation in the crystalline cube.

Behind the entrance, the foyer has a special role: since the auditorium is on the first floor, extra sensitivity is required to overcome the difference in height to the entrance. The way up is conceived as part of the theater and will also be used for performances. The arrangement of the various rehearsal stages and practice rooms creates an exciting vertical sequence of spaces and circulation paths. Links to the existing building are made at several points, enabling the facilities of the children’s and youth theater to form a symbiosis with those of the main theater. Thus our “magic cube” should be seen as an autonomous enhancement to the theater that visibly and yet reservedly enters into a mutual relationship with the existing building without trying to rival it.

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Competition
08 2020 / 2nd prize