Hou Liang Architecture

Time: 2009.01

Location: Beirut, Republic of Lebanon

Client: Ministry of Culture, Repulic of Lebanon

Competition: International design competition

Building area:15,294 m2

We think the house of arts & culture is a place without boundaries, a place to freely express ideas and a place for participation and interaction. It is a culture incubator not only to the art and artist, but also more important to the public.

Because of the hot and dry weather condition, close and self-contains the main building type in Middle East area. We refer to this type and propose our building as a box volume. From the exterior appearance, it looks not much difference with local buildings, a close box with small windows on it, but in fact it is an open building connecting tightly with surroundings.

In traditional meaning, window is used to provide light and ventilation. In our building, we hope windows can function more except its original use. It could be a place for temporary art show, a place for viewing deck or plant balcony, a place for chatting or reading, and a place for nothing just open for relaxing. It is a window, and it is also a public space. In this meaning, we think the shapes of windows can be flexible and variable as an esthetics element to interact with façade and space. We also hope to use changing windows to express the building’s specialty and distinguish it from surrounding buildings. So in this building, window is not only a window, it is more like an apparatus mutation blending of different building components. Here, window can be a programmed space or just a lighting device, which are interactive and stimulated between each other.