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This building is a city-centre sound cavity. Designed by Tokyo-based architect Toyo Ito & Associates, the National Taichung Theatre in Taichung, Taiwan, takes the form of a series of cave-like rooms twisted together to create one continuous surface.
Christian Dercks, senior engineer at Arup, who turned the structure into reality, says the building's design is rooted in the way sound carries through space. "The shape was optimised by acoustic consultants. I was told: 'That's the shape, you're not allowed to change it, not even for structural optimisation.'"
To build the 2,007-seat theatre's arrangement of circular rooms, known as catenoids, London-based Arup borrowed a method from Japan, putting mesh sheets against the prefabricated structure, two metres at a time, then pouring concrete into the cavity. "Normally, if you have a concrete structure you need formwork [moulds] to keep it in place," says Dercks, 44. "That meant we would have needed to build the building three times over."
Not only did the building need to meet the design's ambitious aesthetic and acoustic requirements, but structurally it also needed to cope with Taiwan's frequent earthquakes. To this end, Dercks says it has been built to the same high standards as nuclear power stations, in order to withstand a seismic event that's likely to arrive in the area once every 2,500 years.
The National Taichung Theatre, which also contains an 800-seat playhouse, a cultural centre, gallery, restaurant and rooftop garden, officially opened in September 2016 after 11 years of design and construction. Dercks describes the building as "a horizontally and vertically continuous network...a cave-like space that feels very different to the places where people are living." Now that's the kind of cave WIRED likes.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
