STL’s Auditorium and Performing Arts Center – a multi-purpose social and performance space

By: Dennis Lynch | March - 17 - 2011

Chicago firm STL has released it’s finalist entry for the Torres De Cotillas Competition in Las Torres De Cotillas, Spain. Their proposal is for a 21^st century styled auditorium and performing arts center. The auditorium and arts center is meant to be located within a proposed office park, and to thrive on the public activity the office park would bring.
STL designed the exterior structure like one would mold a piece of clay. They started with a pentagon like shape and “pulled” up from the center to draw the centers of each wall inward. Then they “pushed” the center of the structure back down to create multi-purpose amphitheatre-like space to host activities, social meetings, performances, and showings. Directly underneath the open air theater will be an auditorium to hold concerts and performances.
The formal auditorium space and the multi-purpose amphitheatre make the Torres De Cotillas Performing Arts Center a truly multi-functional building. They offer flexibility and room for expansion to hosted programs and will give the Center range to host a larger variety of programs than singular outdoor spaces or auditoriums can.
To give the concrete exterior texture, STL poked small holes with solid glass elements in a randomized fashion over the façade. In the daytime, these holes will let in rays of sunlight into the interior and at night will emit the interior light of the Center and establish the presence of the Center with it’s immediate surroundings.