Folded Intersection: a performing arts center

This project proposes a performing arts center in Chattanooga, Tennessee, a 170-year old industrial city. As part of the city revitalization, the design seeks to build up a "stage", and create a piece of edge at the city's northern boundary. Two folded bands, one made of skeletal steel and surfaced with copper connecting the river and the mountainous landscape beyond with the city, the other made of reinforced concrete folded to form a spatial intersection housing a series of activities: performing, spectating, and exhibiting. A curved metal screened circulation wall opens at the bottom to allow the copper band to pass as an entrance into the lobby to develop its folded intersection. Through it, an industrial stack in the middle of the site is isolated from busy city, and anchored with the building as a monument. Along the west side, an additional element characterized as the education box hovers over the ground, with unobstructed views of the river and the old steel bridge on one end, and the green hill on the other.