ARCHITECTURE OF URBAN GATHERING SPACES: ARTS CENTRE RAWALPINDI

Abstract

In the last few decades Rawalpindi's cultural identity has been completely transformed. Once a quiet and thoroughly conservative Anglo-Saxon town, Rawalpindi has become a thriving and dynamic multicultural city. People from all walks of life share a place in this city. While successive waves of immigration have had a profound and measurable impact on Rawalpindi's cultural and social character, the impact on its public spaces and institutions remains more elusive. This thesis proposes an architectural design for an Arts Centre along the famous Peshawar Road. The art Centre seeks to give voice to the principles of diversity that have energized Rawalpindi, while acknowledging the city's need for places of social activation and gathering places displaying its culture. Set adjacent to the famous Peshawar Road, an existing residential colony and commercial belt, the proposed arts. Centre sits in a park to take part in a larger experience of community node points. Two lines of inquiry structure this thesis. The first is an analysis of the meaning and significance of critical intercultural gathering spaces in the city. Finally, the thesis, through the design of the Art Centre and reimagination of the Roomi Park site, seeks to explore the capacity of architecture to simultaneously unite and provide amenity for the city's population. The aim of design is to achieve places where art is not housed within bum walls, but the act a social activator in the open spaces. The design seeks to create activated facades opening in a thoroughfare, which eventually becomes the focal feature of design. Spatial intersection between major chunks of spaces houses a series of activities: performing, spectating, and exhibiting. This will add inflow of another category of visitor to the Roomi Park while offering the existing visitors to the park something more to do on their usual visit to this area. The design is aimed to creatively sculpt the landscape, so instead of taking the green away from the park, the building creates a sunken yard in order to add to it.