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Commended: Temple Heights/Music with a View

Riverside public space for classical music performances and practice

The Temple Heights concept proposes a tapering canopy over a rooftop stage, seating and bar.
The Temple Heights concept proposes a tapering canopy over a rooftop stage, seating and bar.

Temple Heights/Music with a View by Soraya Somarathne, Studio Soraya

Set on the roof of the Temple underground station in London, the Temple Heights/Music with a View concept is an open-air performance space and bar that uses SterlingOSB Zero to form an acoustic canopy.

Soraya Somarathne aimed to create an acoustically sound performance space that is ‘dramatic and uplifting in form’. She proposes a tapering building envelope that starts off wide above the stage at the Victoria Embankment Gardens end of the site and narrows upwards towards the western end. Paid seating is arranged closest to the stage, with free seating behind that and standing room towards the bar at the rear. The audience will be able to enjoy the performance with a view of the musicians set against a background of trees in the adjacent public gardens.

 

  • View from the bar towards the stage with acoustic canopy above.
    View from the bar towards the stage with acoustic canopy above.
  • Detail showing the SterlingOSB Zero main frame and acoustic diffusers.
    Detail showing the SterlingOSB Zero main frame and acoustic diffusers.
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The main structural frame is made of metal-braced SterlingOSB Zero, making use of the board’s high strength properties. The 84m long roof is comprised of OSB strips of different depths tailored to create a large acoustic diffuser that reduces echo and reflections of the music. The external face of the canopy is designed to diffuse noise from the traffic below.

Somarathne proposes finishing all OSB members in a protective coating to provide long-term defences against the outdoor elements. Two existing stairs will provide access to the rooftop auditorium.

In this busy riverside area she envisages this as a new public space that can be used for lunchtime and evening performances of classical music and for practice sessions by students of the nearby Department of Music, King’s College London.

 ‘The vision is a space which elevates its visitors to new heights musically, spatially and spiritually,’ she says.


 

Raise the Roof was produced in association with Norbord Europe 

Introduction

This year's judging process

Winner
Rooftop Refuge by Reed Watts Architects

Commended
Sterling Boarder by Nina Antin, Claire Chabrol and Sibylle Metge-Toppin
In Season – House by Alessandro Tessari

Longlisted
Anywhere in the Universe – the Nowhere Building by Brian Ditchburn
Peckham Parliament by Kennedy Woods
The Hide by Brett Mahon