Thursday 8 April 2010

The V


The project brief was to design a museum of early education in Penang. The museum will house physical & gallery, mini café, library, and exhibition space. Penang’s early education history is a long process of growth and evolution. It has been through war, fire, and colonization. This long & exciting journey inspired my design to be evoluting, dramatic, and organic.

There are already museums around the area, and usually museum contents are deemed to be boring. Thus, the need of designing something fresh and attractive is crucial. The challenge was to create a uniquely attractive museum that provokes visitors to explore the space, enjoy the content of the museum, and discuss exciting issues.

The design approach is to confront the site, issue, and topic through antagonisms. The overall shape is going against Palladian & 1970s modern style buildings at the sides and confronting the usual formal take on the topic of 'Early Education'.


The facade is designed to be attractive and sustainable at the same time,
evoking visitors’ curiosity upon entering the building. The curvy horizontal emphasis along the facade serves as a dynamic yet elegant visual to the visitors. Inside, visitors will be greeted with exciting & organic spaces made of steps and angled columns, elegantly designed to be thoroughly explored.

Facade, floor plates, and support structure are designed with innovation and efficiency in mind by embedding a system in a system. By using this method, the design responds to the issue of building sustainability through the use of building technology advancement.


In this case, the museum design is being sensitive towards the site, issue, and topic when it's pushing boundaries through questions, discussions, and innovations.

Brian Novanto
Diploma - Design Studio 3

2 comments:

jontan said...

Love the montage. And it looks a little like Wright's Guggenheim.

But it would be nice to see circulation spaces leading to the main atrium since you said about provoking visitors to explore the space.

KS said...

If it's a museum For early education history in Penang why are you confronting it? Unless it's a new centre for early education then it's more justified I guess.
And the latter half of the post did not talk about the subject(ie exhibits) in specific, which I think is very important in determining your interior organizations. The building is not specific as it occurs to me.

Hmm.. I've explored the museum area in george town and my first reaction to seeing this there is not a 'wow' or 'nice'.. Ofcoz, this is just my personal opinion.