Sarajevo Concert Hall

This design – which won an international competition in 1999 – has been very substantially reshaped and improved by UFO to prepare it for construction. As a scheme, it extends the public surface of Sarajevo into and under the ground, forming a continuous space for the foyers, auditorium and service areas, as well as an outdoor landscape above which bleeds into the surrounding park. The open landscape allows an unobstructed flow of people across and within the site, creating a new public square. The underground planning eliminates the impact between the concert hall and its adjacent buildings, as well as the need for external facades. The ground acts as a thermal mass which increase the energy efficiency; solar gain is minimised, and overall the building environment is stable and controlled. Acoustically, an underground concert hall needs no sound reductive eternal envelope since earth possesses such good inherent acoustic properties. Research-wise, the key issues were how to develop a concert hall design to meet the strictest energy performance standards, and how to achieve advanced acoustic performance in a major international venue. In both goals, research into aspects such as optimum acoustic performance was carried out with specialists from Arup Engineers, world-leaders in the field. Again, the building represents a thoroughgoing investigation into fluid architectural design, aided by digital software and manufacturing, here linked to the latest research in concert hall acoustics. The Sarajevo Concert Hall has been written up many times, and its latest phase is described in: World Architecture (May 2002, pp. 22-24); Building Design (7 March 2003, pp. 12-15); etc. As well as winning the original international competition, the reworked scheme was exhibited in the 2004 Venice Biennale and 2006 Beijing Biennale, amongst other public outings. Again, Martin and Yau are equally responsible for input to the revised design.