Project Description
The City of Kaunas, as the second largest city in Lithuania, is vibrant with cultural and
academic life. There are eight eminent universities in Kaunas, and the city is full of
curious students, educators, entrepreneurs, technologists, scientists and naturalists.
With such a diverse set of young minds, thinkers and creators around, the new
Cultural and Science Center Building on the Science Island will act as the catalyst for
the development of new ideas, philosophies and ideologies.
Along with this notion of regional needs for the new center, the provided island for
the new building has its vast open nature to embrace the new idea to be a part of its
nature ground. The island is the main bridge to connect the south to the north of the
Kaunas. Its function is quite cultural and fundamental to maintain its natural
environment yet to provide activities for public. To foster those mentioned functions,
our main concern has been decisively driven to locate the new building into the
center of the island to ease the approaches for people from both the south and the
north region. In addition to its location, we intend to minimize the height of
architectural form by visually open up the view to both directions.
In order to enhance the idea mentioned above, the existing roads are connected
each other at the central location. The created central core becomes the source of
the function to begin the form of the new building and at the same time to create public space around it. In this centralized design approach, building programs are
allocated accordingly by offsetting the circulation from the core. Furthermore, the
core becomes a location for the renewable energy retrofit, a solar tree, which is
created not only for gaining electrical power but also for public views by providing
open gallery under the solar tree and a deck at the top.
To further explaining of solar energy, through the use of non‐conventional prism
solar panel, the gaining power from the solar tree will supply sufficient electrical
power enough to function for the entire building for heating, cooling, general lighting
even in such a rainy and gloomy climate. Besides, it makes the circulation to be as
fluid and dynamic as possible. As one enters the building from the southwest of the
island, one is greeted with a spacious well‐lit lobby that magnetizes the visitor and
invites him/her to begin their journey around the experiential circulation that
revolves around the center, passing the cafeteria, the three major galleries (human,
machine and nature) as well as the plant and preparation space, the virtual
laboratory and the flexible event spaces.
To conclude, the roof governs the infrastructure strategy and is the driving element
of the form as it begins to act as a buffer between the interior and the exterior of the
building. The roof has three functions; one, to improve the interconnectivity of the
site, two, to create pockets of space in between each bridge that intercepts the
interior circulation for access to the outdoor spaces like the amphitheater, the
playground, etc. and lastly, to act as a canopy for the spaces below.