Bauhaus Museum Part 1 Project 2009 Scott Bennion University of Strathclyde | UK The Concept of a ‘journey’ was derived from wanting to create a connection between the two individual and separate spaces (the urban and the park) by using the museum as the link. The user would travel from the urban through the museum and finish the journey in the park, one entity, an idea that I continued inside on the concept of the stairwell. The central stairwell is the main focus of the design, it allows for a resting place between gallery spaces. The idea was that the user had to travel through each gallery space before accessing the next set of stairs making the whole experience more cohesive. The long wall is the connection between the two spaces. The user has this connection from the main street level, all the way through to the park. This way was designed to create a new datum line which, externally the upper floors appear to be resting on. The ground floor contains all the amenities (cafe, tickets, cloakroom etc) which, has a feeling of transparency, so the user always has a connection to the park.The sections were designed to allow every gallery to have some access to a roof light to allow natural lighting in these spaces. The seemingly simple and clear outer cube was designed to subvert the complexity of the internal journey. The project submitted for the RIBA Bronze Medal by this student is their final Year 3 semester U/G thesis proposal for a new Bauhaus Museum for Weimar, Germany.The site is situated on the edge of the Ilm Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site. The Bauhaus Museum would be the third building forming a chain of prominent buildings on the edge of the Ilm Park. Added to this the Bauhaus Museum would be close to the University campus, the birthplace of the Bauhaus. One of the major challenges of the site was to design a building that would formulate a strong address towards the town rather than the park. This would be in keeping with the castle and the Library, both of which have their entrances facing the town.This student has proposed a well-sited, clear cubic building, respecting the park and the existing urban context, while retaining a strong separate identity. A long wall stretches to the entrance to meet the Marienstrasse, which can be seen as the spine of the campus. The wall also pushes a corridor through the building to meet the park on the other side. The entrance opens into a hall allowing the visitor to comprehend the vertical dimension of the building from the inside. The stairs can be admired for their well-designed sculptural qualities and at a first glance, the central space seems to be a huge stairwell drawing each visitor directly into the uppermost exhibition spaces. At a second glance, one realises that they are part of the overall circuit; each visitor has to follow the main circuit of each floor before entering the next stair. In this way, the horizontal and vertical circuit is interwoven in quite a complex and unusual manner. The sections show a rich variety of different, well -proportioned exhibition spaces. There is a fine balance between a seemingly simple and clear outer cube and a complex interweaving of horizontal and vertical spaces on the inside. The proposal is a complex, sophisticated and at the same time very coherent building. Tutor(s)Mr Michael Angus