Located in downtown Kent, Ohio, this media house is a structure that encapsulates many alternate forms of entertainment and education. The building allows for each program to work together and create a community within, thriving off one another. One portion of the building dedicated to entertainment, it involves a recital hall, black-box theater, and media editing suite. While an educational side houses an office, lecture room, classroom, digital media library, and a gallery. All complemented by a rooftop café, which functions as a bar at night.
What allows for all these programs to be cohesive within the structure is their form. The form-finding for this project explores the idea of cantilevers and heads, as occupiable spaces. The combination of these two, along with the main mass of the building, creates three cantilevered heads that are escaping from the mass. These heads each have their own program assigned but are connected to each other through the base of the heads. This is important to how the programs work together, having a common space that is easily accessible by all. Not only do these heads, connected to a single space allow for cohesiveness. But they each have large glass panels that allow the outside to look in, another important part of the form of the building. The idea is to draw outside viewers to the building, with many viewports on all sides, and entrances that allow access from multiple sides as well.
