Gold Coast Cultural Precinct

In early 2013, the Council of the City of Gold Coast, Australia called for an international competition involving 75 architectural offices. Participants included Pritzker Prize winners Zaha Hadid Architects, Foster + Partners, Rem Koolhaas with his firm OMA. Studio Cachoua Torres Camilletti was the only Mexican firm that qualified as semifinalists, among just ten other firms. The project was located in a park surrounded by channels of Gold Coast. It would contain a main building incorporating a museum, cinema, theater, workshops, library, shops, among other uses. Studio CTC designed the main building as a mound of grass in the park center and proposed to split the park in two by a large artificial navigation channel that would feature a pedestrian walkway to access all activities. Within the park, Studio CTC proposed to place large screens that have the function of "digital portals": The users could communicate, see and bee seen (with the help of an array microphones and HD cameras embedded in the portal) from spaces in other parts of the world in real time. They could jog along and speak to a person on the other side of the world, digitally connecting the park to sister parks elsewhere. There were structures throughout the park, laid out on specific nodes defined by a mesh of Thiessen polygons, this structures were defined as "generators” that created specific activities on the site and enclosed spaces that would accommodate basic sustainability requirements, such as dumpsters, recycling areas, battery containers, bathrooms, Wi-Fi emitters, among others. The project was well received by the judges, and secured a spot among the semifinalists from reputable companies; thereby confirming that we are moving in small steps towards our goal in transcending the architecture of our times.