+Laban Dance Center. Laban South East, London. Named after famous choreographer and pioneer of Laban Dance,
Rudolf Laban founder of this modern dance school, one of the largest of its kind in Europe. The center was designed by Herzog & de Meuron. Laban dance main focus is human movement and acts as a language for describing, visualizing, interpreting and documenting all forms of it. The overall design of the dance center encompasses the true meaning and purpose of laban. Laban created a 7 link form that signifies movable change. It is made up of 2 small forms and 5 larger forms. Insinuating motion, the form creates a spiral, playing with light and geometric shapes. A few design intents of the overall project were high accessibility and universal design for all able and non abled bodies, open streetscape feeling, colors for wayfinding, modern, differentiation between public and private spaces, varying sizes of studio spaces, exposed ducts ‘nothing is hidden,’ lots of broken angles, On a sustainability and programmatic standpoint there is an abundance of natural lighting, seen through interior light-wells and opaque exterior cladding, acoustically sound theater and studio spaces, brown roofs and main viewpoints in the building highlight the surrounding cityscape. Our tour was lead by a former student at Laban, and she was able to give us a critical standpoint from a users view. She suggested a few things the designer could have considered were social spaces for the dancers and stretching areas, lower impact flooring for dancers to make a transition from the spring board floors to break areas, and better ventilation and cooling. Lastly a few high points of the overall design were how the exterior cladding changes from opaque during the daytime to more transparent in the evenings, allowing the silhouettes of the dancers in their studios to be seen from the exterior. Along with this, she mentioned how her favorite space in the building was the hallway to nowhere. She also talked about how students will use this hallway or the various light wells as showcases for their work. Thus highlighting how users shape and define the spaces that they inhabit. Laban in my opinion, is a great example of user based design, and executed the overall concept of the design very successfully. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laban_Movement_Analysis http://detail-online.com/inspiration/
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