Humanistiska Teatern

Widening participation

140 seats are placed in a horseshoe arrangement on a steep gradient around a central area. This layout enables all present to make eye contact with each other. On the wall at the open end of the horseshoe, a 32 sqm interactive display opens the debate to participants around the world.

Microphones and speakers are integrated in the ceiling, making speaker microphones obsolete. Someone on the eight row can converse with someone on first row across the room, without raising voices. The acoustics can also be adjusted to recreate the sound of a church, or cave, depending on the ambience required.

Embedding art within design

A sophisticated curved façade faces the botanical gardens and Blåsenhus Campus to the south. This is clad with bronze-colored aluminum sheets, perforated by hexagonal-punched patterns, inspired by the nature of Linnaeus. This piece of public art was designed by the Norwegian-Danish international artist, Ann Lislegaard in conjunction with Statens Konstråd – State Arts Council. At night, strategic lighting adds drama to the façade, illuminating the building and artwork.

The computational design system developed by Dsearch ensured that the orthogonal motif was correctly projected onto the the façade, and translated from a vector-based image into hexagonal die cut patterns distributed over the 323 panels.