Some ideas on Broad Chare and amplifiers in architecture

The proposed site for Finnish Institute - Broad Chare or Trinity Court - is on Newcastle Quayside - the part facing a cultural belt of redeveloped Gateshead Quays: BALTIC centre for contemporary arts, pedestrian Millennium Bridge, The Sage music and arts centre, tourist information centre - Gateshead Heritage in St. Mary's Church and extending to the Riverside Sculpture park in PipewellGate.





The site is an evidence of a rich history of Newcastle Quays - busy marine commerce in 18th century and later, marine industries on the River Tyne. Most of the chares - little alleys that created an extraordinary urban feature - have been destroyed after the great fire. But some still remain around the site.


Newcastle Quayside map from 1732:



For the Finnish Institute I deliberatelychose a culturally and socially rich environment surrounded by multiple institutions with very contrasting (well... i will try to prove that not really) activities. Perfectly interactive area to develop my strategies in.













Following my idea of creating a place for the Finnish Institute's social networking from the beginning I aimed to create a kind of Transmitter/Receiver space which would in some way either absorb or release the energy (energy here can be understood metaphorically - as in potential ideas coming from collaborations, experience of professionals of different/contrasting disciplines - and literally - heat energy, accumulation of steam in a sauna*).



Some diagrams explaining the architectural strategy of providing transmitter spaces ( release of energy), receiver spaces (accumulation of energy) and amplifiers (boosting energetic flow: spaces for unexpected collaborations, accidental meeting spaces, venues, spaces of action).
I find it hard to somehow define whether a certain space required by the brief would necessarily be a transmitter or receiver, because both happen simultaneously, however, I have the idea of the main energetic axis in the building: RADIO and SAUNA. These spaces and activities happening within them somehow draw the boundaries for the scheme and ideally, establish it as a kind of apparatus driven by the fuel of creative collaborations. In other words, like an organism fully dependent on the efficiency of circulation/energetic flow within. The building itself becomes an organization?