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How to provide a unique visual and perceptual attraction in a wild field near the high-speed railway? Build a See Sound Tower, an acoustic installation, a place to listen and watch. In order to create a public attraction near the high-speed railway, the local government organized a design competition, in searching of twelve different forest watchtowers in a grand belt forest along the railway, a future public greenery divided into eight thematic sections. These watchtowers are expected to form a continuous landscape, all symbolic, showcasing the unique experiences in this forest corridor, both for the visitors in this greenary and the travelers passing by with trains. The site Atelier Archmixing was designated locates in the Civic Cultural and Leisure Park, one of the urban section for this forest corridor, next to an urban Park and a Village. A tower in the middle of the wilderness? The designer wondered: what will attract people to this place? What will drive them to climb the tower? What can they see and experience during this process? In a wild field between the high-speed railway and the highway, sounds of the place must be distinctive, wind whistling in the wilderness, car engines roaring, trains screaming away. Energies are transferring among different substances, all sounds constitute the shape of the place. So our design concept, the See Sound Tower took shape. This structure is like an ear that captures the surrounding sounds; a musical instrument that interacts with the sounds of the site. It will respond to the wind and birds, to the driving by high-speed trains, to the noise of the motorway. It will fluctuate with the breath of the site. It is a tower turning sounds into sounds, a tower shapes space with sounds. The See Sound Tower is a conical tower, 27 meter high, 9 meter in radius at the lower entrance and 3 meter in radius at the upper entrance, housing three ear canal-like chambers with different finishes to process sounds. The left space within the cone structure forms the fourth cavity. The steel meshwork supporting these four chambers is concealed by the translucent acrylic skin system. The ascending staircase is attached to the outer surface of the whole structure. After reaching the top platform, you can follow the descending staircase inside the fourth chamber, which, supported by the main structure, wandering through spaces between three chambers until reach the ground again. These cavities, stairs and shells thus form an experiential system where you can climb outside and inside. When covered with different absorbing or reflecting materials, they also result in diverse sound qualities, constituting a multiple perceptual and reflection experience of listening, seeing and introspecting.
See Sound Tower is an installation for grasping and transforming energies, made up of four vast auditory 'organs', through which, people travel, climbing up and down, searching for particular sounds and discovering views interwoven by fields, sky and trains. Energy transfers between various matters, the sound experience profiles the space.
The tower’s structure is like an ear that captures the surrounding sounds; a musical instrument that interacts with the sounds of the site. The See Sound Tower is a conical tower, 27 meter high, 9 meter in radius at the lower entrance and 3 meter in radius at the upper entrance, housing three ear canal-like chambers with different finishes to process sounds. The left space within the cone structure forms the fourth cavity. The steel meshwork supporting these four chambers is concealed by the translucent acrylic skin system.
