Sloping Productions

Elanca Gwee Charlene

The aim of the renovation is to push the current Gifu Municipal Hall into a more activated space for the city. This is done by building a network to both the local and historical resources in the city of Gifu.

There are several parades and festivals in Gifu, one of them being the Nobunaga Festival. From the “Before” poster, this annual parade occurs along the Nagarabashi-dori stretch of road, past the Gifu City Hall. The proposal, as seen in the “After” poster, is to connect this parade with the New Gifu City Hall and Media Cosmos, and have it end at the Municipal Hall, which shall be renamed as Sloping Productions.

The interior spaces can be divided into two notable groups: the cylindrical volume and the L-shaped volume. Half of the spaces in the L-shaped volume remains unchanged; on the other hand, the cylindrical volume will experience a huge renovation. Yellow means features that are removed while red means features that are added.

As seen in the section plans, the stairs from the first floor will bring the visitors directly down to the basement floor. While descending the stairs, they will enter a void space between the cylindrical and L-shaped volume.

The previous auditorium seating spaces as well as the ceiling in the cylindrical volume have been completely removed. This provides an exposed basement floor, which can be used as both a production space where the props and costumes of external parades are created, as well as a performance space as depicted in the section plan. As the visitors can stand on the stage to view down at the performance space, it creates the atmosphere of an informal, reversed performance setting, which could spark the interest of the public.

There are ramps to transport the people in between the different floors. Visitors are also able to stand along the ramps to view down at the production-cum-performance space. The ramp from the basement floor to the stage is able to withstand vehicles; these vehicles facilitates the transport of heavy props from the basement space, to the stage, and then out of Sloping Productions via an existing backstage door.

In the basement floor, wheelchair-bound people can enter the cylindrical volume via the carpark ramps. Several walls have been removed to create the exposed production-cum-performance space in the basement of the cylindrical volume. Space “7” now functions as the informal performance space’s backdoor. The ramp to the stage is wide enough to accommodate small vehicles.

At the first floor, the auditorium space is completely removed. Several glass walls from the L-shaped volume have also been removed to expose Sloping Productions to its surroundings. The ramps continue from the stage, to the first floor, and then to the second floor; it is noted that the first floor of the cylindrical volume does not physically connect with the first floor of the L-shaped volume, but instead are separated by a void space.

For the first route, visitors can travel northward, down a small ramp, to see the Japanese room. This Japanese room serves as a visual connection from Sloping Productions to the Mieji Kannon, a temple just across the road. From there, they can then enter the exhibition galleries that act as a mini museum to showcase the different props and costumes that are created in the exposed production basement space. From there, they can exit the second floor of the L-shaped volume via the spiral stairways. For the wheelchair bound, visitors can take the elevator to the first floor, denoted as space “6” in the floor plan.

For the second route, visitors can simply use the stairs to descend to the first floor, where they will enter the void space between the cylindrical and L-shaped volume.