SITE:
The forecourt in front of the entrance rotunda is a long triangle; it’s separated into a large triangular lawn at the sidewalk and a granite plaza at the doorway, with a small trapezoidal lawn tin the corner. Two trees remain in the large lawn, and one in the small lawn; on the plaza, another tree functions as the center of a traffic turnaround. The forecourt slopes down away from the building: the granite plaza is elevated three meters above the sidewalk, while the tip of the triangular lawn, and the beginning of the walkway, are at ground level. Three accesses lead toward the building: a granite walkway at the edge of the triangular lawn, a stairway at one side of the plaza, and a driveway at the other side. The front of the building is the convex curve of a rotunda; propped up above the rotunda is a ring; its surface, inside and out, is a like the surface of the building, a grid of white metal panels.

PROJECT:
The building floats out of itself, the top of the building floats out over the forecourt and down onto the ground.

The ring on top of the rotunda is cloned, in smaller sizes; the largest clone is ten-percent smaller than the existent ring – each successive clone is ten-percent smaller than the one before. The cloned rings waft like clouds over the courtyard; each smaller ring descends closer to the ground; the smallest rings come down to earth, onto the grass and the granite walkways.

Like ghosts of the existent ring, like spirits, the cloned rings disappear into light. Each smaller ring is stripped of more of its surface, about fifteen-percent more; a cube of white-painted metal is replaced by a cube of light; cube after cube of metal is replaced by cube after cube of light. The smallest ring has no metal left; it’s a ring of light, it sinks like a meteor inside the grass slope next to the sidewalk.

As the rings float over the forecourt, they ‘take’ the forecourt, they ‘take in’ places within the forecourt; like lariats, they rope in places for people. From a ring floating up in the air, two rows of cubes slide down toward the ground; the columns that support the ring are disguised as tracks for the descending cubes, like chains for a swing. One row of cubes remains suspended overhead, at room-height, while the bottom row reaches the ground, where it’s used as seating; you sit under a lintel of cubes, some painted and some lit, as if in a cubicle; in the middle of the public space, you’re enclosed within an intimate space. When a ring is on the ground, rows of cubes within the ring are lowered into the ground, allowing entrance into the circle; you step over a threshold, into a circular room.

You sit within the circular rooms. Rows of cubes on the ground make benches, for groups of people; two cubes, one on either side of a cube sunk into the ground, make face-to-face seating. Since the floating rings overlap, at different heights, the seats from one ring are intertwined with the seats from another. You might sit within your own circle, facing other people inside that circle; or you might sit facing out, encountering people from a neighboring circle.

Rings float over the accesses to the building, like canopies. One ring, settled on the trapezoidal lawn in front of the building, cantilevers over the sidewalk beside the building; one ring is suspended over the stairway up to the plaza; a few rings hang over the granite walkway alongside the triangular lawn. You walk under the rings on your way to the building; the rings rope you in; the building floats out, the building floats down to meet you as you walk toward it.

As the rings come down to earth, they encircle the trees in the forecourt; it’s as if they’ve been pulled there, they have something to grab onto; sitting within the circle, you sit around a tree. At the tree on the plaza, in front of the building, cubes that slide down from the ring function as bollards for the traffic turnaround.

As the white metal cubes turn into light, they make a sign for the Siemens Company, a sign without words. (The light might stay on during the day; the light might be a strobe light, visible during the day – the feelers that float out from the building might pulsate with light – it’s as if the rings, now that they float away from the building, are ready to take off.)