Room for Creativity; An Exploration of a new Timber Cultural Centre in central Gothenburg

Abstract

The thesis explores the design of a new cultural centre at Pusterviksplatsen in central Gothenburg, envisioned as an inclusive urban meeting place that promotes creativity, participation and cultural exchange. The proposal responds to the city’s ambition to strengthen its cultural infrastructure and integrate art and culture into urban development. The project proposal is a three-storey cultural centre with an exposed timber load-bearing construction and an open spatial organisation intended to encourage movement, encounters, and interaction throughout the building. The architectural expression consists of three inner cores made of cross laminated timber with rounded corners, contrasting the more strict and orthogonal facade. The programme includes a 420-seat multipurpose hall, a library, exhibition spaces, and creative studios for music, art, ceramics and other forms of creative practices, bringing together public events and everyday creative practice within the same building. How an expressive timber construction can inform architectural form, atmosphere and spaces to foster social interaction and engagement is explored in the thesis. A central theme is the use of contrasts both in form and material expression; between soft interior forms and the strict exterior expression, as well as between open and enclosed spaces. The theoretical framework draws on Peter Zumthor’s concept of atmospheres and contemporary research on engineered timber structures such as glulam and cross-laminated timber (CLT), as well as Ernst Neufert’s principles for the design of multipurpose halls, particularly in relation to flexibility, acoustics, and spatial form. The methodology is based on research by design and combines literature review, case study analysis, and iterative prototyping to explore how materiality, light, and exposed construction shape spatial experience. Reference projects, including Sara Kulturhus, World of Volvo, Wisdome, and Nodi, serve as reference points for sustainable and expressive timber architecture. The thesis results in an architectural proposal that examines how a cultural centre can combine social and environmental sustainability with structural logic and architectural expression, while contributing with a new civic space in central Gothenburg.