African Design Magazine October 2016 | Page 21

African project Kintele Congress Centre – The Congo Republic landing T he positioning of the buildings on the site is largely dictated by this topography where Avci Architects focused on minimising excessive excavation and shifting of earth away from the site. The larger objects of the programme: the 1 500 seat Congress Hall, the 300 person Presidential Hall, the 1000 seat Banquet Hall and the 1 000 person Public Piazza, were placed in a line sequence interrupted by courtyards, and all reached by a public sheltered colonnade that links these elements. The Hotel, on the other hand, is positioned 5m above this general public promenade, largely to provide better views to the river, while making a public/private segregation of functions on the site. All but two courtyards linking the enclosed volumes are accessible to the public, which allowed the architects to form landscaped intermissions amongst the large masses of these functions. Thus the form of the KCC settles in to the africandesignmagazine.com 21