Beeline, Lisbon, Portugal

Beeline is an architectural intervention that occupies the entirety of the Amanda Levete-designed MAAT museum in Lisbon.

Our installation models interaction. It not only alters the experience of the existing architecture, but also the relationships between MAAT and the city of Lisbon, the public and the institution, and between museum-goers and the museum. Beeline explores how space, time and play can redefine the relevance of cultural institutions.

The city is introduced to a new clandestine entrance to the museum through the loading dock. An additional pathway dissects the MAAT building both in plan and section. This gesture not only transforms the way visitors enter and experience the museum, but the way the public experiences the city at large; the shortcut through the institution links the new access point to the waterfront side directly. The transformation opens up the building to new perspectives, and challenges traditional museums’ implied hierarchies of space. The ever-evolving organization is afforded newfound agility.

Inside the passage, an assortment of stretch fabrics of varying transparency describes spaces and opportunities for further interactions: sound capsules, video rooms, elevated pathways, stage sets, hammocks, a trampoline. The whole of the structure imbues the museum with the capacity for reciprocal experiences and encounters as a forum for discourse.

A reconfigurable open storage system and mobile staging structure, both deployable according to fluctuating needs and programs are now permanent design assets.

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