How can architecture transform cultural heritage into an experience rather than something simply observed?

The Interactive Centre for Art & Culture is an academic proposal located in Santa Bárbara de Samaná, Dominican Republic, exploring the relationship between culture, tourism, landscape and public space.

Developed by architecture students Laura Guzmán, Franklin Castillo and Emily Burgos during Design IX at PUCMM, the project proposes a new cultural destination designed to celebrate Dominican identity while contributing to the activation of Samaná’s waterfront.

Rather than conceiving culture as something contained exclusively within a museum, the proposal expands the experience across buildings, landscape, public spaces, the Malecón and the waterfront.

The result is conceived as both a cultural institution and an urban destination.

Culture as an Experience

The starting point of the project was the cultural richness of the Dominican Republic and the opportunity to create a place where visitors could encounter its history, art and identity through a more interactive format.

The project therefore moves away from a conventional model in which the visitor simply observes an exhibition.

Instead, interaction becomes part of the architectural experience.

Visitors determine their own routes, move between different programmes and engage with the elements that capture their attention.

The user becomes the author of the journey.

Why Samaná?

Located on the northeastern coast of the Dominican Republic, Samaná has a strong relationship with tourism, landscape, history and the sea.

These conditions made the city an opportunity to explore cultural architecture beyond the limits of a single building.

The intervention incorporates the waterfront along Avenida Marina and establishes relationships with the existing port and Malecón.

Rather than introducing an isolated cultural object, the proposal considers how architecture could participate in a larger network of public space, tourism and urban activity.

Learning From the Mangrove

The architectural concept emerges from one of the region’s characteristic natural systems:

the mangrove.

Mangroves do not operate as isolated elements.

Their roots overlap, connect and create complex networks between land and water.

The students studied this behaviour and translated its qualities of lightness, connectivity and movement into the organisation of the project.

A central architectural volume follows the topography and acts as the principal connective element from which the different programme blocks emerge.

Like the roots of a mangrove, the architecture creates multiple connections and possible paths rather than a single predetermined route.

Architecture as a Network

The project is therefore understood less as one building and more as a connected cultural system.

The central circulation spine links the specialised programme blocks while allowing visitors to continuously move between architecture, landscape and public space.

Each building maintains its own identity while remaining dependent on the larger network.

The concept transforms circulation from a purely functional requirement into one of the principal architectural experiences of the project.

Connection becomes architecture.

Three Cultural Anchors

The approximately 78,887 m² intervention is organised around three principal cultural programmes.

Block A — Museum

The museum provides spaces dedicated to art, history and cultural interpretation, forming one of the primary anchors of the complex.

Block B — Library

The library introduces a programme centred on knowledge, research and learning, expanding the centre beyond exhibition into education and discovery.

Block C — Auditorium

The auditorium accommodates performances and larger cultural events, introducing another way of experiencing and participating in culture.

Spaces Between Programmes

Between the three principal blocks, additional programmes create transitions.

The AB Block functions as an exhibition hall between the museum and library.

The BC Block introduces conference facilities between the library and auditorium.

These intermediate programmes reinforce the project’s conceptual logic.

Rather than treating buildings as isolated objects, architecture becomes a sequence of interconnected experiences.

Extending Into the Waterfront

The intervention continues beyond the principal cultural buildings.

A commercial volume located along the Malecón introduces rentable spaces capable of supporting additional public and economic activity.

The port addresses maritime movement, reinforcing the relationship between the project and Samaná’s coastal identity.

A pedestrian bridge acts as another major connector, physically linking different parts of the intervention and extending the architectural journey across the site.

The cultural centre therefore becomes part building, part landscape and part urban infrastructure.

Culture, Tourism & Public Space

The project proposes culture as a catalyst for a broader transformation.

Museums, libraries and auditoriums provide formal cultural programmes.

But plazas, promenades, bridges, landscape and waterfront spaces allow cultural life to extend beyond their walls.

Visitors do not simply arrive, enter a building and leave.

They move through a sequence of experiences connected to the city and the landscape.

This creates an opportunity for architecture to simultaneously support cultural identity, tourism and public life.

From Mangrove to Cultural Landscape

The strength of the proposal lies in translating an environmental system into an architectural one.

The mangrove provides more than a visual reference.

Its logic of roots, networks, connections and adaptation between land and water becomes a way of organising the entire project.

Architecture becomes the framework connecting museum, library, auditorium, exhibitions, commerce, port, landscape and city.

And through those connections, the Interactive Centre for Art & Culture proposes a different way of experiencing cultural architecture:

not as a single destination, but as a landscape to explore.

Project
Interactive Centre for Art & Culture

Location
Santa Bárbara de Samaná · Dominican Republic

Students
Laura Guzmán · Franklin Castillo · Emily Burgos

Area
78,886.98 m²

Concept
Mangrove · Connection · Movement · Cultural Landscape

Programme
Museum · Library · Auditorium · Exhibition Hall · Conference Hall · Commercial Spaces · Port · Public Space

Topics
Cultural Architecture · Dominican Identity · Tourism · Waterfront · Public Space · Landscape · Urban Connectivity

Course
Design IX · EAD–PUCMM

Professor
Sarah Tió

Type
Academic Student Project