The project is inspired by Michael Haneke’s film adaptation of Elfriede Jelenek’s controversial book The Piano Teacher. The film portrays a tragedy unfolding in a Viennese conservatoire. As the building houses a cultural institution, Haneke uses its spatial and material qualities extensively to convey tensions between the characters and their positions in classical music’s world order.

Inspired by the film’s vivid description of spaces in which the characters live and work, I set myself a goal to design a small conservatoire in Rainham that, had it existed at the time of the film's shooting, would have been a perfect scenography for Haneke’s film. Employing architecture’s potential to divide and merge space, as well as veil, reveal and frame views, the building creates an environment where spaces are clearly divided to segregate different characters, who are at the same time never fully separated from each other. This allows the building’s users to feel and see the tensions created by the existing hierarchy.