Project Description
This design project can be perceived as a pavilion or installation piece that could be experienced and viewed by walking through it, or being in it.
There must be a place that is about sitting, a place that is about standing, and a place that is about lying down, and in some cases they may be shared.
The site is perceived as a blank slate on a field with no significant topography or features.
The maximum size of all three spaces together is 200 square feet.
This is an individual project.
Software: AutoCAD, SketchUp, Enscape, Photoshop, InDesign
Narrative
The conceptual idea of this project is to emphasize that the increased mobility and flexibility of one architectural component can reduce the spatial constraints and ignite more diverse and free experiences, no matter how tiny the space is and how minimal the spatial configuration is. Therefore, more potentials and possibilities can be explored to fulfill people’s different requirements.
In this project, materiality and structural techniques are explored to realize a stationary pavilion that is highlighted through its adoption of a sliding partition. It is a space for which its status can be transformed from open to enclosed within different circumstances.
The primary raw material is dry bamboo, a sustainable resource that is planted, collected and manufactured to realize new architectural solutions. This material originally is hollow poles that can be simply processed and then arranged and combined through different techniques to form an architectural component with quite a natural look, or be manufactured and become laminated bamboo planks or solid dowels/rods to satisfy structural needs. In this project both methods are employed to suggest the variation of single materiality: the natural bamboo poles are tied by ropes and framed by aluminum sheets to form a still curved wall, while some laminated bamboo rods are erected and attached to a curved pulley-and-track system at both ends and combined with a canvas curtain to forma sliding accordion partition. In the second method, the aforementioned mobility and flexibility are embodied by the characteristics of sliding and folding. By combining this still curve wall and the sliding partition, a circular space is defined by these two primary components, either open, semi-enclosed, or fully enclosed depending on the maneuver of the sliding partition.
Inside the circular space, there is the addition of a curved chair, a roof plate and two circular stages all made of aluminum plates. These simple and plain components look minimal but are full of possibilities of usage. For example, by fully closing the sliding partition a private talk can be held inside without interference, and the whole pavilion can become a performance pod when performers open the sliding partition and stand on the stages. By taking advantage of the sliding partition, the pavilion is better connected with the surrounding space.
In terms of the location and the surrounding environment, the functionality and potential user of those secondary components are significant to consider. For the pavilion in this project, the two aluminum stages would have been used the most often in the urban area, such as public plazas, where there is a greater desire for a raised platform to make a voice in the crowd or a peaceful and quiet pod for a private meeting. All kinds of activities will have a chance to take place here.
