The Architectural Association’s 2009 Summer Pavilion
The Architectural Association School of Architecture has unveiled their 2009 summer pavilion in London’s Bedford Square. The pavilion’s concept author, Danecia Sibingo, and her three team members, Lyn Hayek, Yoojin Kim, and Taeyoung Lee have named their work “Driftwood”
Inspired by images of the Jordanian city of Petra, Sibingo sought a sensuous and overwhelming spatial effect which she achieved with her original ‘Driftwood Space’ concept. Sibingo’s ideas were manifested through a computer-generated script which manipulated the movement of lines in a continuous parallel fashion, creating line drawings which formed the basis of a plan. Her interests revolved around carving, eroding and layering. She was joined by the other three team members who each added their own input, character and flavour to enrich the project. The final design consists of twenty-eight layers of plywood which conceal an overall internal ‘Kerto’ (a renewable spruce plywood) structural system.
Photographer Nathan Willock has provided us with some photos of the pavilion:
Photography by Nathan Willock – www.nathanwillock.com
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aramartis on 03 Jul 2009 at 10:37 am #
Just wondering if all that wood is from a sustainable resource.
Joshua on 03 Jul 2009 at 2:17 pm #
I think the wood is from FinnForest.
http://www.finnforest.co.uk
Will Matias on 04 Jul 2009 at 2:21 pm #
I thought the same! But I’m sure it is, otherwise the city wouldn’t have allowed it, right?
Jana Rock on 06 Jul 2009 at 2:02 am #
I really like the third picture…
The sculpture reminds me of a Jeff Koons or Paul McCarthy. Not sure how usable the ‘pavilion’ is as a space-need to inspect closer!
Tim Denning on 06 Jul 2009 at 4:33 am #
As a “thing” it’s nice to look at but as a pavilion it’s a total failure
It’s a shame they didn’t do something a little more useful with the idea.
Feras El Attar on 28 Aug 2009 at 9:07 am #
This pavilion isn’t just ‘a thing’ – it is an example of ‘programmatically light’ and ephemeral architecture, and a symbol of hot and current architecture students’ work that is different and curious. The design originally incorporated seating (function did feature!), but due to a very tight schedule that aspect remained under-developed and was consequently dropped. People often forget how difficult it is to get a project like this designed and built in under 6 months (excluding early conceptual design phases).
The wood is 100% sustainable and came from our sponsors, Finnforest.
It is more spatially complex than what first meets the eye. The plan is symmetrical, but the 3-dimensional execution is not. It is a temporary landmark and an actively used meeting-point. Whether it is to be seen as a sculpture or architecture, it has certainly received controversy in both worlds, and it questions the degree and ways in which art and architecture depend on each other.
It is a shame that the press often fails to express that this project involved 12 students (myself being one of them) supported by 2 tutors, a workshop guru, and an engineer – who all made this pavilion possible.
Adam on 03 Dec 2009 at 6:27 pm #
I’m a second year post grad student and think that the language your using in this design has amazing potential to be put into more functional structure.
Im more annoyed by the fact i have been working on a similar looking design that i thought was breaking into a new type of architecture to as many times before find its already been done. Anyway great work