Hasta La Ideas

An inflatable pavilion covered with a clear tensile membrane has been installed in east London by Paris architects Atelier Zündel Cristea (+ slideshow).

A continuous white tube twists and undulates to create a three-armed form that visitors can walk or sit underneath and climb on top of.

“The design of the structure is a simple topological deformation of a torus and the shape was mathematically generated,” the architects told us.

The clear plastic sheet stretched over the top and attached with zips forms a springy surface, which can be reached by clambering up one of the sections that touch the ground.

An anodised aluminium platform with the same plan as the inflated structure forms the base, anchored to the ground at six points around the edge.

Atelier Zündel Cristea‘s design won first prize in a summer pavilion competition organised by ArchTriumph.

It is located in Museum Gardens in the east London area of Bethnal Green, next to the Museum of Childhood, and will be in place until 16 June.

Over in west London, this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Sou Foujimoto was unveiled earlier this week. See the first photos of the structure here, additional images here and watch our interview with Fujimoto here.

Our other stories that feature blow-up design include the entrance to last year’s Design Miami fair that was covered by inflatable sausages and a balloon shaped like a naked fat man pressed up against a gallery window.

See more inflatable architecture and design »
See more pavilion design »

Photography is by Sergio Grazia.

The architects sent us the following information:

Enhancing the experience of the city does not always require projects of significant cost and time, but can often come about as the result of modest, temporary interventions and events, in key places, at chosen times.

Our office is dedicated to the conception of interventions likely to appeal to city residents, transforming the way in which they view the places around them and the practices possible in their cities.

Human beings carry within them nostalgia of a primordial happiness from ancient times. The notion of a return to these origins of happiness is often associated with Nature.

Our intention is to encourage inhabitants to participate in fun, uncommon events taking place within the urban landscape: an inflatable bridge equipped with giant trampolines rises above the Seine, a pavilion erected in a London park, a museum traversed by a roller coaster.

These projects offer, in the heart of the city, new forms of Elysian Fields, given over not to the Champs-Élysées of shopping and strictly urban activities, but rather to fundamental human practices, which liberate strong emotions calling on all our senses.

The site of this competition is the Museum Gardens, Cambridge Heath Road in Bethnal Green, London. It lies within the Tower Hamlets and Hackney boroughs. The gardens are on the English Heritage Register for Historic Parks and Gardens. It is approximately 1.05 hectares in size and is surrounded by: Cambridge Heath Road, Museum Passage, V&A Museum of Childhood, St John’s Church and Victoria Park Square. The site’s main use is as a recreational garden for living, working and visiting communities. Given it’s prominence within the community it serves, it is clear to us that it is important that the most is made of the site through our pavilion.

Our project responds to the desire to create a temporary transportable pavilion for the summer of 2013 in such a public space, with a need for inclusion, socializing, relaxation, discussion, reflection, escape, view and enjoyment of a high quality space.

It will provide an inspirational space where visiting architects, designers, families and the general public can stand and sit whilst admiring, embracing diversity and engaging with each other in discussions about design, the importance and benefits of peace and co-existence, or even novel stories they have to tell in a peaceful setting.

The Museum Gardens, and nature in general are the perfect settings to promote the idea of peace, to encourage the sharing of joyful stories and provoking discussions about architecture and design.

We propose a Pavilion which is visually and aesthetically engaging. We think it is capable of providing an ideal contemporary space which offers a sense of tranquility, beauty and an exceptional aesthetic value to the very heart of the Museum Gardens.

Peace is one of the highest possible human ideals. It is a state of equilibrium; it means NO WAR, but also harmony, silence, pureness, kindness, happiness, appeasement, calm, reconciliation, serendipity, tranquility…

To express all of these ideas, we have created a perfect and symmetrical sculpture, obtained by a precise geometrical manipulation. The beauty of the shape lies in its perfect symmetry and fluidity; we feel there is no need to explain it a great deal as it is a pavilion that speaks to everyone. It allows visitors looking at the volume for a split second to get a sense of the pavilion and its layout with minimum effort.

The symmetrical geometry of the pavilion blurs our notions of inside and outside, however the simple act of motion through the exterior and interior spaces of the pavilion bringing an understanding to the visitor.

The Pavilion is 4 meters in height and 20 square metres in area. Designed entirely with lightweight materials – 77.96m² of PVC membrane and 20m3 of air – our project is a self-supporting structure; it is easily scalable to inhabit larger dimensions of other sites.

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Atelier Zündel Cristea appeared first on Dezeen.

Here’s a full set of images from this year’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto (+ slideshow).

Unveiled this morning, Sou Fujimoto‘s design features a cloud-shaped grid of steel poles with varying density.

The sticks part to form two doorways and visitors can climb up onto transparent ledges within the structure.

They can also sit at cafe tables and chairs underneath, sheltered from above by a layer of transparent plastic discs.

The pavilion will open to the public from Saturday and remain in front of the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens until 20 October 2013.

Dezeen published the first photos of the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2013 from the press preview this morning, where Fujimoto explained how he wanted to “create a nice mixture of nature and architecture,” adding “that has been the great interest for me these last ten years.”

See more architecture by Sou Fujimoto on Dezeen, including a house that looks like scaffolding and a library with shelves on the outside.

The annual unpaid Serpentine Gallery Pavilion commission is one of the highlights in world architecture and goes to a high-profile architect who has not yet built in the UK. At 41, Fujimoto is the youngest to have accepted the invitation.

Past commissions include Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei, Peter Zumthor, Jean Nouvel, SANAA and Frank Gehry.

See our handy guide to all the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions »
Watch our interviews with Herzog & de Meuron at last year’s opening »
Watch our interview with Peter Zumthor in 2011 »

Photographs are by Jim Stephenson.

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Serpentine Gallery Pavilion appeared first on Dezeen.

News: researchers at MIT Media Lab’s Mediated Matter group have created a dome from silk fibres woven by a robotic arm, which was then finished by live silkworms (+ movie).

The project is intended to explore how digital and biological fabrication techniques can be combined to produce architectural structures.

The team programmed the robotic arm to imitate the way a silkworm deposits silk to build its cocoon. The arm then deposited a kilometre-long silk fibre across flat polygonal metal frames to create 26 panels. These panels were arranged to form a dome, which was suspended from the ceiling.

6500 live silkworms were then placed on the structure. As the caterpillars crawled over the dome, they deposited silk fibres and completed the structure.

The Silk Pavilion was designed and constructed at the MIT Media Lab as part of a research project to explore ways of overcoming the existing limitations of additive manufacturing at architectural scales.

Mediated Matter group director Neri Oxman believes that by studying natural processes such as the way silkworms build their cocoons, scientists can develop ways of “printing” architectural structures more efficiently than can be achieved by current 3D printing technologies.

“In traditional 3D printing the gantry-size poses an obvious limitation; it is defined by three axes and typically requires the use of support material, both of which are limiting for the designer who wishes to print in larger scales and achieve structural and material complexity,” Oxman told us earlier this year. “Once we place a 3D printing head on a robotic arm, we free up these limitations almost instantly.”

Oxman’s team attached tiny magnets to the heads of silkworms so they could motion-track their movements. They used this data to programme the robotic arm to deposit silk on the metal frames.

“We’ve managed to motion-track the silkworm’s movement as it is building its cocoon,” said Oxman. “Our aim was to translate the motion-capture data into a 3D printer connected to a robotic arm in order to study the biological structure in larger scales.”

Their research also showed that the worms were attracted to darker areas, so fibres were laid more sparsely on the sunnier south and east elevations of the dome.

See our story from March this year about the research behind the Silk Pavilion. Oxman’s digital fabrication work features in an article about 3D printing in architecture from our one-off publication Print Shift.

Other Dezeen stories about silk include this 2007 project by Design Academy Eindhoven graduate Elsbeth joy Nielsen, who used silkworms to weave flat silk panels, from which she made a scarf, lampshade and bath bag.

Last year, Simon Peers and Nicholas Godley wove a golden cape from silk extracted from a million wild spiders.

See more pavilion design »
See more design from MIT »

Mediated Matter Group sent us the following information:

Silk Pavilion – Mediated Matter Group at MIT Media Lab

The Silk Pavilion explores the relationship between digital and biological fabrication on product and architectural scales. The primary structure was created of 26 polygonal panels made of silk threads laid down by a CNC (Computer-Numerically Controlled) machine. Inspired by the silkworm’s ability to generate a 3D cocoon out of a single multi-property silk thread (1km in length), the overall geometry of the pavilion was created using an algorithm that assigns a single continuous thread across patches providing various degrees of density.

Overall density variation was informed by the silkworm itself deployed as a biological “printer” in the creation of a secondary structure. A swarm of 6,500 silkworms was positioned at the bottom rim of the scaffold spinning flat nonwoven silk patches as they locally reinforced the gaps across CNC-deposited silk fibers. Following their pupation stage the silkworms were removed. Resulting moths can produce 1.5 million eggs with the potential of constructing up to 250 additional pavilions.

Affected by spatial and environmental conditions including geometrical density as well as variation in natural light and heat, the silkworms were found to migrate to darker and denser areas. Desired light effects informed variations in material organisation across the surface area of the structure. A season-specific sun path diagram mapping solar trajectories in space dictated the location, size and density of apertures within the structure in order to lock-in rays of natural light entering the pavilion from South and East elevations. The central oculus is located against the East elevation and may be used as a sun-clock.

Parallel basic research explored the use of silkworms as entities that can “compute” material organization based on external performance criteria. Specifically, we explored the formation of non-woven fiber structures generated by the silkworms as a computational schema for determining shape and material optimisation of fiber-based surface structures.

Research and Design by the Mediated Matter Group at the MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto (TUFTS University) and Dr. James Weaver (WYSS Institute, Harvard University). Mediated Matter researchers include Markus Kayser, Jared Laucks, Carlos David Gonzalez Uribe, Jorge Duro-Royo and Neri Oxman (Director).

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to weave Silk Pavilion appeared first on Dezeen.

Twenty-thousand pieces of aluminium form a chain-mail blanket over this concrete performance venue in Winnipeg by Canadian firm 5468796 Architecture.

The Old Market Square Stage, also known as The Cube, was designed by 5468796 Architecture as the centrepiece of a recently remodelled public square by landscape architects Scatliff+Miller+Murray.

The chain-mail hangs like a curtain over the facade of the structure. During performances it can be hauled up out of the way to reveal a stage, while at other times it functions as a protective screen, shielding the interior.

“[It] throws out the old bandshell concept on the grounds that when a conventional stage is not in use it would look forlorn,” say the architects, explaining their concept for a structure that can “hibernate” during the city’s long winters.

Lighting fixtures and a projector have both been installed inside The Cube, allowing colours, images and movies to be projected over the metal surfaces.

A lawn in front of the structure doubles-up as a spectator area during performances, while a line of curving benches provide seating around the edges of the square.

Winnipeg-based 5468796 Architecture also recently completed another building in the city: an apartment block with mirrored balconies. See more architecture in Canada.

Another building we’ve featured with a chain-mail exterior is the Kukje art gallery in Seoul designed by SO-IL.

Read on more more information from 5468796 Architecture:

OMS Stage by 5468796 Architecture

“The Old Market Square Stage” (otherwise known as “The Cube”), OMS Stage for short, is an open-air performance venue situated in Old Market Square, an iconic green space and summer festival hub in Winnipeg’s historic Exchange District. In 2009, 5468796 Architecture won an invited competition with a multi-functional design that throws out the old bandshell concept on the grounds that when a conventional stage is not in use it would look forlorn – especially through the city’s long winters.

A concrete cube enclosed by a flexible metal membrane, The Cube functions as a multipurpose environment. The membrane is composed of 20,000 identical hollow aluminium pieces strung together on aircraft cables.

The orientation of the pieces alternates, forming a flexible and shimmering curtain – a contemporary take on medieval chain mail, that can stand like a wall, be pulled in to reveal the performance space, or function as a light-refracting surface – allowing it to morph into a projection screen, performance venue, shelter or sculptural object. The curtain’s flexibility also allows for acoustical fine tuning.

Internal lighting refracts through the mesh so that the The Cube softly glows on the outside. An internal projector also enables images to be projected on the front curtain. The membrane’s diamond extrusions capture and refract light and images to their outer surface, creating a unique pixel matrix for artists to appropriate at will.

Architect: 5468796 Architecture Inc.
Client: Winnipeg Exchange District BIZ

Location: Winnipeg, Manitoba
Project Area: 784 sqft (28’ x 28’)

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by 5468796 Architecture appeared first on Dezeen.

3Gatti Architecture Studio will add a facade of opening and closing steel umbrellas to Foreign Office Architects’ Madrid Pavilion from the 2010 Shanghai Expo (+ slideshow).

The new cladding will replace bamboo louvres that currently surround the glazed walls of the building, which was originally designed by the former London studio to accommodate an exhibition about low-cost housing for the six-month-long world fair.

The pavilion was converted into a retail and office complex once the Expo was over, but two years on the bamboo had started to rot and the steel frames were showing signs of rust, so the owners asked 3Gatti Architecture Studio of Rome and Shanghai to come up with a new design.

3Gatti has developed a facade of parasol-like screens that each fold open from a spring-loaded central joint. “We came up with this idea because on sunny days here, Shanghai is full of people with umbrellas,” chief architect Francesco Gatti told Dezeen. “Here they are very common objects used for sun shading.”

Just like with the existing bamboo shutters, occupants will be able to adjust the shades to control the light levels within the building. “The previous design of the Madrid Pavilion was a system controlled by the users moving the folding shades horizontally,” Gatti added. “We just changed the shades into a more familiar object.”

The architects will use perforated Corten steel to create the surface of each umbrella, as well as the panels in between. The ground floor elevations will be glazed to allow more visibility into the shops at this level.

Francesco Gatti founded 3Gatti Architecture Studio in 2002 and opened his Shanghai office in 2004. Other projects in China by the firm include a hotel that looks like a giant set of shelves and an undulating cave-like bar. See more architecture by 3Gatti.

The Madrid Pavilion was one of over 70 pavilions at the Shanghai Expo 2010. See more of the pavilions on Dezeen, including the UK Pavilion designed by Thomas Heatherwick.

Here’s a project description from 3Gatti Architecture Studio:

Umbrella Facade – new facade for the ex Madrid Pavilion in the Shanghai Expo site.

After the 2010 Shanghai expo the Madrid pavilion needed to be renovated and transformed into a commercial building with retail and office functions. The old facade was built around a 1.5m wide terrace all around the building with bamboo louvers mounted on folding steel frames. In 2012 the bamboo got rotten and the frames rusted so the Shanghai Expo Bureau decided to replace the old bamboo skin with a new facade that could work in the same way: allow the people to open or close the shades so to protect glass facade from the sun in summer and allow more light in during the winter. We were commissioned to find an eye-catching concept that can follow those functions but also attract more people in the new commercial area.

If you visit China one of the first surprise you will find is that most of the women protect themselves from the sun using umbrellas and when actually rains most of the time they don’t mind to get wet without any protection. So when they asked us to protect a building in China from the sun this idea came up spontaneously: an umbrella facade.

The idea was to make each umbrella able to be controlled by a pulley to allow people to interact with it. Apart from the pulley the rest of the mechanism is identical to the one of the umbrella with the only difference that the mechanical parts are made of stainless steel, the frames of aluminum and the external surface of thin corten.

When the umbrellas are fully opened the facade is completely flat so that most of the sunlight and strong wind is blocked. If the umbrellas are opened the light is able to come fully inside and the umbrella sticks become attractive star-sticks with an aerodynamic shape not resistant to the wind preventing structural tensions in case of typhoons.

Architecture firm: 3GATTI
Chief architect: Francesco Gatti
Project manager: Bogdan Chipara
Collaborators: Alessandro Paladin, Jennifer Yong, Zara Wang, Yichen Wang

Client: Shanghai World Expo (Group) Co., ltd.
Location: UBPA , Shanghai Expo area
Programme: Replace the old bamboo-louvers façade with a new facade.
Area: 1330 m²
Design period: November 2012
Construction period: Autumn 2014
Materials: Corten, aluminum and stainless steel

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by 3Gatti Architecture Studio appeared first on Dezeen.