Ball-Nogues Studio won an international competition to design and build a pavilion with students at the Ecole Speciale d’Architecture in Paris. Pavillon Speciale is a competition curated by Matteo Cainer. The pavilion is scheduled to open mid June 2012. Images of the design proposal can be seen on the ‘in progress’ section of our project page.
Proposal text:
The Pavillon Spéciale is an installation that can be arched and curled at full scale with a small crane to form different types of space befitting the summer program at Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture. The installation will create a sense of place while providing a respite from the sun and rain.
The Pavillion is a unique structure. In architecture terminology, the phrase that describes a system whose form is derived from the deformation of its materials under force is “form active.” This type of structure is difficult to study using software. It often requires architects to explore their designs by testing full-scale mock-ups, and using that empirical information to help inform the process of digital modeling, which is studied in the studio rather than in the field. Students will engage in this iterative design process with Ball Nogues.
The structure is comprised of approximately 200 “cells”, each made from locally sourced plastic tubing that will be bent and curled in custom jigs designed and constructed by students. To provide shade, each cell will have a locally sourced sheet material spanning between the tubes within it. The cell module is a very effective way of constructing a temporary structure: each can be transported as a flat unit and rapidly assembled on site; when it is time for the structure to come down, dismantling and transportation to a new site is easy.
Description of the competion:
The Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture enters its 2nd edition of the “Pavillon Spéciale”, an annual spring architectural series that gives young emerging architects the opportunity to build with students, a temporary project in the heart of Paris. Once a year from June to October, The Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture will become an international theatre for architectural experimentation, making it unique in its kind. The timescale (maximum of 3 months from invitation to completion) will provide a unique model that presents a strong synergy between architecture and education and with talks before during and after construction, it will become a contemporary platform for architects, students and the city itself.
The “Pavillon Spéciale” program is curated by Matteo Cainer. Conceived by the later in the summer of 2010, it is an ongoing programme of temporary structures by emerging international architects. The series is unique worldwide because it not only presents the work of an international architect or design team, but is an on site collaboration with a team of students from the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture. Each year a different pavilion will be sited on the school’s inner courtyard, and for five months there will be a programme of public talks, events, performances that will take place in and around the Pavilion.
