Tangling Pavilion
A pavilion designed with parametric tools.
Digital Design, University of Melbourne
Individual work | Semester 1, 2018
Coordinator: Paul Loh
Tutor: Michael Mack
The final project --- Tangling Pavilion is derived from the idea Minimal Surface. To establish the intricate entwining relationship, My strategy is to capture a high sense of transparency and permeability in Minimal Surface, then recreate it by distorting the inside and outside space using a Voronoi pattern.
By doing so, this pavilion provide a strong sense of ambiguity between inside and outside, which eventually leads to a pavilion that is breathing and congruous with the environment. As Toyo Ito has described his National Taichung Theatre --- “... are in some ways inside and in some ways outside the body” The final outcome is started with form-finding using the idea Minimal surface, and later shifted to Voronoi pattern to mimic the spatial quality yet with high level of control.
The landscape is elevated to celebrate the sculpture-like pavilion, so that visitors can enjoy its beauty even from a far distance.
Considering the circulation, I divided the visitors into two types---one is the life-time visitor, for whom I want to ensure them get full experience of the pavilion. So there is a circular pathway designed no matter entering from any entry. The other is the local visitors, a spread-out circulation is designed for them to enter and exit based on their interest. The landscape is also sharing the same concept, with an overall radial shape and extended space for lingering on.
Iterations
I made many iterations to test the complexity and distortion of the space. For my final design, I started the form-finding with the idea Minimal surface. However, it is difficult to change its original structure. Therefore I used Voronoi, which gave me more room to control its opening size, angle distorted and void inside the space. I managed these controls through scaling, point attractor and using breps to cull points inside.
For a more comprehensive document, please check the following design portfolio.
For my real time rendering, I created a day scene and an rainy evening scene (because it’s Melbourne 😊). For the day scene I celebrate the materiality of the pavilion, which is achieved through making the steel mesh texture and adding reflection of the sky’s color. For the night scene I want to emphasize an ephemeral atmosphere, so I added light inside the pavilion, created foggy and cloudy background and rain particle using Unreal Engine.
To interact with the digital model, you can rotate it with below 3D viewer.
For a comprehensive view of the project, please check the folio below.