Search

Outdoor Architectural Pavilion Made of Self-Supported Shells

03.09.15 | By
Outdoor Architectural Pavilion Made of Self-Supported Shells

Commissioned by the Edmonton Arts Council, Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY designed and built Vaulted Willow, an “architectural folly” within Borden Park in Edmonton, Canada. Constructed out of 721 aluminum stripes, 14,043 connectors, and 60 epoxy concrete anchors, the architectural sculpture explores these lightweight, self-supported shells “through the development of custom computational protocols of structural form-finding and descriptive geometry.”

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-1a

The goal for the pavilion was to “resolve and delineate structure, skin and ornamentation into a single unified system.” The skin’s colorful gradient is formed through the careful layout of the individual shingles. Each one is similar to the next, yet they’re all unique and made through digital fabrication. The shingles overlap each other, much like shingles do on a roof, creating double thickness and a more solid structure.

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-1b

The idea for the colors comes from the surrounding park, but bumped up to verge on artificiality.

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-2

The structure is anchored to a 240 cubic foot concrete pad with 24 base plates. To complete, there was a crew of four people who assembled the prefabricated parts over the span of four days.

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-3

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-4

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-5

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-6

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-7

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-8

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-9

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-10

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-11

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-12

Vaulted-Willow-MARC-FORNES-THEVERYMANY-13

Caroline Williamson is Editor-in-Chief of Design Milk. She has a BFA in photography from SCAD and can usually be found searching for vintage wares, doing New York Times crossword puzzles in pen, or reworking playlists on Spotify.