Synod Pavilion

Brief Overview

The pavilion was built as a response to the annual fest organized in the university, with a necessity for a common place to gather for the fest organizers to cater to the needs of the participants. The space had to be dynamic and multi-fold in nature and should become a festive beacon for the university.
No restriction was imposed on the site selection, only the budget was limited(180 $). The site selected was an intangible focal point of the university, with substantial visibility from the surroundings. The budget reciprocated in the material selection and bamboo was chosen for its cheap price and close proximity. During the evolution of the form, its interaction with the landscape was taken care of algorithmically, and hollow bamboos were placed close together to resonate making sound. In another way the lightness of the structure reverberated. Various tangible and intangible parameters were taken into consideration. The final result was a collaborative effort from students coming together to build it in a week. Again, sustainability was taken into consideration and also the notion of what happens after the pavilion has served its purpose.

The initial site analysis and conceptualization

Iterations and Algorithm

One of the first things that we decided to do as part of the design process was discussing about factors like Orientation, Context and Scale to name a few. These discussions were then translated by me into an algorithm using grasshopper, a plugin for Rhino 3D. This gave us lot of options to discuss which option will fit our bill. The following are selected few options that we used for discussions.

The algorithm made on visual programming language Grasshopper to reduce the cost and get various design options and speed up the process of fabrication. The algorithm was a very simple one that also provided how much bamboo will be needed and how much cost will be needed to buy it.

The building process

Once we choose the particular design using the algorithm, we went out to procure the bamboo from a nearby village. Since we already knew the amount of bamboo to be used it was an easy process. To use the bamboo for construction we had to treat the bamboo using borax. The next step was to cut the bamboo into desired lengths and index it. The actual construction on site begins from this point of time where we excavated the ground and assembled the main columns. The beams and interstitial horizontal components followed.

Building process

I also realized that creating a scaled mockup would be beneficial to understand the bamboo joinery to be used during the construction process. I made use of my internship experience at Vo Trong Nghia Architects to come up with a bamboo joinery solution. The details are provided below.

The documentation process formed an important component of the whole process and the images below tell the story of construction from assembly, indexing to final structure.

Message

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