Final Review /May 2011
Lower Pavilion /Eugenia Yu
The upper pavilion has a friend right here by the river. And like a sibling or a friend, their similarities connect them. But in looking closer, spending some time between them, I think you might find that like true friends, it is in their differences that one may support the other.
The lower pavilion stands in the same spirit of community. The plan was to create an open space, allowing 70 people to gather together. And in this openness, to have also the capacity for 1. Capacity, because the experience of one individual, sitting there by the floating table, or watching the river from the extended deck, or hearing the rain hit and flow from the roof, is as much a celebration, as that of a moon festival feast, or an afternoon picnic.
In our consideration of layered use, the lattice of columns are more than a structural necessity, they are a programmatic gain. They are frames as well as curtains—dividing space, shielding space, defining space. While holding space between a roof and a floor.
The system of joining the columns to the roof and floor reflects our efforts in sustaining continuity. The upper garden spills down to the edge of the river with a continuous language of form, just as the borders of communities often blur, or merge in brilliant moments. Like now.
This continuity lives in the form of our work. Not one of us could perform anything on site without the action of someone before us. The roof needs the roof joists, the roof joists need the roof beams, the roof beams need the columns, the columns need the floor beams, the floor beams need the concrete forms, the forms need the ground. For us, we need the rock ramp and the floating table. Each is an element and a connection.
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