MODULE 1
Credit: Rightful owner
Credit: Rightful owner
The summer house pavilion explores the concept of panoramic visual orientation extensively. Due to the structure’s fluidity and free-flowing nature, the pavilion provides different elevations when seen from different orientation. When approaching the pavilion from every direction, everyone is greeted with a different view. Through this, the pavilion can be said to always be ‘rotating’.
The threshold and circulation both also give nudge to the idea of ‘rotation’. Due to such placement of the wall, there is no internal space within the pavilion, influencing the circulation to follow an ‘ambulatory’ manner. Rotation again comes in mind as people are required to circulate the pavilion in attempt to reach the different seating areas, or to visually comprehend the whole pavilion. In such, the orientation informs the pavilion’s design as rotational and dynamic, as intended.
BARKOW'S SERPENTINE summer house pavilion 2016
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LONDON
12 / 03 / 2018
Roof structure
Seating
Static
Circulation
paths
CIRCULATION DIAGRAM
This diagram follows the natural intuitive of visualizing circulation by tracking people’s paths. Instead of representing the information with geometric surfaces, I opted for lines as it best represents the pavilion’s dynamism and fluidity. The messiness is intended to further mimic the unpredictable movement of people. However, there is a level of readability on the diagram as the overlapping of lines start to inform a movement pattern while respecting other paths as well.
In context to rotation, more people walk in an ambulatory manner for 2 reasons:
1. The roof’s design make it so that you can only understand the whole perspective of the pavilion externally.
2. Using the concept of ‘shortest path’, people are forced to go around as the walls' orientation make it so that there is no internal shortcut.
threshold
DIAGRAM
The diagram aims to explain the different levels of threshold offered by the individual layers when working in synthesis. The empty spaces formed by the walls and roofs are represented in 3D, preferred than 2D as it offers a height dimension which allow a more detailed visualization of the level of accessibility and privacy.
Due to the wall’s C-form, an entrance or exit is blurred, allowing people to approach or leave the pavilion from any direction. However, an internal threshold is still present within the walls and the roof. The wall, being on ground level, offers a more obvious threshold once the visitors enter to sit. The enveloping of the wall with the seating area provides a more distinct threshold. The overhanging roof also provide implied threshold of the space (i.e. when the roof starts to hang over a person).
As such, there is a series of threshold layers within the pavilion. However, the internal threshold is noticeably not present due to the building's form that favors and outward orientation.
