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Architects: Atelier LAI
- Area: 342 m²
- Year: 2021
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Photographs:Xuguo Tang, Yilong Zhao
" Pavilion ∞" is located in a village in the hilly area of western Zhejiang Province. The village sits halfway up the mountain and has good views on all sides when you look far. Most of the houses in the village had been renovated into residential hostels, so a restaurant and reception space were needed. This Pavilion is the first building to be seen when get into the village, it is rebuilt from a native private house. The first floor is adjacent to the road, and serves as the reception area of the village and the kitchen logistics area; while the second floor has a wide view and would be a good spot for a restaurant. The back of the pavilion is close to the bamboo forest and in front of the natural landscape. So how should this architecture be among the natural landscape? It's a question that design is required to answer.
Wood selection: From "Small material Big carpentry" to "Big material Small carpentry". Wood is a warm and genial material, grown by nature. Wood is a solidified vitality and domesticated nature. Its availability and processability make wood become the most primitive and rustic construction material. The affinity between wood and humans comes from long-term companionship. Humans can make implements from wood obtained in nature with simple tools. However, the size of natural wood is limited, so it needs to achieve greater structural span by stacking small materials. In traditional Chinese wood construction, there is the skill and inheritance of "small materials big carpentry". The superposition of "small materials" is not only a test of artisans' skills but also a symbol of hierarchy in traditional society. (such as the level of dougong, the level of caisson,...) It can be said that wooden carpentry work is a trinity system of society, culture, and philosophy in traditional Chinese architecture.
With the advent of modern technology of glulam, the length of wooden materials has broken through the limits of natural growth, and "big materials" are easily obtained in factories. Therefore, in the modern structural design that aims to "efficiency first", the modern techniques of wood structure tried every means to make the mechanical properties of wooden materials close to steel structure and reinforced concrete structure, rather than to dig the temperament of wood itself. Modern wood structures become the "green packaging" of industrial construction. Driving by this thought, the North American wood construction system appears extremely coarse with its huge component size and fat metal joints. The Japanese wood construction system, which is derived from the North American system, is a superficial simple, and ultimate expression of its physical property.
Chinese traditional wood structure itself is complete in culture, and the technology does not pursue efficiency. Reviving the spirit of traditional wood structures is the direction that contemporary Chinese wood structures should open up. Therefore, in order to make structural efficiency give way to the culture, the structural span of "Companion Moon Pavilion" is not completed with a single big material, but breaking big material into multiple small materials, and the superposition of multiple layers becomes a kind of redundancy. This is a rebellion against efficiency first. If from "small material big carpentry" to "big material big carpentry" is the cultural abandonment after mastering another’s skill, then from "big material big carpentry" to "big material small carpentry" is the cultural return of correction.
Reverse arch: From"Woven timber arch" to "Woven timber rope". The structural prototype of the Pavilion∞ comes from the traditional Chinese "Woven Timber Arch Bridge”, which is a model of "small materials big carpentry". In the great Chinese painting "Riverside Scene at Qingming Festival" by Zhang Zeduan in the Northern Song Dynasty, "Hongqiao" (rainbow-shaped bridge) is the core of the whole scroll, which is the artistic image of the "Woven Timber Arch Bridge”. Among the actual architectural heritage, the covered bridge in southern Zhejiang Province is the actual construction of this structural prototype. The "Woven Timber Arch Bridge” (braided wooden arch bridge) is a longitudinal arch composed of trusses made by many short wooden rods, which forms the overall stiffness and completes the long-span structure through transverse penetration. Only depend on the articulated mortise and tenon joints to complete such a large span, small materials appear a kind of mutual commitment, and the work stands for a hundred years, which can be said to be superb skills and wonderful design.
The structure of this pavilion places the woven timber arches upside down, turning the arches into ropes. The mutual relation of the force on bars is unchanged, but the direction of the force is reversed: the axial pressure of the arch becomes the axial tension, and the side thrust of the arch support becomes the side tension. This can be offset by the lateral widening of the columns without the need for a large rigid foundation in the arch structure. From "woven timber arch" to "woven Timber rope", it is the reverse of form, and also the reverse of force. It is a clever borrowing from the traditional wood structure and also makes the space produce a trend of raising outwards.
Making Moons: From "Overlapping moons" to "Water waves". The rod pieces of the Pavilion ∞ are not directly followed by the wooden round rods in the prototype but by the curved sheets as the rods. The intersection of the two ends is small, and the overlap in the middle is curved outwards. It is the stress shape of the bending moment, also like the shape of the moon. Many moon-like rods are stacked overlapping each other, like the scenery of "a breeze ruffles the water in autumn", which is a Chinese painting of the Song dynasty named "Water Atlas". From "Overlapping moons" to "Water waves", it is oriental poetry, and this poetry is also flowing to the walls and stairs. The beam and column are also treated with a kind of curved wave, and this kind of curve-like water wave is everywhere.
Borrowed scenery of Mountain view: Pavilion ∞ is shaped with the “bone", but not by the ”bone”. Except for the wood construction of the load-bearing structure, it is transparent like a pavilion on all sides. It also borrows the scenery of the mountain view in the distance. At the same time, the wooden structure is no longer the protagonist, and is withdrawn behind, as a refuge to look into nature. Although it is withdrawn, but also because of its shape, it delivers a certain charm to this space.
