Adapting to surroundings

Year
2013
Developer
Stockholm Municipality
Site
Stockholm Sweden
Collaboration
Architect Nathan Romero Muelas

How to address the very different environments while maintaining a common identity? We do it trough a series of mechanisms of which the skin of our pavilion is determinant. This skin will partially reflect and transform the surrounding environment, while dematerializing and lightening the volume of the pavilion itself. Like the sky or the sea, the pavilion will never look exactly the same. A pattern of partially polished steel returns a kaleidoscopic image of city and skies. This pattern will cover the whole pavilion, both opaque and glass surfaces, adding ambiguity and richness to the perception: maple leaves on a rain puddle.

Despite of the multiplicity of combinations in plan, our pavilion strives for recognizability. The distinctive feature of the beacon, that combines the function of billboard and lantern or torch, identifies our pavilion from afar, as does the ever-changing skin pattern, while the subtle transformation of the plan geometry of each module produces very rich combinations, capable to adapt to any site geometry. Whatever the contour of our combination of modules ends up being, the identity is maintained avoiding clone repetition. Instead of identical twins we make siblings whose kinship is evident.