The end!

Let's finish by the video we made for the competition. Follow the link!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YeS5L7z-KQ&feature=player_embedded

Day 15 - post-production

Just a few days more and then... We have found a video competition: http://www.europemobility.org that has motivated us into trying to make a video as a part of our documentation of this work shop!

Good bye pallets!

A strange mix of hate and love as I turn around for one last glimpse of the 480 ones. Taking down pallets for 4+ hours makes you wanna leave quickly when finished.. Good bye pallets!

Day 13 - taking out the palettes

This rainbow greeted us as we were almost finished with bringing out some 400 pallets this saturday evening!

Pallets by night

Opening Party

It was great to see people moving around and using our structure. The lower the sun, the higher up people crawled!

Day 10 - Review

Together with our supervisors we made use of our structure and the space it creates. The darker enclosure proved suitable for computer presentation and discussions about our project and our process. The feedback was very positive and we got good credit for our working method, that we have jumped between the different scale, and also our way of using this project to learn new ways of communication and software i.e blogging, stop-motion-animation etc!

Structural considerations

We want the structure to be an active participant in the social life of the school, so it should not just look nice. It has to be used, and that means it has to respond to some technical requirements such as durability and stability... We wanted to provide the option of walking around on top ... and we succeeded!!

We have spent a lot of time solving problems of statics, trying to find the most rational and convincing way of construction.

We started with investigations of the simple wall, understanding basic principles of using our unit - the pallet. We found the brick wall reference very useful.

While investigating different variations in how to place the our pallets we discovered ways of making cantilevering pallets, shelfs that can be used for stepping, sitting and a lot of other activities.

We have been working a lot trying to create a dense sheltered space around the tree trunk. We have investigated a dome-like structure.

In order to grab hold of, or integrate the existing table of the courtyard into the structure, we had to come up with a bridge construction.

Day 9

With the structure close to completion... today is mostly studio work, documentation and preparations for the opening of the pavillion!

T-shirts!

To promote the work shop, and to remember each other...

Order one today!

Pallets make you fly!

Day 8 - it works!

It works! We continue to work in the courtyard. The structure is starting to get clear, but is still not finished, despite that people have started to use it for sitting, they put bags and jackets on cantilevers, they use it even though we are still building and developing. Without asking, some even try the walk up around the tree, but very very slow and ridiculously careful. Looks like the structure makes people interact =)

Progress

Sunny day! Makes work a lot easier! The project has gone a lot forward during the last two days and the structure is almost finished! It´s time to prepare the opening and party of Wednesday...just cross our fingers for good weather and lot of people enjoying the pallet pavillion!

Day 7

Starting to take nice curvatious shapes!

Taking down / Building up / Taking down / Building up / Taking Down / Building up.... Sunday evening on the courtyard!

Day 6

Difficult one... we now have a main idea of the composition, of the spatial qualities we want to obtain and of the constructive principles that we will follow. There is no question about which way is the best to create an enclosed space, a "dome". The space around the trunk obviously will be constructed by putting pallets longitudinally, each pallet resting on two pallets below - the most efficient and stabile solution. However, there were two ways for making the base - by putting pallets along or across the line of the circle...

this led to some discussions in the group - team was divided in two parts.. during long and hot discussions, we tried to evaluate the both principles:

aesthetics - whole shape and ornament, gained by massive supports of pallets

constructions - forces distribution in various systems of supports,

function - confidences level using structure as walking path with sitting consoles

light - transparency of structure - visual contact thought and daylight...

... putting bottom pallets across the flow of the structure, creating a dense and rigid foundation...

... or building up whole structure by placing pallets longitudinally...

Be Palleto !

We'll be done on wednesday! so let's experiment our project and have some drinks with people from the school !

Day 5

It is still raining...

We were waiting for a sunny day..but no! We could say that it has been a quite relaxing day in the studio just trying somethings and developing some documentation. We take a break...today we don´t want to see more pallets! The weekend starts, let´s go to the fridaybar...maybe some beers will give us inspiration!

Day 4

Rain,rain and more rain!arggg!We continue working in the studio!We work in the way of getting the structure unified and how we could solve the critical points.We also develop the idea of placing some cantilevers around the structure and where we could place them. Lunch time!

It almost stop raining so we rush to the courtyard and start to try the concepts we have been developing during the morning.Five minutes after...starts raining again.The pallets are completely wet so they are even heavier.Three hours down the rain and we are as we had taken a shower. It´s time to go back to the studio take out the jacket and the shoes...hot cup of coffee :) Tomorrow more...hopefully the weather will be better!

No outside pictures today... instead you get some super nice pallet pornography!

Day 3

A rainy day. We are working back in the studio doing analysis of our recent attempts, listing advantages and disadvantages... Discussions, models, some coffee, pallets (in scale 1:20 of course)

modeling in 1:1

Although the first ideas became from the models, we had to try all the options on real scale, to know how to connect the pallets and how stable they were.

modeling in 1:20

Following our first model at a scale of 1:50 we decided to investigate our ideas further at a new scale of 1:20.

This is a better scale to work with to achieve results with small modules like pallets

modeling in 1:50

From the beginning we tried different ways of organizing the courtyard by using both organic and geometric principles in 1:50 respecting the natural flows of the people.

Model 1:50 helped us to visualize the dimensions of the courtyard and create relations between void and mass

Day 2

references

We were looking for different references to understand what kind of spacial and constructive qualities we can gain by using pallets, how many shape variations we can obtain by using very simple unit.

Fireplace Shelter in Trondheim, Norway

Space Pavilion by Alain Dempsey and Alvin Huang

Swoosh Pavilion at the Architectural Association

Theatre in Amsterdam, Denis Francois and Jan Korbes

Pallet Pavilion World Cup SKI Championships, Germany 2005, Matthias Loebermann and Parter

site survey

Every place has it own character, atmosphere... way people use to behave there... New design has to be done with understanding of existing situation

problem definition

Before to start we made several brainstorms to define issues of the current situation and main problems we have to deal with.