ContemPLAY Pavilion

The ContemPLAY pavilion is a combined steel and wood structure created by the McGill School of Architecture DRS (Directed Research Studio) M.Arch. students as a capstone project for their final year. It is built in collaboration with FARMM (Facility for Architectural Research and Media Mediation), and Maria Mingallon, the Gerald Sheff Visiting Professor.

The pavilion project is an excellent demonstration of the latest developments in the DRS program, exposing advanced construction techniques, digital processes and theoretical approaches to architecture in the public realm. Furthermore, the project highlights the student potential as well as the capacity for trans-disciplinary team work on a high level project.

The ContemPLAY pavilion is meant as a multi-generational artefact that gathers the ideas of contemplation and playing in a single clear gesture. As a socially sustainable public infrastructure that plays with the visual field through form and cladding, it questions the current trend in public space furniture and encroaches in the realm of the abstract sculpture or artefact.

The gesture itself is a three-dimensional mobius strip which is supported by a triangular truss. The truss is a combination of plywood and steel elements. The cladding is a visual pattern generated to create a simultaneous moiré and parallax effect. As the public approaches and engages with the pavilion, the visual field is modified and interrupted by the interference created by motion and the two layers of cladding. The eye continuously covers the never ending surface of the mobius inviting dynamic motion from the user. Within, a bench anchors the project to the ground, allowing for a center seat in a never ending structure. The light filters through the cladding generating an ambiguous relationship between the notions of inside and outside as well as furniture and shelter.

For full details, please visit the ContemPLAY Pavilion website.

To read the notice at World Architecture News.Com, please visit the following webpage.

For information in French, please visit the Kollectif webpage.

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