HS15

Tom Emerson's lecture presented at the Harvard symposium on Design Techniques is published in A+T including Atlas and construction projection by eth students.

Manifesta, the nomadic, European biennial of contemporary art will hold its eleventh iteration in Zurich in summer 2016. Floating in the lake by the city centre, Manifesta 11’s Pavillon of Reflections will serve as its public forum for the hundred days of the biennial. It will offer space for dialogue and reflection on the artworks created as part of the biennial, and serve as a gathering place for participants and visitors. The pavilion project is being led by a team of thirty architecture students from Studio Tom Emerson at ETH Zurich who, in dialogue with the curatorial team of Manifesta 11, are collectively responsible for the conception, development and construction of the Pavilion.

The students developed a collective working process and the coordination and communication required. The greatest challenge is also the project's greatest potential: to translate the shared design into a built work. After an initial ideas competition between smaller groups of students, teams worked at different scales — from its setting in the city and the lake basin, through to 1:1 scale prototypes — to bring the many design-related, technical and organisational dimensions of the project together to in a multi-layered and ultimately buildable architectural project. Apart from the design process, the construction techniques in particular will influence the final design of the Pavilion. The Pavilion of Reflections is made entirely of wood; the way the material is dealt with is an essential part of the design and construction process. Following the detailed design phase, from January 2016 onwards the Pavilion will be prefabricated and assembled by the students in a production hall in Zurich.

The pavilion is designed as an urban island, that with its swimming pool and bar serves as a meeting point on the lake. The tribune, which seats open-air cinema audiences in the evenings, serves as a place to relax during the day. Alongside the operation as swimming baths, the spatial structure of the project is informed by the film screenings and the associated programme of events of Manifesta 11. In the evening, the sun deck by the pool serves as an extension of the tribune. The pool in the middle of the Pavilion serves, in turn, as an extension of the screen: the LED screen bathes the platform in the light of the moving images, while the tower signals to the city; marking the pavilion in the lake, as visitors gather around the bar.

Team

Christina Albert, Lorenzo Autieri, Vera Bannwart, Alexander Bradley, Arthur de Buren, Jonathan Egli, Josephine Eigner, Kathrin Füglister, Michelle Geilinger, Rudolf Goldschmidt, Dimitri Haefliger, Hannes Hermanek, Donia Jornod, Ricardo Joss, Thierry Jöhl, Phillipp Kraus, Roberto Leggeri, Lukas Loosli, Jonas Meylan, Karin Pfeifer, Jeremy Ratib, Nancy Reuland, Daria Rey, Hanna Schlösser, Valentina Sieber, Anna Maria Stallmann, Kaspar Stöbe, Anastasia Vaynberg, Claartje Vuurmans and Sonja Widmer.