CRICKET PAVILLION
The design process is initiated by dissecting a cricket ball – a highly crafted object – to reveal its core and its constituting elements, in an attempt to trigger a process that will enable us to discover the ‘vacuum’ as the truly essential: the reality of a space can be found in the vacant space enclosed by the elements that envelope it, in an approach that FL Wright often used in many of his projects.
Cork is used as a skin to define the envelope of the pavilion. It is used in a rhythmic fashion – alternated between ‘slivers’ of glass – to produce convex ‘trunks’ that allude to the forests of trees where cork is harvested, and to the forests of the Coniston Fells. The resulting undulated façade is also intended as a reference to the corrugated materials often find in rural buildings.
The natural imperfections of the cork skin give the building a character that makes it closer to nature.
The proposal breaks up the requirements of the programme into a series of separate primary spaces that can be interconnected, to generate a variety of secondary configurations.
The result is a spatial composition that provides equilibrium amongst the constituting parts.
The overhanging roof projects out of all sides of the enclosure, and acts as the architectural element that unify all the components and it is aligned with the existing stone wall to anchor the building to the site.
Coniston, Lake District, UK
70 sqm
