saac pavilion

Year.2011  //  Area.220 SQM  //  Location.Gosford. Land of Kuring-gai Nation  //  Urban Future

SAAC Pavilion is a full scale prototype of a sustainable hub with an aim to tour major cities in Australia to educate city dwellers on how to live their urban existence in a more sustainable manner.  The brief called for the development of a 12 metre wide deployable structure that would be: durable; self-supporting; waterproof; (dis)assembled within three hours; 70% recyclable material; lightweight; adaptive and inexpensive, lots of boxes to tick.

Looking through a number of precedents on deployables, the minimal surfaces, yurts, tensegrity structures and geodesics were a recurring theme that we desperately wanted to avoid.  Alternatively, we were interested in hybrid structures that had no retrospective connotations, therefore we looked at structural principles and respective rule sets to develop an adaptive parametric model within grasshopper.

Utilising the geodesic’s load transferring organisation, we employed two force agents that would influence the structural nodes, similar to that of an isostatic surface’s operation.  This initial sketch model allows for the exploration of multiple spaces to emerge from the structural matrix whilst other parameters such as member density and agent influence provides feedback on material lengths and structural performance. 

In terms of design, fabrication and construction, there were a number of important factors that implemented in order to create an efficient structure. Maximum structural lengths, membrane offsets, membrane stretch and clash detection were all applied as coded subroutines optimised for the organization and construction of the structure.

The structure only took the two of us to layout and assemble on site. It then required one person on each node to lift it to the correct height in order to fix the perimeter structure. Once in place we made our way around each node tighten all the bolts and spigots in order to form a ridged structure. Once in place the canvas skin was dragged over the frame and pegged around the perimeter in order to complete the requirements for wind loading.