©Kengo Kuma & Associates

Korea 2005Paper Snake (Anyang Public Art Project)

2005.11
Anyang
Pavilion
Completed
30
1F

We were asked by the City of Anyang (a city in the periphery of Seoul) to design a resting space for their public art project: APAP2005. The site, a beautiful forest hillside, is surrounded by winding pine trees from where you can look down the intimate valley and its river. A privileged site where forest paths meet and visitors enjoy the view. We intend to create a resting space that could frame this outstanding scenery and, most importantly, co-exist with the surrounding nature.

The idea is simple: a folded platform that creates/envelopes the space and, by folding itself, reacts/responds to the existing nature. So as to achieve a flexible and durable structure, we had invented a structural panel together with the structure engineer. This panel, a 40mm thick Paper-Core Honeycomb compressed by two FRP sheets, is extremely lightweight while ensuring remarkable strength and its translucency achieves casting and registering the surrounding phenomenal lighting conditions. The porosity gently lets the lights and shadows pass through providing a calm resting environment for the visitors. By translating the natural phenomenon directly into the space, the pavilion becomes a sensitive receiver of the existing site.

Team Satoshi Adachi, Javier Villar Ruiz Construction M-tec, F8's Cooperation Ejiri Structural Engineers