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John from Sutton-in-Ashfield, UK shows off how to haul long joists with a DiamondBack HD and HD Cab Guard. (another driver side view)
This series complements my award-winning guidebook, Chicago in Stone and Clay: A Guide to the Windy City's Architectural Geology. Henceforth I'll just call it CSC.
The CSC section and page reference for the building featured here: 5.7; pp. 47-50.
Looking at a planter along the sidewalk just west of the main-entrance plaza of 1 Prudential Plaza ("One Pru").
This photo is featured in black-and-white form in CSC. Here it complements the Part 8 and Part 9 images. Those shots and their accompanying descriptions feature this notable granitoid rock type, the Silurian-period Støren Trondhjemite, where it's mounted on a vertical wall facing the entrance. I invite you to read their descriptions, which provide a good overview of how the stone was delivered to Chicago, and how, according to a leading hypothesis, it formed in the first place.
Here, however, the Støren forms the rim of a planter that contained, on this particular autumn day, cold-tolerant purple-leaved Ornamental Kales (Brassica oleracea Acephala Group cv.) and Miniature Chrysanthemums (Chrysanthemum × morifolium cv.). I like the way one of the little Mini-Mum heads is sticking out among its big neighbors to see what's going on.
This particular batch of the Støren Trondhjemite is particularly significant because it, unlike the stone on the wall already shown, has very distinct flow banding. This pattern is superficially similar to foliation, but here no metamorphism is involved. Flow banding is often observed in extrusive lavas, but in this case, where the igneous rock is intrusive, it's caused by currents within the subterranean magma body or by different minerals separating out in a process known as fractionation.
In the geological literature, this sort of intrusive flow banding is sometimes referred to as fluxion banding instead.
For more on this site, get and read Chicago in Stone and Clay, described at its Cornell University Press webpage.
The other photos and discussions in this series can be found in my "Chicago in Stone and Clay" Companion album. In addition, you'll find other relevant images and descriptions in my Architectural Geology: Chicago album.
By Matt Vaughn, Fall 2019
These chairs were made from scraps of rebar that were donated to the store. The oak seats were milled to have an ergonomic curve and the Koa backs were made to match.
When traveling north of the arctic circle you are struck by how short the growing seasons must be. And more importantly how fragile (or thin) the topsoil layer actually is. What looks so hardy is such a delicate ecosystem.
Home builders insulation for certain uses. Truly expanded polystyrene, ultra light weight ( all 6 panels and the clear plastic wrap weighed less than 1/2 pound). Fairly rigid, easily cut, but create prills if a saw or knife is used. Melts with a 15 watt soldering iron - melts fast! Takes PVA (Elmer's) glue or hot gluegun (use the mini variety - less massive heat).
There is a random pattern, but sides are smooth. Takes acrylic paint well, and some spray paints. The solvent in other spray paints will "eat/roughen" the surface.
Superb stuff for castles and other 1/6 "masonry."
In Tulsa USA last weekend, Home Depot was out, but Lowe's had it.
Figure is 12-inch PowerTeam 3.0
This series complements my recently published guidebook, Milwaukee in Stone and Clay: A Guide to the Cream City's Architectural Geology. Henceforth I'll just call it MSC.
The MSC section and page references for the building featured here: 5.40; pp. 113-116.
In the Pavilion's Windhover Hall reception area. Facing eastward and toward Lake Michigan.
The premium-grade Carrara Marble used for this building's flooring and baseboard skirting began as Triassic-to-Jurassic limestone deposited as carbonate-shelf sediments in the great Tethys Ocean. But it was not until the Oligocene and Miocene epochs, almost 200 Ma later, that it was metamorphosed into true marble. The compressional tectonics then in play caused a large fragment of the crust, the Tuscan Nappe, to override it and subject it to immense heat and pressure.
Under those conditions the Carrara was cooked into a finely crystalline rock ranging from pure white to vein-streaked and heavily brecciated. All those varieties have been quarried in the Apuan Alps, just a short way up the Italian coast from Pisa, since at least the final decades of the Roman Republic.
The flooring pavers you see here are the pure-white form of the stone that has been polished to a high-gloss shine. And this is the result on a grim December day, when the slate tones of the lake and diffused glare filtering through the nimbostratus deck above it combine weirdly and fill this space. The marble undergoes metamorphism of a different kind.
This splash of aquamarine and pinkish-gray tints across its surface speaks strongly of an aqueous realm quite alien to the one just beyond these windows. Milwaukeeans outfitted in sweaters, down coats, and stocking caps are bathed in the tones of a tropical sea—perhaps the Tethys itself.
Ironically, all one has to do to remove oneself from this dreamlike play of light is to rotate one hundred and eighty degrees and look at the hall's interior. There all is chaste whiteness again. As we'll see in the next post of this series.
This site and many others in Milwaukee County are discussed at greater length in Milwaukee in Stone and Clay (NIU Imprint of Cornell University Press).
The other photos and discussions in this series can be found in my "Milwaukee in Stone and Clay" Companion album. Also, while you're at it, check out my Architectural Geology of Milwaukee album, too. It contains quite a few photos and descriptions of Cream City sites highlighted in other series of mine.
I read somewhere ...I think in one of the late Alec Clifton-Taylor's books... that the local pennant sandstone was once commonly used as a roofing material in Bristol. It cannot have been very suitable for the purpose. The ideal roofing stone is fissile ...that is to say it splits readily, by virtue of its molecular structure, along a particular plane. Slate is eminently fissile; pennant is not, and must be laboriously chipped into thin, flat pieces.
This is the only pennant roof I have ever seen and it must surely have been the last ever made. It is at the College of St Matthias in Fishponds. I didn't notice the dated water head at the time but on the photo it appears to be 1870-something.
I haven't been back since taking the photo three or four years ago. On that occasion the roof was looking a little distressed, with one or two slippages. I don't know whether it is still there. On a previous visit another of the College's buildings was being re-roofed. The pennant roofing stones were being taken away by the skip-load. I picked up one and took it home. In shape it was an irregular triangle, with a nail hole drilled through one corner. I put it in the garden but unfortunately forgot to take it with me when I moved house a few years later. Like any properly laid stone roof, this one is "graded", with the largest stones at the eaves and the smallest at the ridge.
The High Line was built in the 1930s, as part of a massive public-private infrastructure project called the West Side Improvement. It lifted freight traffic 30 feet in the air, removing dangerous trains from the streets of Manhattan's largest industrial district. No trains have run on the High Line since 1980. Friends of the High Line, a community-based non-profit group, formed in 1999 when the historic structure was under threat of demolition. Friends of the High Line works in partnership with the City of New York to preserve and maintain the structure as an elevated public park.
The project gained the City's support in 2002. The High Line south of 30th Street was donated to the City by CSX Transportation Inc. in 2005. The design team of landscape architects James Corner Field Operations, with architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro, created the High Line's public landscape with guidance from a diverse community of High Line supporters. Construction on the park began in 2006. The first section, from Gansevoort Street to 20th Street, is projected to open in June 2009.
Strobist: Twin Lumpro 120s with full CTO gels, in a Westcott Apollo 28" softbox, camera left. Canon 550 EX with a full CTO gel, shooting through a Buff 42" PLM, camera right. Alien Bees 800 in standard reflector, behind subject, and to the right, about 30 feet away, firing through the window.
Dropped the white balance in post towards tungsten to make the window light go blue, and to balance out the skin tones some.
by Matt Vaughn, Summer 2019
This table was made from particle board and resin. What a way to showcase common and often ignored material!
Déplacement et extension de la station-service pour créer des postes de distribution supplémentaires.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Moselle (57)
Ville : Marly (57155)
Construction : 2024 → 2025
Permis de construire n° PC 057 447 23 Y 0024
▻ Délivré le 28/09/2023
Hauteur : 5,50 m
Surface de plancher : 9,00 m²
Surface des bâtiments à démolir : 12,00 m²
Superficie du terrain : 116 357 m²
Text Copyright www.serpentinegalleries.org 2018
“Serpentine Pavilion 2018 designed by Frida Escobedo
Summary:
Architect Frida Escobedo, celebrated for dynamic projects that reactivate urban space, has been commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2018. Harnessing a subtle interplay of light, water and geometry, her atmospheric courtyard-based design draws on both the domestic architecture of Mexico and British materials and history, specifically the Prime Meridian line at London’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
Detail:
Escobedo (b. 1979, Mexico City) is the 18th and youngest architect yet to accept the invitation to design a temporary Pavilion on the Serpentine Gallery lawn in Kensington Gardens. This pioneering commission, which began in 2000 with Zaha Hadid, has presented the first UK buildings of some of the biggest names in international architecture. In recent years, it has grown into a hotly anticipated showcase for emerging talent, from Sou Fujimoto of Japan to selgascano of Spain and Bjarke Ingels of Denmark. Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel selected this year’s architect, with advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.
Escobedo’s Pavilion takes the form of an enclosed courtyard, comprised of two rectangular volumes positioned at an angle. While the outer walls are aligned with the Serpentine Gallery’s eastern façade, the axis of the internal courtyard aligns directly to the north. Internal courtyards are a common feature of Mexican domestic architecture, while the Pavilion’s pivoted axis refers to the Prime Meridian, which was established in 1851 at Greenwich and became the global standard marker of time and geographical distance.
British-made materials have been used in the Pavilion’s construction, chosen for their dark colours and textured surfaces. A celosia – a traditional breeze wall also common to Mexican architecture – is here composed of a lattice of cement roof tiles that diffuse the view out into the park, transforming it into a vibrant blur of greens and blues from within. Two reflecting elements emphasise the movement of light and shadow inside the Pavilion over the course of the day. The curved underside of the canopy is clad with mirrored panels, and a triangular pool cast into the Pavilion floor traces its boundary directly beneath the edge of the roof, along the north axis of the Meridian. As the sun moves across the sky, reflected and refracted by these features, visitors may feel a heightened awareness of time spent in play, improvisation and contemplation over the summer months.
Escobedo’s prize-winning work in urban reactivation ranges from housing and community centres to hotels and galleries. In 2006, she founded her practice in Mexico City, with significant national projects including the Librería del Fondo Octavio Paz and an extension of La Tallera Siqueiros gallery in Cuernavaca. Her designs have featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012 and 2014), the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2013), and in San Francisco, London and New York. Recent projects include Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and social housing projects in Guerrero and Saltillo, Mexico. She lectures nationally and internationally, and has won multiple awards and accolades.
The Serpentine Pavilion 2018 will once again be a platform for Park Nights, the Serpentine’s annual programme of experimental and interdisciplinary evenings on selected Fridays. Practitioners in the fields of art, architecture, music, film, theory and dance will be commissioned to create new, site-specific works in response to Escobedo’s design, offering unique ways of experiencing architecture and performance, sponsored by COS. Building on its 2017 success, Radical Kitchen also returns to the Pavilion on selected Thursday lunchtimes, inviting community groups, artists, activists, writers and architects to form connections through food. This programme of workshops, performances and talks will address geological time, empire and movements, inspired by the ideas behind Escobedo’s Pavilion design. The Architecture Family Pack and Programme, sponsored by COS, will give children and their families the chance to explore the Serpentine Pavilion from playful and original perspectives.
"I think one needs to plan for change. Make everything more flexible in every way, so that the building become more like a palm tree and less like a completely rigid structure, because that’s the one that will fall down. Rigid things collapse. The rest can move, yes, it transforms, it may lose sections, but its spirit will remain." Frida Escobedo in an interview with The Fabulist. On the occasion of the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, the Serpentine has partnered with Aesop to co-present a special issue of The Fabulist that explores the themes of the Serpentine’s summer season and celebrates Aesop’s support of Live Programmes at the Serpentine.
Serpentine Pavilion Architect's Statement
The design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2018 is a meeting of material and historical inspirations inseparable from the city of London itself and an idea which has been central to our practice from the beginning: the expression of time in architecture through inventive use of everyday materials and simple forms. For the Serpentine Pavilion, we have added the materials of light and shadow, reflection and refraction, turning the building into a timepiece that charts the passage of the day. “
Serpentine Pavilion 2022 Black Chapel by Theaster Gates
“Designed by Chicago-based artist Theaster Gates, the Serpentine Pavilion 2022 Black Chapel draws inspiration from many of the architectural typologies that ground the artist’s practice.
The structure, realised with the support of Adjaye Associates, references the bottle kilns of Stoke-on-Trent, the beehive kilns of the Western United States, San Pietro and the Roman tempiettos, and traditional African structures, such as the Musgum mud huts of Cameroon, and the Kasubi Tombs of Kampala, Uganda. The Pavilion’s circularity and volume echo the sacred forms of Hungarian round churches and the ring shouts, voodoo circles and roda de capoeira witnessed in the sacred practices of the African diaspora.
Black Chapel is a site for contemplation and convening, set within the grounds of Serpentine in Kensington Gardens. The structure’s central oculus emanates a single source of light to create a sanctuary for reflection, refuge and conviviality. The project mirrors the artist’s ongoing engagement with ‘the vessel’ in his studio practice, and with space-making through his celebrated urban regeneration projects.
Drawn to the meditative environment of the Rothko Chapel – which holds fourteen paintings by American artist Mark Rothko in Houston, Texas – Gates has produced a series of new tar paintings titled Seven Songs for Black Chapel. Creating a space that reflects the artist’s hand and sensibilities, seven paintings hang from the interior. In these works, Gates honours his father’s craft as a roofer by using roofing strategies including torch down, a method which requires an open flame to heat material and affix it to a surface.
As part of Serpentine’s dynamic summer programme, the Pavilion becomes a platform for live performances and public convenings. An operating bronze bell – salvaged from St. Laurence, a landmark Catholic Church that once stood in Chicago’s South Side – is placed directly next to the entrance. Pointing to the erasure of spaces of convening and spiritual communion in urban communities, the historic bell will be used to call, signal and announce performances and activations at the Pavilion throughout the summer.
Gates’ Serpentine Pavilion 2022 Black Chapel is part of The Question of Clay, a multi-institution project which comprised of exhibitions at Whitechapel Gallery (September 2021 – January 2022), White Cube (September – October 2021) and a two-year long research project at the V&A. The project seeks to investigate the making, labour and production of clay, as well as its collecting history, through exhibitions, performance and live interventions, with the aim of generating new knowledge, meaning and connections about the material.”
All text © Serpentine Gallery 2022, see: www.serpentinegalleries.org/whats-on/serpentine-pavilion-...
by David Spangler, Summer 2019
The latest line of shadow box shelves features lots of mustard, plenty of hard-to see details, and enough character to make your room come alive.
London Design Festival 2019 - Bamboo (竹) Ring: Weaving into Lightness
“Bamboo (竹) Ring, or ‘Take-wa 竹わ’, is an experiment in the concept of weaving, as explored by Kengo Kuma.
Japanese architect Kuma (founder of Kengo Kuma & Associates) has most recently designed the V&A Dundee, his first building in the UK, as well as the New National Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics along with Taisei Corporation and Azusa Sekkei.
Inspired by the John Madejski Garden and curated by Clare Farrow, the doughnut-shaped structure – like a nest or cocoon – has been created by weaving rings of bamboo and carbon fibre together. For Kuma, working with Ejiri Structural Engineers and the Kengo Kuma Laboratory at The University of Tokyo, the installation is an exploration of pliancy, precision, lightness and strength: by pulling two ends, it naturally de-forms and half of the woven structure is lifted into the air.
Bamboo has been used traditionally in Japanese architecture in part due to its linearity and flexibility, and as a symbol of strength and rapid growth. The basic component of the structure – a 2m-diameter ring – is made from strips of the bamboo Phyllostachys edulis. By combining carbon fibre, a contemporary material, with the traditional material of bamboo and laminating each ring, the resulting effect achieves a certain rigidity while maintaining the unique material properties and beauty of bamboo – a remarkable, sustainable material that resonates with Kuma’s childhood memories and looks into the future of architecture.
Bamboo (竹) Ring, or ‘Take-wa 竹わ’, is intended to be a catalyst for weaving people and place together.
In Partnership with OPPO.
Further Support by Komatsu Matere, ANA (All Nippon Airways), and Jayhawk Fine Art.
Design Team (Kuma Lab): Kengo Kuma, Toshiki Hirano, Kohyoh Yang, Hiroki Awaji, Tomohisa Kawase
Fabrication Team at Komatsu Matere premises in Japan: Alexander Mladenov, Cristina Mordeglia, Luciana Tenorio, Simone Parola, Sarah Wellesley, Valentin Rodriguez de las Cuevas”
All text Copyright of www.londondesignfestival.com
London Design Festival 2019 - Bamboo (竹) Ring: Weaving into Lightness
“Bamboo (竹) Ring, or ‘Take-wa 竹わ’, is an experiment in the concept of weaving, as explored by Kengo Kuma.
Japanese architect Kuma (founder of Kengo Kuma & Associates) has most recently designed the V&A Dundee, his first building in the UK, as well as the New National Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics along with Taisei Corporation and Azusa Sekkei.
Inspired by the John Madejski Garden and curated by Clare Farrow, the doughnut-shaped structure – like a nest or cocoon – has been created by weaving rings of bamboo and carbon fibre together. For Kuma, working with Ejiri Structural Engineers and the Kengo Kuma Laboratory at The University of Tokyo, the installation is an exploration of pliancy, precision, lightness and strength: by pulling two ends, it naturally de-forms and half of the woven structure is lifted into the air.
Bamboo has been used traditionally in Japanese architecture in part due to its linearity and flexibility, and as a symbol of strength and rapid growth. The basic component of the structure – a 2m-diameter ring – is made from strips of the bamboo Phyllostachys edulis. By combining carbon fibre, a contemporary material, with the traditional material of bamboo and laminating each ring, the resulting effect achieves a certain rigidity while maintaining the unique material properties and beauty of bamboo – a remarkable, sustainable material that resonates with Kuma’s childhood memories and looks into the future of architecture.
Bamboo (竹) Ring, or ‘Take-wa 竹わ’, is intended to be a catalyst for weaving people and place together.
In Partnership with OPPO.
Further Support by Komatsu Matere, ANA (All Nippon Airways), and Jayhawk Fine Art.
Design Team (Kuma Lab): Kengo Kuma, Toshiki Hirano, Kohyoh Yang, Hiroki Awaji, Tomohisa Kawase
Fabrication Team at Komatsu Matere premises in Japan: Alexander Mladenov, Cristina Mordeglia, Luciana Tenorio, Simone Parola, Sarah Wellesley, Valentin Rodriguez de las Cuevas”
All text Copyright of www.londondesignfestival.com
London Design Festival 2019 - Bamboo (竹) Ring: Weaving into Lightness
“Bamboo (竹) Ring, or ‘Take-wa 竹わ’, is an experiment in the concept of weaving, as explored by Kengo Kuma.
Japanese architect Kuma (founder of Kengo Kuma & Associates) has most recently designed the V&A Dundee, his first building in the UK, as well as the New National Stadium for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics along with Taisei Corporation and Azusa Sekkei.
Inspired by the John Madejski Garden and curated by Clare Farrow, the doughnut-shaped structure – like a nest or cocoon – has been created by weaving rings of bamboo and carbon fibre together. For Kuma, working with Ejiri Structural Engineers and the Kengo Kuma Laboratory at The University of Tokyo, the installation is an exploration of pliancy, precision, lightness and strength: by pulling two ends, it naturally de-forms and half of the woven structure is lifted into the air.
Bamboo has been used traditionally in Japanese architecture in part due to its linearity and flexibility, and as a symbol of strength and rapid growth. The basic component of the structure – a 2m-diameter ring – is made from strips of the bamboo Phyllostachys edulis. By combining carbon fibre, a contemporary material, with the traditional material of bamboo and laminating each ring, the resulting effect achieves a certain rigidity while maintaining the unique material properties and beauty of bamboo – a remarkable, sustainable material that resonates with Kuma’s childhood memories and looks into the future of architecture.
Bamboo (竹) Ring, or ‘Take-wa 竹わ’, is intended to be a catalyst for weaving people and place together.
In Partnership with OPPO.
Further Support by Komatsu Matere, ANA (All Nippon Airways), and Jayhawk Fine Art.
Design Team (Kuma Lab): Kengo Kuma, Toshiki Hirano, Kohyoh Yang, Hiroki Awaji, Tomohisa Kawase
Fabrication Team at Komatsu Matere premises in Japan: Alexander Mladenov, Cristina Mordeglia, Luciana Tenorio, Simone Parola, Sarah Wellesley, Valentin Rodriguez de las Cuevas”
All text Copyright of www.londondesignfestival.com
Around the perimeter of the deck is a Fiberon Mission Rail System. The railing is made of low maintenance PVC composite
Text Copyright www.serpentinegalleries.org 2018
“Serpentine Pavilion 2018 designed by Frida Escobedo
Summary:
Architect Frida Escobedo, celebrated for dynamic projects that reactivate urban space, has been commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2018. Harnessing a subtle interplay of light, water and geometry, her atmospheric courtyard-based design draws on both the domestic architecture of Mexico and British materials and history, specifically the Prime Meridian line at London’s Royal Observatory in Greenwich.
Detail:
Escobedo (b. 1979, Mexico City) is the 18th and youngest architect yet to accept the invitation to design a temporary Pavilion on the Serpentine Gallery lawn in Kensington Gardens. This pioneering commission, which began in 2000 with Zaha Hadid, has presented the first UK buildings of some of the biggest names in international architecture. In recent years, it has grown into a hotly anticipated showcase for emerging talent, from Sou Fujimoto of Japan to selgascano of Spain and Bjarke Ingels of Denmark. Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel selected this year’s architect, with advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.
Escobedo’s Pavilion takes the form of an enclosed courtyard, comprised of two rectangular volumes positioned at an angle. While the outer walls are aligned with the Serpentine Gallery’s eastern façade, the axis of the internal courtyard aligns directly to the north. Internal courtyards are a common feature of Mexican domestic architecture, while the Pavilion’s pivoted axis refers to the Prime Meridian, which was established in 1851 at Greenwich and became the global standard marker of time and geographical distance.
British-made materials have been used in the Pavilion’s construction, chosen for their dark colours and textured surfaces. A celosia – a traditional breeze wall also common to Mexican architecture – is here composed of a lattice of cement roof tiles that diffuse the view out into the park, transforming it into a vibrant blur of greens and blues from within. Two reflecting elements emphasise the movement of light and shadow inside the Pavilion over the course of the day. The curved underside of the canopy is clad with mirrored panels, and a triangular pool cast into the Pavilion floor traces its boundary directly beneath the edge of the roof, along the north axis of the Meridian. As the sun moves across the sky, reflected and refracted by these features, visitors may feel a heightened awareness of time spent in play, improvisation and contemplation over the summer months.
Escobedo’s prize-winning work in urban reactivation ranges from housing and community centres to hotels and galleries. In 2006, she founded her practice in Mexico City, with significant national projects including the Librería del Fondo Octavio Paz and an extension of La Tallera Siqueiros gallery in Cuernavaca. Her designs have featured at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2012 and 2014), the Lisbon Architecture Triennale (2013), and in San Francisco, London and New York. Recent projects include Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and social housing projects in Guerrero and Saltillo, Mexico. She lectures nationally and internationally, and has won multiple awards and accolades.
The Serpentine Pavilion 2018 will once again be a platform for Park Nights, the Serpentine’s annual programme of experimental and interdisciplinary evenings on selected Fridays. Practitioners in the fields of art, architecture, music, film, theory and dance will be commissioned to create new, site-specific works in response to Escobedo’s design, offering unique ways of experiencing architecture and performance, sponsored by COS. Building on its 2017 success, Radical Kitchen also returns to the Pavilion on selected Thursday lunchtimes, inviting community groups, artists, activists, writers and architects to form connections through food. This programme of workshops, performances and talks will address geological time, empire and movements, inspired by the ideas behind Escobedo’s Pavilion design. The Architecture Family Pack and Programme, sponsored by COS, will give children and their families the chance to explore the Serpentine Pavilion from playful and original perspectives.
"I think one needs to plan for change. Make everything more flexible in every way, so that the building become more like a palm tree and less like a completely rigid structure, because that’s the one that will fall down. Rigid things collapse. The rest can move, yes, it transforms, it may lose sections, but its spirit will remain." Frida Escobedo in an interview with The Fabulist. On the occasion of the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, the Serpentine has partnered with Aesop to co-present a special issue of The Fabulist that explores the themes of the Serpentine’s summer season and celebrates Aesop’s support of Live Programmes at the Serpentine.
Serpentine Pavilion Architect's Statement
The design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2018 is a meeting of material and historical inspirations inseparable from the city of London itself and an idea which has been central to our practice from the beginning: the expression of time in architecture through inventive use of everyday materials and simple forms. For the Serpentine Pavilion, we have added the materials of light and shadow, reflection and refraction, turning the building into a timepiece that charts the passage of the day. “
By Matt Vaughn, Winter 2020
This table was made with a salvaged fir legs and welded steel frame. The fir legs were based with hardwood cap and felt pads.
Serpentine Gallery Pavillion 2017, text from website copyright of serpentinegalleries.org
Summary
Diébédo Francis Kéré, the award-winning architect from Gando, Burkina Faso, was commissioned to design the Serpentine Pavilion 2017, responding to the brief with a bold, innovative structure that brings his characteristic sense of light and life to the lawns of Kensington Gardens.
Kéré, who leads the Berlin-based practice Kéré Architecture, is the seventeenth architect to accept the Serpentine Galleries’ invitation to design a temporary Pavilion in its grounds. Since its launch in 2000, this annual commission of an international architect to build his or her first structure in London at the time of invitation has become one of the most anticipated events in the global cultural calendar and a leading visitor attraction during London’s summer season. Serpentine Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO Yana Peel made their selection of the architect, with advisors David Adjaye and Richard Rogers.
Inspired by the tree that serves as a central meeting point for life in his home town of Gando, Francis Kéré has designed a responsive Pavilion that seeks to connect its visitors to nature – and each other. An expansive roof, supported by a central steel framework, mimics a tree’s canopy, allowing air to circulate freely while offering shelter against London rain and summer heat.
Kéré has positively embraced British climate in his design, creating a structure that engages with the ever-changing London weather in creative ways. The Pavilion has four separate entry points with an open air courtyard in the centre, where visitors can sit and relax during sunny days. In the case of rain, an oculus funnels any water that collects on the roof into a spectacular waterfall effect, before it is evacuated through a drainage system in the floor for later use in irrigating the park. Both the roof and wall system are made from wood. By day, they act as solar shading, creating pools of dappled shadows. By night, the walls become a source of illumination as small perforations twinkle with the movement and activity from inside.
As an architect, Kéré is committed to socially engaged and ecological design in his practice, as evidenced by his award-winning primary school in Burkina Faso, pioneering solo museum shows in Munich and Philadelphia.
Serpentine Pavilion Architect's Statement:
The proposed design for the 2017 Serpentine Pavilion is conceived as a micro cosmos – a community structure within Kensington Gardens that fuses cultural references of my home country Burkina Faso with experimental construction techniques. My experience of growing up in a remote desert village has instilled a strong awareness of the social, sustainable, and cultural implications of design. I believe that architecture has the power to, surprise, unite, and inspire all while mediating important aspects such as community, ecology and economy.
In Burkina Faso, the tree is a place where people gather together, where everyday activities play out under the shade of its branches. My design for the Serpentine Pavilion has a great over-hanging roof canopy made of steel and a transparent skin covering the structure, which allows sunlight to enter the space while also protecting it from the rain. Wooden shading elements line the underside of the roof to create a dynamic shadow effect on the interior spaces. This combination of features promotes a sense of freedom and community; like the shade of the tree branches, the Pavilion becomes a place where people can gather and share their daily experiences.
Fundamental to my architecture is a sense of openness. In the Pavilion this is achieved by the wall system, which is comprised of prefabricated wooden blocks assembled into triangular modules with slight gaps, or apertures, between them. This gives a lightness and transparency to the building enclosure. The composition of the curved walls is split into four elements, creating four different access points to the Pavilion. Detached from the roof canopy, these elements allow air to circulate freely throughout.
At the centre of the Pavilion is a large opening in the canopy, creating an immediate connection to nature. In times of rain, the roof becomes a funnel channelling water into the heart of the structure. This rain collection acts symbolically, highlighting water as a fundamental resource for human survival and prosperity.
In the evening, the canopy becomes a source of illumination. Wall perforations will give glimpses of movement and activity inside the pavilion to those outside. In my home village of Gando (Burkina Faso), it is always easy to locate a celebration at night by climbing to higher ground and searching for the source of light in the surrounding darkness. This small light becomes larger as more and more people arrive to join the event. In this way the Pavilion will become a beacon of light, a symbol of storytelling and togetherness.
At the centre of the Pavilion is a large opening in the canopy, creating an immediate connection to nature. In times of rain, the roof becomes a funnel channelling water into the heart of the structure. This rain collection acts symbolically, highlighting water as a fundamental resource for human survival and prosperity.
In the evening, the canopy becomes a source of illumination. Wall perforations will give glimpses of movement and activity inside the pavilion to those outside. In my home village of Gando (Burkina Faso), it is always easy to locate a celebration at night by climbing to higher ground and searching for the source of light in the surrounding darkness. This small light becomes larger as more and more people arrive to join the event. In this way the Pavilion will become a beacon of light, a symbol of storytelling and togetherness.
In the city's River North neighborhood, at the intersection of N. Wabash Avenue and E. Huron Street. Facing southeastward.
This portion of the Windy City boasts an impressive collection of Gothic Revival churches whose main exterior building material is rock-faced ashlar of the Silurian-period Lemont-Joliet Dolostone (LJD). It was quarried in the Lower Des Plaines River Valley southwest of the metropolis.
St. James is one of my favorites of these houses of worship, because it shows off this rock type's tendency to weather to ocher and buttery tones. This lovely patina develops as the stone's iron impurities change with exposure to the atmosphere from the ferrous to the ferric state.
As its original completion year indicates, the cathedral had been standing for almost a decade and a half by the time the Great Fire of 1871 swept through many of the city's existing neighborhoods, including River North. And it suffered grievously from the conflagration. Only its belltower and a portion of its nave walls were left standing afterward. But, as part of the great flurry of civic reconstruction that followed, new LJD was added to complete the church's reconstruction.
It's tempting to think that the heavy coating of soot visible today on the tower's railing and finials bears witness to the disaster. But, as I explain in Chicago in Stone and Clay, I've come across a stereograph photo pair that shows the church soon after the fire. On it, the tower top is clearly as pale-toned as the ashlar below it, and utterly grime-free. So the blackness seen today must have accumulated in the years of rampant bituminous-coal burning that followed. This makes sense when one also notes that the building's central chimney, which had to be rebuilt after the blaze, is now similarly sooty.
The LJD here was deposited about 425 Ma ago, in a shallow saltwater sea that covered the Kankakee Arch. That narrow crustal upwarp separated the deeper waters of the developing Michigan and Illinois Basins. At this point in the Paleozoic era, the American Midwest was situated in the subtropics south of the equator.
The other photos and descriptions in this series can be found at Glory of Silurian Dolostone album.
And for even more on this architectural and geologically impressive building, immediately and unhesitatingly get a copy (or two or three) of my book, Chicago in Stone and Clay. Here's the publisher's description: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501765063/chicago-i...
By Matt Vaughn, Winter 2020
This table was made with a salvaged fir legs and welded steel frame. The fir legs were based with hardwood cap and felt pads.
By Matt Vaughn, Winter 2020
This table was made with a salvaged fir legs and welded steel frame. The fir legs were based with hardwood cap and felt pads.
Construction d'un bâtiment de bureaux.
Pays : France 🇫🇷
Région : Grand Est (Lorraine)
Département : Meurthe-et-Moselle (54)
Ville : Nancy (54000)
Quartier : Nancy Sud
Adresses : boulevard de la Mothe / rue des Cinq-Piquets
Fonction : Bureaux
Construction : 2024 → 2026
▻ Architecte : PPX Architectes
Permis de construire n° PC 54 395 23 00034
▻ Délivré le 11/10/2023
Niveaux : R+5
Hauteur : 22,00 m
Surface de plancher : 5 296,60 m²
Superficie du terrain : 1 834 m²
(Last Updated on February 15, 2025)
This series complements my recently published guidebook, Milwaukee in Stone and Clay: A Guide to the Cream City's Architectural Geology. Henceforth I'll just call it MSC.
The MSC section and page references for the building featured here: 5.40; pp. 113-116.
Looking from Windhover Hall down the Pavilion's easternmost long corridor.
The supernatural whiteness of this museum interior is due to its Carrara Marble flooring and to the painted, asymmetrical arches made of concrete that was set in custom-made wooden molds.
The Carrara takes a very high-gloss shine, and that attribute is obvious here. This famous stone, used since ancient Roman times, hails from the Apuan Alps of northern Italy. It began as a Jurassic-period limestone that was metamorphosed into true marble during pulses of mountain-building in the Oligocene and Miocene epochs.
The concrete is a geologically derived building material, too. A mixture of cement, water, and aggregate (sand or larger rock particles), its primary chemical component is lime—calcium oxide and hydroxide produced by the burning of the calcium carbonate contained in limestone and dolostone. When the lime-containing cement is mixed with water, an exothermic (heat-releasing) reaction is produced, and a new, moldable substance resembling limestone or conglomerate comes into being.
This site and many others in Milwaukee County are discussed at greater length in Milwaukee in Stone and Clay (NIU Imprint of Cornell University Press).
The other photos and discussions in this series can be found in my "Milwaukee in Stone and Clay" Companion album. Also, while you're at it, check out my Architectural Geology of Milwaukee album, too. It contains quite a few photos and descriptions of Cream City sites highlighted in other series of mine.