ACSA Faculty Design Award
2014-2015 Winner: Submission Materials
Empty Pavilion
MCLAIN CLUTTER
University of Michigan
KYLE REYNOLDS
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Empty
Pavilion
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Empty
Pavilion
Detroit, MI
Summer-Fall 2012
Architecture’s role as a proponent of urban legibility has been a frequent and
recurrent area of inquiry in the history of the discipline. Repeatedly, architects
have implemented techniques of figuration, iconicity or imageability in their
designs for urban buildings in ways that were intended to make sense of their
surrounding cities, represent a public, solicit occupancy or frame common
experience.
The Empty Pavilion aspires to a method of architectural legibility that is
appropriate for Detroit’s evacuated urban context. Breaking with the dominant
(and apparent) narrative of Detroit’s deterioration, the Empty Pavilion is
conceived under the naive suspicion that a latent and viable urbanism exists
within the city’s now diffuse urban context, and that through the imposition of
a figurally solicitous architecture, that public may be made extant.
The pavilion is designed as a collection of architectural figures drawn-in-space.
Each figure is derived as a single line tracery of an underlying lattice of closelypacked platonic solids. These lines are then “relaxed” to loosely approximate
the rigorous geometry underlying their inception – thus yielding a fleeting
legibility of geometric intricacy, as well as a mood or affect of entropy that
resonates with the surrounding city. From a distance, the project engages the
onlooker in a visual game of fleeting figuration. From certain vantage points,
and only momentarily, the project recalls familiar architectural elements that
may entice memory – like the roof-line of house, a chimney, a hallway, or a
staircase. From other vantages, the project presents clear, and yet unfamiliar,
architectural figures – thus soliciting projective association. Up-close, the
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pavilion is meant to encourage physical interaction. Elements within the design
suggest differing modes of occupation, such as seating, lounging and climbing.
Constructed of bent steel tubing, foam and rubber, the pavilion is counterintuitively soft to the touch, begging tactile engagement.
The relationship between the pavilion and its site is meant to lend definition
to the otherwise unvariegated surrounding emptiness and vaguely recall the
site’s history. The project aspires to distribute just enough material across
empty space – an element Detroit has in excess – to make that space legible
and promote interaction. Located in an empty field that was once divided
into a series of residential lots, the project loosely describes the volume of the
house that once sat in its place. The design of the ground plane further recalls
the absent house, drawing the shape of its shadow in gravel surrounded by
the painted profile of that cast by the new pavilion. From within, the pavilion
frames views out to historically important civic buildings. For example,
traversing a passage carved under and through the pavilion, the project directs
one’s view out to the empty shell of Detroit’s monumental Michigan Central
Railroad Station. From the opposite direction, the project frames a view of the
Renaissance Center, General Motor’s headquarters in Detroit.
Empty Pavilion will remain in place for a year. The relationship between
the pavilion and its surrounding public will be documented in video and
photography. Thus, the project’s successes and failures in soliciting a latent
public will become part of the research
Site Axonometric
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1-2. The Empty Pavilion is designed as a collection of architectural figures drawn in space.
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3-4. Each figure is derived as a single line tracery of a lattice of closely-packed platonic solids,
which is then “relaxed” to loosely approximate the rigorous underlying geometry..
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Each figure is designed to solicit differing modes of occupation, such as seating, lounging and climbing...
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Fall 2012
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Exploded axonometric. Empty Pavilion has more than 200 hand-bent carbon
steel parts, all clad in nautical foam and liquid rubber.
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Fall 2012
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Winter 2013
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Summer 2013
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Design and construction
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