Ball-Nogues Wins Pavillon Spéciale Competition

Los Angeles-based architecture firm Ball-Nogues Studio has been selected as the winner of the “Pavillon Spéciale” competition for the Ecole Spéciale d’Architecture. The competition provides an opportunity for students and practitioners to work together for three months from design to construction for a new experimental pavilion for a large rectangular outdoor garden at the school. Winners are selected as “emerging international architects under the age of 45.”

Ball Nogues, a firm familiar with building systems of interactive, repeated components, has produced a form active canopy for the winning design. As explained by the Bustler in a post announcing the winner, “The structure is comprised of approximately 200 ‘cells,’ each made from locally sourced plastic tubing that will be bent and curled in custom jigs designed and constructed by students.  To provide shade, each cell will have a locally sourced sheet material spanning between the tubes within it. The cell module is a very effective way of constructing a temporary structure: each can be transported as a flat unit and rapidly assembled on site; when it is time for the structure to come down, dismantling and transportation to a new site is easy.”

The structure will require Ball-Nogues and students to test full-scale mock ups because the form active system is difficult to duplicate with software without direct empirical evidence.