DESIGN PROBLEM
Two pavilions
The design for the Victoria Park Pavilion is informed by two distinct understandings of the pavilion
building typology.
A park pavilion is often a free standing structure dedicated to relaxation and pleasure.
A sports pavilion is dedicated to the participation and observation of sport activity.
This project recognizes that as the seasons transition to and from winter, the Pavilion, too, will transition between the recreation, passive park use, and civic activity of a park pavilion to the active participatory use of a sports pavilion.
The design for the Victoria Park Pavilion is informed by these two different expressions of the Pavilion and three additional primary design considerations:
How to situate a modest structure within a large landscape?
How to create spaces of interaction?
How to construct a systematic and flexible building system that can respond to diverse program needs, phasing, and future change?
The design proposes to extend the geometry of the oval so that a park and a sports pavilion become inextricably intertwined within the seasonal changes of use and landscape.
RATIONAL FOR RESOLUTION OF DESIGN PROBLEMS
The landscape of Victoria Park is generally flat and characterized by clearings that are meadows or fairways and stands of mature trees. Seasonal change creates dramatic variation in the character of the park in general, and this site in particular.
The oval
The stands of mature trees and meadows of spring, summer, and fall exhibit varied definitions of edge. In winter, however, these finer scaled layers of the landscape are veiled by a blanket of snow and replaced with the clear figure of the skating oval. The design seeks to intertwine the oval and the Pavilion through a radial organization that gathers activities and defines movement within the pavilion as an extension of movement on the ice. In this way the Pavilion and the oval become one. The Pavilion stands as an extension of the ice and the ice, in turn, becomes part of the architecture.
In spring, summer, and fall the memory of the ice is embedded in the structural organization of the Pavilion and the form of the landscape situated between the Pavilion and the meadow. Terraces that step toward the meadow provide space for art objects, picnics, concerts, gatherings, as well as infiltration planters for storm water retention.
The public hall
Like the central hall of a train station, the Pavilion is organized around a large, singular public space that is shared by all visitors and staff for access and use. It is the space of interaction.
In winter this space becomes the skate changing hall and building entry for skiers, snowshoers, the general public, and the Edmonton Speed Skating Association. In summer this space becomes an extension of the adjacent active landscape. It is a gathering space; a sheltered destination for a picnic in the park, a bike ride, an outdoor movie, a game of cricket, a stroll, a class, or a meeting,
The Public Hall provides the greatest visual connection between the activity of the pavilion and the activity of the site. At night it glows like a lantern through a screen of wooden frames.
The Public Hall provides operational control of the facility. By providing building access from both the south and north the public is invited to use this space while allowing the multipurpose and the ESSA training area to remain closed.
This strategy allows an overall reduction in the planned interior area of the building through highly efficient building circulation. These savings can be directly applied to the primary structural system and additional landscape and site development.
The frames
The Frames are one hundred and seventy 80mm x 494mm glulams stood on end. They define the long edges of the Pavilion. As a collection of elemental structural members they establish a legible singularity of purpose for the building. Through these repeated and iconic structural elements the Pavilion manifests a strong presence despite its modest size.
The 494mm depth of the frame creates an interstitial space that is inherently flexible and allows for highly specific program responses through variations in building enclosure placement and infill materials.
Free standing, they provide exterior space to occupy; to play hide and seek, to stand. They define a permeable colonnade that provides shade, sheltered building access, or a covered place to park your bike or wax your skis. Insert a wall on the outside face and there is room to fill the inside with shelves for boots, tools, and equipment. Insert a wall on the inside face and one can sit in the sun on a bench built into the Pavilion. Insert a window in the upper half of the wall for daylight and natural ventilation. Insert one, or a series of windows, at ground level to create landscape interaction. Through this depth of structure the pavilion is no longer defined by an exterior wall, but a permeable, and functional thickness.
Repetition of the Frame allows for ease in phasing, not only as defined in the competition brief but also over longer time periods as new uses are met. Repetition along a curve provides variation in view. Like moving through a stand of trees, the frames establish a rhythm for a changing and varied experience of the oval, landscape, activity, and light. The diffusion of light through the layers of frames renders the building as a lantern within the winter landscape.
(From competitor's text)
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