Macrofibre Pavilion

Location | Cambridge, Canada

Year | 2017

Team | T.K. Justin Ng, Joshua MacDonald

Status | Idea, Academic

Publication |​ Questioning the _, Riverside Architectural Press 2018

Bernard Tschumi wrote that architecture, at its best, free itself to allow ‘pole vaulting in a chapel’.

Macrofibre Pavilion learns from the elasticity and gravity of pole vaulting to explore live systems. The design is based on the unique characteristics of fabric at both the macro and micro-scale.

While large sheets of fabric are very good at sagging, smaller sheets have a fascinating ability to arch under compression. Macrofibre Pavilion inverses the two scales, using the micro system and patterns behind the fabric to erect the macrostructure, thereby providing it with necessary rigidity.

The macrostructure is composed of rigid Voronoi cells joined by flexible connections, the cells act like nodes in the structure of nylon. The thickness, spacing, and sizing of each of these cells influence the form of the structure. Many of the cells hold fabric containing vegetation or water, dynamizing forces acting upon the macrostructure, creating an ever-changing pavilion.