A lightweight pavilion

In The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation’s garden, Sack and Reicher + Muller with Eyal Zur suggest an alternative to costly and cumbersome modes of architecture.

Architects Sack and Reicher + Muller with industrial designer Eyal Zur (SRMZ) have recently completed the installation of Sway – a lightweight temporary structure – on view at The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation, Sydney.

The pavilion is part of Fugitive Structures, an annual series of invitation-only competitions aimed at emerging and mid-career architects who are asked to design a small-scale temporary pavilion for SCAF’s Zen garden. The series is intended to be an annual celebration of experimental architecture.

“Sway addresses issues of transience and temporality, suggesting an alternative to costly modes of architecture, cumbersome in materials and construction. Where migrants, refugees, business people and tourists are continuously moving across a global expanse, we would like to investigate the possibility for a shelter. This required the development of the lightest of possible structures, which would be brought to site in several backpacks. The structure was developed via a series of prototypes and loading tests, over a period of one year in the team’s workshop, accompanied by parametric modelling and computerized structural analysis.” The architects explain.

“The structure sensitively engages with the land rather then penetrating it, and the pavilion is held in place by seating elements that are filled with materials from the site. The shelter emerges between weight and weightlessness. Between technologies of exploration and technologies of agriculture. Between moving and staying.

The space changes throughout the shifting daylight and climates of the seasons, throughout its lifespan. It constantly engages with its visitors.

Sway calls for movement: out of the gallery and into a suite of interior and exterior environments set in the garden. It is a place for a multitude of events – hosting, gathering, solitude and contemplation. The structure is as an episode, a station in a visitor’s day. It is not only about the experience of arrival and staying, but also about the experience of an ongoing journey to be continued. Architecture, therefore, could also be about leaving.”