As a showcase for emerging technologies, Architectkidd had the opportunity to explore some new ideas in the Bridgestone Pavilion for the BOI Fair. Instead of the typical building design process – starting with a horizontal, 2-dimensional floor plane, then extruding walls to create an rectilinear building form – we were interested in attempting to create architecture based entirely on its 3-dimensional spatial volumes.
Our starting point were the required interior spaces, building heights and site boundaries. Another issue was managing the continuous flow of visitors from entrance, exhibitions, to exit. Based on these conditions, we merged the various volumes to form the overall building. The exterior form was then simply a result of optimizing the interior volumes while minimizing any superfluous or extraneous elements such as additional edges, corners, or leftover spaces.
The resulting smooth form may seem simple at first glance, but it was definitely not simple to build compared to conventional structures. The biggest challenge during the construction was to reconcile our approach with available construction materials, structure and techniques for this project.
Fortunately, the steel fabrication team from JST Industry was up to the challenge, as well as structural designer Montree Sayabovorn. In particular, the team engineered 66 steel profiles – each of a distinctly different shape and curvature. All the steel elements were fabricated at the warehouse to minimize on-site installation. Bridgestone provided additional support in the form of flexible polymer building products that were installed as finishing materials.
Here are some more photos of the construction process below.
[…] For more information about the building structure, please see our description here. […]