Pleat Pavilion

BACKGROUND All registered Australian architects were invited to participate in the 2016 Architecture Commission Design Competition. They were asked to consider innovative ways to activate the Grollo Equiset Garden with an evocative work of temporary architecture. The competitive process selected 3 finalists and 4 commendations out of 93 entries. My submission received a commendation in the first stage. CONTRIBUTION Pleat Pavilion is a collaboration between architecture and textile design that looks to techniques in fashion and textiles to transform ordinary shade cloth material into an extraordinary piece of architecture. I explored the idea of using fashion techniques to create an intricate piece of architecture that functions as shelter as well as public space. The gap in knowledge lies in the testing of ideas around this fusion of architectural scale and fashion techniques. Using digital tools to simulate fashion techniques I was able to show an alternative solution to how architectural fabrics can be conceived, extending the idea of a big umbrella. This success allows me to further pursue industry partners in the architectural fabrics area to rethink or extend how we think about these materials and how we can apply architectural methodologies to them to produce something novel. SIGNIFICANCE The jury that peer reviewed the entries included significant figures in architecture, art and design. The audience of the competition is the architecture and design community nationally and internationally. The success of my entry saw a payment made to the value of $1000. This award gives my research attention and will allow me to forge new research relationships. There are very few competitions for practitioners to engage with and this is a significant effort by the NGV to create discourse around our built environment in terms of ideas.