This design-build seminar is a collaborative initiative to design, build, and program a temporary pavilion structure that was erected by the students in the area between Avery, Fayerweather and Schermerhorn Halls during the Spring semester of 2021. The pavilion is being programmed for events outside of GSAPP beginning with 2021 graduation for both on-site and remote event participation.

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The Architecture Advanced VI Studio began the Spring 2021 semester with a week-long design charrette titled “Outside In Pavilion: The Body in Space Today.” The event focused on designing an inflatable pavilion to extend the capacity of Avery Hall to bring the outside in. The brief entailed a design that brings people together but accommodates physical distancing requirements. Students considered how a pavilion could perform in terms of climate resiliency, energy use, and structural principles.

Architecture has to a vast degree relied on compression for its stability—inflatable structures reverse this by relying on tension across their surfaces. What is possible today if we imagine a new capacity of pneumatics in architecture? What if we imagine tension and surface or persistent air exchange and pressure as structure? What if we dramatically expand ratios of material mass to volume?

Finalists were selected by a jury of GSAPP Faculty members including Mario Gooden, Torkwase Dyson, Steven Holl, Dimitra Tsachrelia, Mark Wasiuta, Galia Solomonoff, Anna Puigjaner, Justin Garrett Moore, Alicia Ajayi, Jing Liu, Nina Cooke John, Michael Bell, Stephen Burks, Enrique Walker, Ada Tolla, Giuseppe Lignano, Juan Herreros, Jaffer Kolb, Ivi Diamantopoulou, Mimi Hoang, Amanda Williams, Ife Vanable, Hilary Sample, Kate Ascher, Christoph Kumpusch, Victor Body-Lawson, and Laurie Hawkinson.