Pavilion in the Grove

The brief

A study for a small reading pavilion: one room, four walls, a single roof, set into a stand of trees. The conceptual question: how little structure can a room ask for, and still feel like architecture?

Design narrative

The pavilion is reduced to three elements — a stone plinth, four timber walls, and a thin steel roof. The walls are not load-bearing; they hang from the roof, which is supported by four corner columns set just inside the wall plane. The result: at the corners, the walls disappear, and the roof appears to float on the air between trees. Inside, the room is a single 5×5 metre square, oriented so that one wall opens fully to the grove, and another holds a single built-in bench.