Translate Serpentine Pavilion Smiljan Radić from fantasy to manufacture

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the use of fiberglass allowed for the flag being thin and fragile, but there was also strength to cover a large face. The pigment has flame retardant. Louis Image courtesy Webb Bird / AECOM

Set perfectly in the quiet hum of Kensington Gardens London based Smiljan Radić of the 2014 Serpentine Pavilion, an ethereal mass of carefully molded fiberglass punctuated by openings cut accurately. Radić wants a structure that appears thin and fragile, but was strong enough to support himself, and his affection for the qualities in rudimentary layers of paper mache - the middle of model choice - inspired the use of fiberglass by AECOM, who designed wild ideas of Radic . In this article, first published by Metropolis Magazine as " Paper-thin walls, " a AECOM engineer explains their solution. Read on after the break for more.

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a fiber semi-translucent glass orb perched on top of quarry stone glows in the night in Kensington gardens, London. A 3800-squarefoot gallery designed by Chilean architect Smiljan Radić, the Serpentine Pavilion 2014 is a delicate game between matter, texture and light. Radić often used paper mache models in his work and he wanted the material to be translated in its flag. He brought aboard the engineering arm of the multidisciplinary architecture and design AECOM to provide technical expertise.

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Contractors, StageOne, molded strips of fiberglass on a form created from polystyrene. Pigment was added and adjusted to provide the right amount of transparency. Image © Daniel Portilla

"He wanted a structure that felt thin and fragile, and fragile, but there was also the strength to span a rather large face, "said Thomas Webster, one of AECOM lead engineers on the roof." When you layer up paper mache, you get dark spots that are slightly thicker, and patches of light . Radić wanted to play on that juxtaposition. "

Fiberglass was the logical solution. "The process is almost identical to how you form a paper mache structure the sense that you need something to mold around," says Webster. "We created a negative form of polystyrene cut large two-by-fourmeter blocks, and we ask the bands fiberglass around it and kept putting on layers."

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in fiberglass is recognized as a component, but not often as an architectural element. However, the ease of use of the material allows the possibility of creating any form. Image courtesy of Louis Webb Bird / AECOM

for all the benefits of fiber glass, there was a major challenge: figuring out how to transmit enough light so that the light structure "We had to do a lot. tests on equipment to get the right level of light transfer and also get the white color, "says Webster. "The other thing is that the pigment gives fireproof. We had to do a lot of testing behind the scenes to get the right light, the correct translucency, good color and good fire retardancy. All our strengths and process technical thought went into ensuring that the equipment will work as we need to. "

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