niallmclaughlin.com

From the entrance to the park, the site is viewed from above. The roof of our building is conceived as a radiant colourful cloth, laid out under the trees. At night it will be lit from below. Seen from the town it will look like a luminous floating carpet.

Our building is literally interwoven with the trees forming a warp and weft. The woven roof is a specific response to the local climate, which is particularly rainy. The canopy, like a deciduous tree, is a rain catching device. The way the water interacts with natural and artificial light, the acoustic of the falling water, the sense of movement and change, will all be part of the architecture of the canopy. We want this building to be something you might visit in the rain for more than simply shelter. On sunny days, the canopy and the trees fragment the light into complex dappled shade. The edges of the canopy catch wind and sunlight and gather energy from the atmosphere. This is used to light the canopy at night.

The existing paths coming together in this part of the park are given a new locus. They all arrive under the canopy and make a space between the buildings. The lovely free standing Copper Beech becomes a new point of focus at the intersection of these paths.

The pavilion is organised into three identifiable units. The main hall, the reception, the meeting room and the park ranger are all contained within one highly flexible block. The toilets and the access storage area are collected in another block, and the cafe and kitchen are in a third block that hovers over the river, opening out a whole new front for the park and the landscape. This is a south facing space with a glorious view, it makes the river part of the park. Overhead the canopy becomes specialised, picking up sunlight from the south and wind from the southwest. The structure supporting the glass box is used to keep the cables in tension. It is made from wood like the frame of a loom.

Between the other two blocks, there is a new little square that forms a window connecting the amphitheatre and the river. Sitting here in the dappled shade you can see both ways. This space is protected from the rain by clear acrylic sheets hovering over the cables and draining into clear acrylic gutters. It is possible to stand here during a shower and to move about between the two buildings without getting wet.

The canopy of the roof thins away to almost nothing as it passes through the avenue of trees. It remains just a thin stream of taut cables passing, but not touching the trees. We want it to appear like a ghost passing across the strong axis of the tree lined walk. It becomes denser again on each side. This allows us to think of the trees themselves as being one strand or theme in the weave.