Title: flux papillon pavilion
Location: ithaca, ny
Date: 2013
CATEGORY: PAPER
Project Type: SPECULATIVE
Program: plaza
Recognition:
Published in Association vol.6 (Cornell university, 2014)
Narrative (Synopsis):
Flux Papillon Pavilion is a machine-like building/installation that straddles the central corridor of the Ithaca Commons. Operated by 29 arrays of five hydraulic cylinders with an attached dozen parallel links each, Flux Papillon Pavilion is a motorized vehicle that aims to engender a visual narrative that records climate and at the same time interacts with the Ithaca populace. Moderated by 5 different metrics (cloud cover, average temperature, solar radiation, air speed, and humidity), the Pavilion’s motorized beams respond to variations in weather due to its multiple meteorological sensors. Each day is recorded and kept in position, and the building slowly undulates into a different position as the year progresses. So, over the course of a year, the building itself will show the daily patterns of weather, and over a year and beyond, establish the climate through its modification of the topography below. The enclosed indoor/outdoor space is meant to rehabilitate this largely unused landscape due to Ithaca’s harsh weather through the mechanism of viewing that which created it in the first place.
