- New alliances
We live in a cross between imaginaries, memory and future plans. Humans deploy timelines in "spaces of possibility" that provide the physical and technical environments, thanks to them we give stability to our relationships. So architecture as such, has commonly built stability in social links, but now the concept of stability is in crisis; the fleeting, the mobile, the virtual and technological have taken on special relevance. In accordance with this, architecture must adapt itself to new positions, in form just as in its materiality and content. The action of architectures of temporary structures instead of fixed is made relevant as a policy of resistance to the hegemony of a public space thinking as a place of consumption and control. This is a project of a social nature that through its structural qualitie is able to alleviate political centralization, cultural and economic movement, carrying education and culture to the most remote and most needy places.
The Helium Pavilion is a project of a social nature and of multiple purposes; all that its structure and flexibility can give. Until now this project has had two directions: as a Pavilion by the Spanish foundation “Gesto” and by YALA competition (Young Architects in Latin America), collateral event of the 16th Venice Architecture Biennial, where it has been awarded the name of “Free Schools”.
After the testing and subsequent evolution of the project, this will generate activities of the foundation “Gesto”, which from 2019 will use the Pavilion as an itinerant project that will move through several cities in Spain. This initiative is linked to a proposal that integrates artists and therapists who seek to give a creative momentum to the healing of certain social aspects through creative activities.
Taking advantage of the nomadic possibilities that the Pavilion offers, this has been presented to the YALA competition. Based on this this idea, a device was proposed to attack the problem of the political / cultural centralisation of Chile with the movement, taking with it a cultural and educational event to remote places with the aim of rescuing, educating and teaching freely, leading to openness and flexibility in education.
The nomadic quality of the intervention permits the ambivalence between appearing and disappearing, allowing understanding of the limits of the local landscape without affecting its reading or understanding. A lightweight building is proposed, easy to assemble and disassemble, transportable, flexible and unstable. An interactive building, fragile in its appearance and strong in its capacity.
The Pavilion’s contact with the ground is through ‘shoes’, metallic devices that fix the building to the ground. The wheels give flexibility to be placed quickly, change position and even move once set-up. Within these structures a 30 kg metal sphere hangs directly from the cover, making evident the vertical force of the helium sphere and the negotiation of light weights that the building poses.
