Observatoire | Atelier 56S

This project, realized for the Archi<20 competition, consisted on proposing a pavilion of 20 m2 floor space to be constructed in a protected natural area in Muttersholtz, Alsace. With a limited budget of 7000 Euro, the commission allowed to seek for a precise and careful architecture. In this sense, the first intention was to create a building that could offer an experience of varied possibilities, using the least materials and formal recourses. This intention is translated into a structural system that performs various tasks: the possibility of light, shadow, ventilation and also to provide temporal storage space. The second intention was to conceive an architecture that could enhance and diversify the relationship between the visitor of the pavilion and the surrounding environment. The pavilion, then, performs as a medium that is both reduced and enhanced into an optical device. In an economic sense, the structure permits an open-plan interior. Seen from the exterior, the pavilion tends to disappear: in the ambiguous nature of its formal limits, a seemingly ordinary object is revealed as a complex interplay of light, images, people and objects. The visitor is invited to reflect on this uneasiness.