Temporary Bar | LIKEarchitects

This bar is a winning entry of an academic competition of the Faculty of Architecture in Oporto. The given implantation, the fast construction and the low budget were some of the premises which had to be considered for designing this temporary structure that should be built in just one week with the help of students. Departing from IKEA’s concept “build-by-your-own”, the project is a parallelepiped made out of different depth storage boxes resulting in a modular building with a textured skin, standing as a visual reference. The dimensions of the applied storage box (300 x 420mm) are the structural module of the entire project. In addition to the fact of its evident compositional qualities, the boxes, made of a resistant polypropylene translucent plastic, serve as well as basis of the structural logic of the project, therefore assuming as structural membrane. It is a process that departs from assembling units in order to reach the whole. The project is divided in four types of modules (groups of boxes fixed to wooden structural frames) applied in workshops and then transported to the implantation site. Thus, the 420 boxes are organized in a total of 46 modules with considerably reduced weight and size: 16 modules of 4x3 boxes (168cm x 90cm); 20 modules of 3x3 boxes (126cm x 90cm); 6 modules of 2x3 boxes (84cm x 90cm) and 4 modules of 1x3 boxes (42cm x 90cm). The boxes were applied to the primary steel frame structure (302cm x 302cm x 480cm) already implanted on the site. The convex shape of the boxes and therefore of the modules, plus the aim to maintain the interior space completely empty, obliged a custom detail of the “stretched” hinges. The LED network in the concave interior spaces results in an exterior pattern of light, dramatically changing the bar appearance: by day a white abstract and closed volume; and by night a box of changing light following the DJ set. Night over night, drinks were sold out. Main Materials: 420 IKEA storage boxes TROFAST (polypropylene plastic) MDF Frame sub-structures Steel Frame structure LED lightning