Soft Corner Pavilion

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

Soft Corner Pavilion 

Whitelakewhitelake

LEAD ARCHITECTS
Alexander Belozertsev, Julia Belozertseva

HELP WITH CONSTRUCTION
Natasha Krymskaya, Fedor Polushkin, Aidemir Nisredov, Natasha Kuzmina,
Viacheslav Vazyulya, Daniil Chikaev, Misha Sapozhnikov

PHOTOGRAPHS
Julia Belozertseva

AREA
130 m²

YEAR
2021

LOCATION
Nikola-lenivets, Russia

CATEGORY
Landscape Architecture, Pavilion, Temporary Installations

Text description provided by architect.

The object was designed for the Signal 2021 music festival in Nikola-Lenivets and was built as a winning proposal in the Nature Lifecycle category. 

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

This temporary pavilion is a space for connecting the public and the personal, Natural, and human — a hidden amphitheater, intended for festival visitors who, after active recreation with loud music, can find themselves in a quiet place.

A simple form, a seemingly massive wall — all this is made of soft hay. The pavilion existed for three days of the festival, and then was ruined and handed over to local farmers.

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

This work reflects architecture not only as a series of states but also as a permanent spatial structure. On the one hand, it is a temporary pavilion built for the period of the festival:

a public space made of hay cannot exist for a long time.And, when used, will inevitably turn into ruins. On the other hand, the structure and the plot of penetration into a secret room (not obvious from the outside space) do not directly depend on materiality.

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

The form will exist in photographs and memories of people, and the material from which the object is built will repeat the chain of transformations over and over again: grass, bales, animal feed, etc.

A music festival held in such a picturesque place in itself presupposes a mixture of culture and nature, a constant change of events.

On the scale of the event, the pavilion can be understood as something opposite to what is happening around: instead of a noisy open-air club, a private space is created.

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

Outside, there are walls with two wide and two narrow passages, inside there is a sacred space, a secret amphitheater of calm and silence.

The pavilion absorbs sounds, and a quiet place is formed inside, where it is difficult to hear speech.

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

The construction site is located far from large cities. This circumstance created difficulties with logistics and access to construction materials and equipment.

Almost all preparatory work was done manually by a team of volunteers. As mentioned above, the life cycle of the pavilion involved its disposal as animal feed.

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

Therefore, in the process of work, It was necessary to establish contact with the local community of farmers, not only as suppliers of hay but also as future potential users of it after the dismantling of the pavilion.

The main building material is hay bales measuring 400x500x800 mm, each weighing about 17-20 kilograms. This material involved manual stacking, which turned construction into hard, low-tech work. As a result, 23 tons of hay were moved and stacked along the outer and inner perimeter.

Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva

The rigidity of the pavilion was provided by a wooden frame, bales of hay were manually tied to the frame and tied together with a rope.


Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva
Soft Corner Pavilion
© Julia Belozertseva


Soft Corner Pavilion
Site Plan
Soft Corner Pavilion
Plan
Soft Corner Pavilion
Plan
Soft Corner Pavilion
Plan
Soft Corner Pavilion
Location
Soft Corner Pavilion
Axonometric


Soft Corner Pavilion
Axonometric
Soft Corner Pavilion
Axonometric
Soft Corner Pavilion
Axonometric
Soft Corner Pavilion
Axonometric


Soft Corner Pavilion
Axonometric
Soft Corner Pavilion
Soft Corner Pavilion
Soft Corner Pavilion