Seeing 11.5 Billion Times 6.5 Trillion Miles

A pavilion produced by BKK Architects with Rory Hyde for the Pavilions for New Architecture exhibition at the Monash University Museum of Art, curated by Max Delany and Geraldine Barlow, 2005.


Project Team (BKK Architects)
Rory Hyde, Tim Black, Lotte Starr, Christian Froleich

Project Links:
BKK Architects | Monash University Museum of Art | Embedded Practice Research


Project Description:

This project was produced as part of SIAL’s Embedded Practice Research program, through a collaboration between Rory Hyde and BKK Architects for the Pavilions For New Architecture exhibition at the Monash University Museum of Art.

Curated by Max Delany and Geraldine Barlow, Pavilions for New Architecture invited nine emerging local practices to explore the pavilion as a form through which to exhibit architecture. The pavilion type was chosen as a starting point due to its typically experimental nature and absence of programmatic requirements.



The project was also informed by Rory Hyde’s research into the Digital in Small Practice, particularly the translation of digital design information into physical construction.

The spherical form of Buckminster Fuller’s Montreal Expo geodesic and Toyo Ito’s orthogonal Serpentine Pavilion were taken as starting points. Both projects employ experimental structural systems resulting in a continuous transparent skin which does not discriminate between wall and roof. Our pavilion holds traces of both these precedents, as the radiating cell networks give the impression of a sphere caught within a cube.

The form is generated by the network of a geodesic sphere projected to a centre point which is then trimmed against an inner and outer cube. Using parametric software, variables such as the position of the centre point or the size of the intersecting cubes can be easily modified to quickly test a number of iterations. The resulting individual cells are then unrolled and numbered to form templates. A number of 1:5 scale paper and cardboard prototypes were produced during development to test materiality, lighting, fixing and suspension methods.

The completed project is a 2m cube constructed from hand-cut 2mm white cardboard fixed together with double-sided tape and suspended from the gallery ceiling by stainless steel cables. A small black step allows the viewer to position their head at the focal point of the radiating structure, so only the edges of the structure are visible, giving a sense of infinite projection.
 
The piece's title, 11.5 billion times 6.5 trillion miles, refers to Buckminster Fuller's calculation of the distance the naked eye can see through space, describing a vast sphere of vision converging upon every individual.



Download the quicktime animation of the structure here. RotatingAnimation.mov


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