HEAT SENSITIVE PAVILION

Typology
Pavilion

Client
Chart Art Fair, Kunsthal Charlottenborg

Location
Copenhagen, Denmark

 

Concept
Adapt is a pavilion that, like a nyctinastic plant, opens itself as the day warms and closes itself as the day cools without the need for external sources of energy. By using pistons with paraffin wax inside - a phase change material that expands when melted - as temperatures increase, the pavilion unfurls its mesh awnings independently, just as a plant would its leaves or petals.

 
 

Phase Change Materials
Paraffin wax, a phase change material, expands when melted and can be manufactured to melt at a very broad range of temperatures. Wax pistons, which have yet to find their way into mainstream architecture and are most commonly used in greenhouses, contain paraffin wax and can be programmed to open at Copenhagen day temperatures. Custom details were designed to allow the pistons to articulate the awnings.

 

Day - Warm - Open

NIght - Cool - Closed

Fishing Net Awnings
Some of the most dangerous plastic ocean waste are “ghost” nets - lost fishing gear, which entangles marine life for decades as they do not biodegrade. The pavilion’s awnings were made from a variety of discarded nets taken from the North Sea. The project sustainably re-purposed these nets and made them a prominent feature of the design thus helping to highlight this environmental issue.

 
 

On each of the three different levels of the pavilion, the awnings open as the day warms making the spaces feel less enclosed.

 
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