COLLABORATION AND CONTEXT
This project is the result of a collaboration between EMERGENT and KOKKUGIA, intended to capitalize on both shared sensibilities as well as individual expertise. It is an exploration of messy computation in the sense that the project is the result of moving in and out of the realms of designing and scripting. It represents a loose, open-ended way of working that biases effects over self-justifying processes.
The Pavilion is intended to be the centerpiece for the Yeosu 2010 Expo, a space which celebrates the ocean as a living organism and the co-existence of human culture and ocean ecosystems. In our design proposal, the building object and its territory enter into a feedback loop. The role of the architect is expanded to include the active re-organization of matters and energies around and underneath the building, where the species selects its environment as much as the environment selects its species.

TECTONICS AND COLOR
The building is based on an aggregation of soft membrane bubbles merged together with a hard monocoque shell. The two systems are characterized by patterns of surface articulation which are specific to their materiality. Nevertheless, features tend to migrate, hybridize and become redundant.

Deep pleats and mega-armatures that create structural stiffness are generally associated with the fiber-composite shell, while fine, double-pleated Air-beams spread over and stabilize the vaulted ETFE membranes. Micro-armatures (a.k.a. ‘Mohawks‘) transgress thresholds between shell and membrane, creating structural and ornamental continuity between systems.

Color is used to visually intensify transformations in structural behavior (for instance mega-armatures tend towards purple/pink while Mohawks tend towards orange/yellow). Nevertheless, color gradients are neither 100% indexical nor are they completely smooth; they are coherent yet glitchy. No longer secondary to form, color becomes critical in an overall ecology of features