AFONSOGONÇALVES
ARCHITECTURE | DESIGN | VISUALIZATION
SOFALCA CORK PAVILLION
2014
Lisbon, Portugal
SOFALCA is a Portuguese manufacturer of expanded cork agglomerate solutions for use in construction. They have also been actively committed in recent years to exploring the use of cork in the fields of design and architecture. In 2014, from a protocol signed with the Lisbon Faculty of Architecture, they launched a competition to design a small exhibition pavilion which would explore both the use of cork as a self-supporting construction material and the use of digital fabrication methods. The project was to be designed in the Visual Programming environment Grasshopper and the design brief requested: the solution could not exceed a footprint of 6x6 m, it had to be made almost entirely out of dark cork blocks (additional materials were allowed yet restricted), the solution should be the most efficient possible and not produce unnecessary waste. The project would be presented to SOFALCA and the choose work would be built at the faculty's premises. This project was a collaboration work between me, Rui de Klerk and Nuno Monge and won the first prize.
Our proposal consists in a vault-shaped pavilion. This shaped seemed the best solution for meeting the self-supporting requirement and would also be compatible with the use for exhibitions since it allowed easy flow of people through it. A pavilion entirely made of cork would have the look of being bulky and heavy so in order to convey a sense of lightness we modelled the walls so as to seem very slender but without compromising structural integrity. The pavilion walls were thick enough at the core but thin near the entrance edges. This results in a very seemingly light construction and the thicker areas also add a more interesting wave profile to the walls. Our Grasshopper file was equipped to allow modifications to be made to the shape and also the amount of material needed for its construction. These efficiency parameters were crucial for this proposal to have been chosen by SOFALCA since they were interested in the fact that we could very easily control construction and fabrication costs and also keep track of all wasted material. We even suggested uses for the inevitable waste produced from fabricating the pavilion blocks on a CNC milling machine.
One challenge was finding a way to fabricate the cork blocks due to the double-curvature of the pavilion wall surfaces. This meant the each block would have to be milled on both sides and not just one. For getting the alignment right on the CNC machine we designed a solution where the pavilion bricks were attached to a frame that would later be removed. As a proof-of-concept we fabricated one brick using this method and showed the client it was possible to fabricate the pavilion. The pavilion is currently being planned for fabrication and should be completed by the end of the year
TRIMO URBAN CRASH 2010 - THE LIFE STAND
2010
Ljubljana, Slovenia
The “TRIMO Urban Crash 2010 – A Life Stand” was a competition launched in 2010 by TRIMO, challenging architecture students to conceive a public installation in Nova Fuzine, a residential neighborhood in Ljubliana, using materials manufactured by TRIMO. The intended purpose for the submitted proposals was to come up with a solution for complex architectural issues common to many European regions.
The project was designed in collaboration with architects Sérgio Melo and Miguel Carvalho, both fellow students at that time. Our proposal was based on the idea of a hybrid structure, rigid but at the same time easily manipulated and transformed to better suit the different activities that usually take place in that area: gastronomical fairs, sport events and other cultural events and gatherings.
The proposed installation is formed by three modules, a central module to accommodate services and technical installations and two flanking spaces proposed as multipurpose exhibition areas. The facades of these spaces are composed of movable and removable panels that can be easily manipulated by its users in order to configure the interior and exterior spaces according to the requirements of each event or gathering. On the outside, additional telescopic stands near the sports fields, resting and gathering areas were also envisaged.