Excerpt: Sacred Leaves Pavilion, designed by Atelier Daniel Florez, is a Timber and Bamboo structure that tries to create its own ecosystem through dialogue and respect for the existing environment. The pavilion is designed to be removable, transportable and recyclable in order to be committed to the principles of a circular economy.
Project Description
[Text as submitted by architect] Sacred Leaves it’s a pavilion inside a Hotel in the Northeast of Brazil, which it’s in front of a stunning beach populated by turtles and dolphins. The Hotel makes the respect for its location and its coexistence with nature the reason, origin, and flag of its touristic experience.
The proposal it’s a poetical umbraculum created by three leaves of Glue Laminated Timber and Bamboo, a pavilion that tries to create its own ecosystem through dialogue and respect for the existing ecosystem.
During the day, the strong tropical sun is relieved by the breeze of the trade winds, blowing almost all over the season and constantly moving the clouds. The curved G.L.T main structure and the bamboo build a shadowed and ventilated space below the polycarbonate roof and project the shadow of a leaf, which appears, moves and disappears like magic with the movements of the clouds, the wind and the sun.
During the night, the warm artificial light it’s filtered through the polycarbonate, showing 3 sacred leaves from the terraces of the hotel’s villas. The perception of the sacred floating leaves as well as their projected shadows reminds us poetically of our commitment to life and to the preservation of other species that inhabit our planet, turning the tourist stay at the Hotel into an educational experience as well.
The lamps, designed with the NYC architectural lighting office of Natalia Priwin, are made with recycled parts of bamboo hung from the beams by copper cylinders that expressed the passage of time by their greenish oxidation generated by the salty winds from the ocean. A system of refrigeration it’s created by pipes that evaporate aromatic water to the space, cooling the temperature and irrigating the plants of the greenhouse Eden eco-system. The wooden columns on the perimeter of the leaves build a classical seafront portico. They are sculpted with an anthropomorphic shape of 2.3m height, the same height as The Caryatid porch of the Erechtheion temple, Greece in 420 BC.
The double curvature geometry of the roof projects a different shadow in each column of the pavilion, due also to the double curvature geometry of the column. As it happens in the fabulous temple of the Acropolis every column has an identity, like every single actor of an eco-system. Equality and diversity. The main materials are GLT timber from fast-growing trees of reforestation areas, bamboo, natural stone and a white sand draining floor that returns the water to the aquifers, all-natural elements with almost zero carbon impact.
The pavilion it’s designed to be removable, transportable and recyclable in order to be committed to the principles of a circular economy.
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