Tina Manis Associates selected to design Art Fund Pavillion

The Lightbox and Tent London has selected Brooklyn‐based Tina Manis Associates from among a group of five finalists to design The Art Fund Pavilion.

The Pavilion will initially appear as part of Tent London’s exhibit at the London Design Festival 2009 before taking up residence at The Lightbox as an annual summer pavilion and gallery space. The structure is to be engineered and constructed by Facit and funded by the Lightbox Museum’s £100,000 Art Fund Prize 2008.

More images and architect’s description after the break.

The design approach for the project was to meet the demands of the program: complex interaction with artwork, the intimacy of discourse, and the inclusiveness of social gathering, by opening and elevating what would be the typical “art box” into a dynamic and interactive art container.

Through a simple strategy to “split” a single floor plane into a series of ramps, a new interior topography was created which also serves as the primary structural “pattern” for the building. The pattern is mirrored at the ceiling plane, oriented to the two key entries of the Lightbox site and then flipped to create a reciprocal series of planes at the ceiling.

The resultant structure engages the public through its diverse perspectives and experiences, from the circulation on platforms at varying levels to the fans of light that allow viewers to gaze out from the inside and vice versa. This language of building is intended to evoke a certain familiarity, allowing one to understand and engage with the art pavillion on a most basic and instinctual level.