The Gife Pavilion was designed as an exhibition display for the Gife Exhibition, on view at CCSP in September of this year. Beyond its installation at the Cultural Center, the solution had to accommodate a traveling setup in different configurations that could adapt to new venues, which were still undecided at the time of the design. At the same time, it needed to be well integrated into the context of CCSP.
To address the pavilion's flexibility requirements, the Goma Oficina team adopted a modular system of extruded, slotted aluminum with mobile connectors to build a generic orthogonal grid, allowing the content to be arranged in various configurations.
The goal was to create a space of convergence and an introspective experience to house the exhibition content. An elliptical envelope made of aluminized agricultural mesh was chosen to define the pavilion's boundaries and organic form. The independence between structure and enclosure highlights the potential for geometric variations in the envelope, depending on the specifics of each new setup and location. The agricultural mesh meets the size and weight requirements—as it can be rolled into relatively small diameter rolls—while also providing the desired balance between opacity and translucency.
The construction system used for the structure is typically employed in assembly lines, conveyor belts, racks, and other automated and mechanical devices. Repurposing this system and adapting it to architecture was the project's greatest challenge. With this system, the team sought to streamline assembly and disassembly, allowing the components to be reused in future spatial variations without requiring destructive effort or generating waste.
To achieve this, prototyping and prefabrication tests were conducted during the month prior to assembly. During this process, the team was able to experiment and adjust the design in real time, analyze structural behavior, and measure the physical effort and labor required to assemble and disassemble the pavilion.
This phase of the work, called Fábrica, was carried out at the Mário Schenberg Gallery, provided by FUNARTE. The Fábrica served as the primary development platform for implementing the technology. The assembly of the structure, which occupies an area of 180 m², was completed in approximately six hours by a team of 10 people. Complete disassembly took less than four hours.
Goma Oficina Team
Architecture and Assembly
Vitor Pena
Victoria Braga
Andr&° Vitiello
Inaê Monteiro Negrão
Clara Varandas Abussamra
Luisa Capalbo Menezes
Victor Salviano Isawa
Luiz Gomes da Silva
Graphic Design
Maria Cau Levy
André Stefanini
Production Coordination
Paula Marujo
Video
Central Content
This article was written by Romullo Baratto. The translation is powered by AI.
