ABSTRACT
The relationship between the soft matter pavilion and its location is a unique one, as the land itself influenced the final structural design. Lingang New City in Shanghai really is a ‘new’ city, even to the extent that the land it was built on has been reclaimed from the East China Sea. The city is constructed on 133.3 km2 of landfill, resulting in land forms that have a manufactured, unnatural feel. This pavilion was designed and built to be part of the 2017 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season. The construction was to be kept relatively simple, utilising a canopy and column design. The designers wanted to create a curving form and began the conceptual stage using digital form-finding technology, but soon found that the result of this process was ‘overly monotonous’. The structure of the pavilion primarily uses structural steel framing to increase tolerance against lateral forces, with nylon netting strung between the supports.
