CONTEMPLATION

Written by Stefana Simic, Co-Founder Gigagrass

​In the summer of 2017, we were asked to design a 1400mt2 bamboo pavilion for the "Contemplation" exhibition to be shown at The Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in Arles, France in 2018. On display would be 40 photographs by buddhist monk Mathieu Ricard, each large format and beautifully printed on Japanese paper.

Due to constraints of time, money, space, and other logistics, we were forced to consider prefabrication at a scale never thought of before for a bamboo structure. Up to this point, our co-founder and architect (licensed in Colombia) Simon Velez, who is widely considered the pioneer in working with bamboo and has a deep experience spanning decades, has never embarked on a prefab project like this and never even thought to since he usually relied on bringing a skilled craftsmen team from Colombia wherever he went to craft and build each work on-site. Furthermore, most of the structures were designed to be permanent: all the joinery was usually fixed with cement and threaded rods, and the foundations were well anchored into the ground. 

With the criteria that this pavilion had to be prefabricated and disassemblable (with the idea to tour other international locations), the design process changed. The joinery had to be completely rethought. The bamboo had to be pre-cut to millimetric precision and categorized before being shipped. The shrinkage of the bamboo diameter while it travels overseas had to be taken into account when we designed, dimensioned and fabricated the metal joinery. All the angles of the bamboo unions had to be calculated, the radii of the curved pipes had to be determined, all to third decimal precision. There was no space for error: all of the thousands of pieces had to be perfect and ready to mount when the site opened for construction in Arles, France. 

We worked intensely, and in parallel, with the engineering and construction team in France to develop the project and bring it to fruition. Our in house design team at the time was only 2 people, Simon with a pencil in hand and Stefana, handling the computers and detailed technical drawings for production. The engineer and construction manager in France were following in parallel with all their heavy work and open minds, as we were all embarking on doing something completely new. 

​More information about the exhibition here:
contemplation.art/en/matthieu-ricards-exhibition/
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Simon Velez and Lucy (dog) in front of the full scale mockup for the Contemplation project.