Project Overview

Developed as an immersive and interactive space to “pause, reflect, and contemplate brighter futures”, the Today Pavilion was inserted into the humming milieu of Purpose Conference 2022 at Eveleigh’s Carriageworks.

Organisation

Today and Studio Edwards

Project Brief

Today is a social innovation agency and commissioned the pavilion as part of their brand launch and sponsorship of Purpose Conference 2022 at Carriageworks. They wanted to design a co-creative space that would invite a collaborative conversation on a brighter future; bringing together live musical performance and an interactive digital experience to facilitate discourse in the context of a conference themed around social and environmental impact.

Project Innovation/Need

Adopting a completely circular design approach, the demountable and reusable Pavilion structure is comprised of a steel scaffold that is spooled in thick, felted recycled denim.

Designed for Today, a social innovation and design agency, Today Pavilion is devised as a temporary, accountable architecture that reflects the ethics of the client and the design team.

The experience invites conference attendees to participate in an interactive conversation on the future, with responses to evolving prompts being projected back into the space and musical performance that reacts in real-time.

Adopting a completely circular design approach, the Today Pavilion structure and fabric were selected with anticipation of their next life as furniture elements and insulation in a commercial office interior currently under construction. In this context, they are again designed to be disassembled and reused in future applications. The properties of each material are imaginatively harnessed to create an intriguing building envelope with a distinct interior atmosphere. Scaffold poles allow the Today Pavilion to sit independently of the heritage building it is located within and is configured as both structure and seating.

Recycled denim wraps the structure, working as an acoustic dampener between the hum of the conference and the ambient sound works presented in the Pavilion, a projection surface for video, a pin-up board for Today messaging and a soft upholstery surface for seating. Together, the composition of these two readily available materials as transient architecture provides conference attendees with a memorable spatial encounter that encourages inhabitation, congregation, pause and reflection.

Design Challenge

Today Pavilion is devised as a temporary, accountable architecture that reflects the ethics of the client and the design team. Adopting a completely circular design approach, the structure and fabric anticipate their next life as furniture elements and insulation in Today’s design studio that is currently under construction. Recycled denim wraps the structure, working as an acoustic dampener between the hum of the conference and the ambient sound works inside; a projection surface for video, a pin-up board for visitors’ messages of hope and concerns for the future; while also providing a soft upholstery surface for seating.

With a highly minimal environmental footprint, the Pavilion creates a deeply immersive and memorable experience for visitors to create, share, and reflect together. Their messages of hopes, concerns, and dreams for the future provide inspiration and spark new thinking to prompt action for social and environmental impact.

Future Impact

The Today Pavilion is entirely circular, utilising reusable materials repurposed in Today’s studio fit out in Melbourne. The experience itself brings together many creative disciplines; including architecture, user experience design, software development and design, and musical performance to create a highly immersive and interactive space to facilitate ideas and conversation on brighter futures.