International design studio, Hassell, and to.org, a platform that operates in venture capital, philanthropy, and the creative space, develop a 3D printed public pavilion made from recycled plastic, with leading 3D printing design studio Nagami.
Inspired by indigenous shelters, the prototype for the 3D printed Pavilion can be easily modified to suit a variety of extreme climates and settings. The pavilion is designed by Hassell and Nagami using computational techniques and fabricated purely through 3D printing – allowing the structure to be customised at almost no extra cost to match local climatic conditions in various locations.
Serving as a gathering point for reflection and education, the design is the beginning of a larger plan to create a series of pavilions which encourage conversations around material waste and how technology can solve our planet’s most urgent problems.
Confronting the global challenge of plastic waste, this concept aims to set a precedent in utilising plastic refuse as an inexhaustible resource for construction. The concept for the Pavilion was born from an encounter between Hassell’s Head of Design, Xavier De
Kestelier, Manuel Jimenez Garcia, founder of Nagami, an additive manufacturing specialist and Nachson Mimran, Co-founder & Creative Executive Officer of to.org.
The Pavilion has been designed to be easily transported and assembled on-site, with the main structure 3D-printed in 24 separate pieces. Currently under construction at the Nagami factory in Spain, by utilising 3D printing technology at an architectural scale, the
design, which includes inbuilt seating, allows for increased capacity — and can offer a climate sensitive response by quickly transforming and adapting the structure for a variety of environments and planetary settings.
The Pavilion pushes the boundaries of 3D printing to create full scale functional architecture. 3D printing allows a higher geometrical freedom compared to most traditional methods of manufacturing. Setting a precedent for the future of design, this architectural
freedom allowed the designers to shape the pavilions in such a way that they operate with minimal energy and off the grid.
Xavier De Kestelier, Head of Design at Hassell said: “The implications of 3D printing at this scale are huge for architecture and we hope we can apply this aspect of adaptability across projects. We wanted a pavilion that will be able to exist completely off the grid and adapt to local climatic challenges and conditions to create as low as possible embodied and operational carbon footprint.”
Nachson Mimran, Co-founder & Creative Executive Officer of to.org, said: “Our journey with plastic upcycling began in 2018 with the construction of a bottle brick toilet in the Kyebando slum in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. It was a natural next step for us to start playing with additive manufacturing, and in partnership with Nagami we produced The Throne, a waste plastic 3D printed port-a-potty, and now, The Pavilion.
As a Creative Director, my aim is to encourage those in the arts, design, hospitality, philanthropy, and construction to act responsibly and utilise waste plastic effectively.Treating waste plastic as the inexhaustible resource that it is and demonstrating a commitment to the circular economy will help reduce pollution and reverse the effects of climate change.”
The Pavilion is intended as a space to gather and will serve as a proof of concept, designed for replicability and scalability. The project is in development and to.org is looking for partners to invest in its production.”
Manuel Jimenez Garcia, Founder of Nagami, said: “We have more than 5 billion metric tons of plastic waste on our planet. As 3D printing scales up into the domain of architecture and construction, we can massively increase the demand for recycled plastics, and therefore speed up the cleaning process of our oceans and landfills. We hope this project will contribute to inspiring a new generation of architects to truly believe that a radical change in construction, driven by eco-innovation, is truly possible.”
