ENTRY DETAIL - Building: Student

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Entry Details

Entry Description

CLOTHed PAVILION

The architectural biennale cum childcare pavilion. A pavilion of recycled clothes fabric materials, challenging the limitations of an abundant source of recyclable cloth, designed into disassemble components for redeployability, reusing, recycling. Extending the lifecycle of varying old clothes, upcycling fabric, re-presenting fabric as a structural possible material yet also as a soft and safe material for kids.

Building is made in components, and connected together by friction joints (in cloth wall component) or bolt fixings (supports for floor and roof). The lack of mortar joints allows for components to be reused, and not being damaged.

The whole building uses standard wall modules in creating partitions and furniture, allowing for different configuration in changing the program needs within the pavilion. With the modularity, pairs of walls can also be adjusted in placement, supporting each other, adapting to varying site.In the walls, cloth bales are starched hard and treated for additional strength, but it can be de-starched for returning the original state of the cloth, making no damage to the material. Wood planks used from recycled pallets comes in standard sizes, allowing for convenience in disassembly.

Fabrics currently have very low recycling rate of 12% locally (Singapore). Re-presenting cloth as a pavilion heightens awareness and reuses cloth in a different light as architectural components. With each pavilion, 169,000 sets of clothes (230 tonnes) is being reused. Reusing instead of recycling further reduces environmental impact the material can bring. It also reduces the use of permanent construction materials in creating a temporary structure. The pavilion mainly features the use of recycled materials especially discarded clothes. In assembling the building, compressive forces and friction joints are used instead of the standard mortar joints. The pavilion also utilizes natural lighting in the translucent Teflon roof and natural ventilation, reducing need for external energy sources.

The pavilion components requires recycled cloth building blocks. It can encourage an industry in sorting and creating basic building elements from recycled materials. In addition, the entry deals with discarded waste, this are being retrieved and upcycled into components, incurring no additional cost in obtaining the 'raw material' which are essentially discarded waste.

The building showcases a common material, clothes, available in every home. The material is re-presented to allow educational purposes in seeing fabric in a different light. Re-using of materials is not limited to small scale handicraft ideas. Fabric has been presented as a structural walling, roofing, floor tiling, protective curtains, shedding a new image of clothes not acting traditionally as our body cover, but it is also possible to be utilize as architectural purposes. Also, it showcases the potential of clothes being able to take on a new role without recycling it, instead directly reusing it. This further lessen the environmental impact of reusing old clothes can bring.

Entry Metrics

All walls, partitions and furniture uses recycled clothes. No concrete is used for the building except for foundation pieces.

Floor covering uses cloth bales, utilizing no carpets in building.

The pavilion's mainly features the use of recycled materials especially discarded clothes. In assembling the building, compressive forces and friction joints are used instead of the standard mortar joints. This preserves embodied energy as no additional embodied energy is added to the material. The pavilion also utilizes natural lighting and natural ventilation, reducing need for external energy sources, reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Roof uses translucent Teflon fabric. the translucency allows for diffused lighting to enter into the pavilion, reducing need for artificial lighting. Roof is also lifted off walls, allow for natural wind to enter through fenestration, and allowing for warmed air to leave through the gap of the lifted roof, encouraging natural ventilation. Pavilion is also lifted off the ground to allow for ventilation through the bottom and in between the floor plank gaps.