Wooden island on Lake Zurich

The European Biennial of Contemporary Art "Manifesta 11" took place in Zurich, Switzerland, from June 11 to September 18, 2016. This traveling exhibition brings the visual arts into the urban, social, historical, historical, economic, ecological and architectural context of each host city. In 2016, the main attraction was the wooden island - a pavilion of prefabricated wooden structures that acted as the exhibition's reception.

A wooden island considered waste

The project was realized by the Tom Emerson Design Studio in Zurich together with more than 30 students from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology and is called Pavilion of Reflections (Reflections Pavilion). The pavilion is actually a floating island that will stay on the lake for 100 days until the end of the exhibition.

The design was inspired by the city's people's appetite for bathing, a tradition that goes way back to Roman times. Zurich has the highest density of public bathing spots, places where people gather to socialize and hang out. The island was designed as a multifunctional floating platform to bring people together both day and evening. During the day they gather by the pool in the central area of the pavilion for a swim or sunbathe on the specially designed deck. In the evening, they can sit in front of the ad-hoc cinema's giant LED screen, at the bar or chat in the specially designed area set aside for debates about the art exhibits on display throughout the city.

The wooden structure was assembled separately using 150,000 screws. The wood used is from Swiss forests, wood that has been attacked by insects and is considered waste, which would have been burnt if not used for this project. After the component structures had been made separately, some of them even in winter, they were brought in and assembled on the lake on a steel structure.

The floating reception stood on Lake Zurich throughout the biennale and was dismantled after 100 days at the end of the exhibition.

source: inhabitat.com