Architect Liz Gálvez has created a pavilion in the courtyard of Los Angeles cultural organisations Materials & Applications and Craft Contemporary using cord and earthen blocks to showcase the potential of urban shade.
Earthen Comforts: Airing Earth hugs one side of a concrete courtyard and is made up of a wooden post-and-beam structure covered in a layered woven canopy.
"Contemporary design culture continues to privilege mechanical conditioning as the default mode of environmental control, often at great ecological cost," said Gálvez.
"Earthen Comforts reframes this paradigm by re-centring thermal design as an architectural and civic act, intervening in urgent debates around climate adaptation, material practice, and collective life."
The pavilion features materials and systems that are "not novel" according to the team, but rather "re-imagined" in this context.
Columns of earthen bricks are stacked up against wooden posts, partially anchoring the structure and providing extra seating in the lower stacks.
Above, the canopy is made up of interlocking panels woven with a white rope, which differs in width along different sections.
A slim, open-air gap was also integrated into the canopy, and one panel sits slightly ajar, resting on an industrial steel beam that runs across the courtyard.
"Visitors will encounter varied microclimates – cool, heavy earth; dappled woven shade; shifting breezes – that expand thermal design beyond mere survivability toward joy and collective participation in the face of intensifying heat," said the team.
The pavilion builds upon work by Gálvez and her studio Office eg, as well as the (Im)material Matters Lab at UC Berkeley, which she founded and directs.
The architect has explored similar techniques in previous projects, combining wooden frames, earthen materials and woven textiles to explore thermal control under climate change.
Materials & Applications and Craft Contemporary have paired up each summer since 2021 to commission a piece of experimental architecture that transforms the Craft Contemporary courtyard.
Last year, design studio Departamento del Distrito created a pavilion of fans powered by photovoltaic panels, while Figure covered the courtyard in a pavilion that resembled a construction site.
The photography is by Eric Staudenmeir.
Project credits:
Office e.g. & (Im)material Matters Lab, UC Berkeley: Liz Gálvez, Ian Chu, Theint Lei, Lincoln Ruiz-Truong
Thermal consultation: Salmaan Craig
Wood assemblies consultation: Paul Mayencourt (Berkeley Wood Lab)