ISoA students model submission in front of a building in Shanghai, China.
ISoA students model
ISoA represents in Shanghai, China
Six first-year architecture students recently returned from a trip to Shanghai,China where they represented the University of Illinois at the 2024 Tongji University International Construction Festival. In a 5 day intensive design charrette students conceived, planned, and executed a pavilion built of plastic hollow board that responded to the classic chinese poem “Rain Awaken” by Yang Wanli on a site in the Shiguang Art Ecological Corridor. Students had three days to design and prefabricate with this novel material, with one day to build their pavilion in the courtyard of Tongji University alongside 36 other international college teams of first year architecture students. Students then presented their work, which included a scale model and a set of analytical and narrative drawings that explained the concept and construction, to teams of jurors before being able to spend the evening exploring and enjoying the pavilions and company of the other University teams.
ISoA students model
ISoa represents in Shanghai, China
The UIUC students responded to the prompt by conceiving of a listening pavilion that encouraged dialogue between two participants who entered into its form. The given site was focused on urban-rural linkage and their pavilion brings people out of the world into a focused space of listening and exchange. Two participants, perhaps from different living situations or from different countries, would enter each of the two forms together and each would end up at a bench in the back for a seat, separated visually, but connected auditorily in a space that encourages sharing and unguarded discussion.
The team was quite grateful for the opportunity to participate in the construction festival at Tongji and for some days after the festival to do plenty of sketching, eating, and exploring the city of Shanghai and some of the surrounding areas. Participants: Athena Ly, Marla Marono-Garza, Gavin McCool, Shaughn McGuire, Milana Popovic, William Rosado with their teacher John Clark.