2015 Bell Philips Architects Gasholder Park

2015

GASHOLDER PARK

Bell Philips Architects

Berm (left) brings more grass into reflections seen on on vertical supports. Surprisingly strong sense of enclosure inside the circle of the pavilion.

I initially approached this circular pavilion from the north, slightly uphill. The roof is so thin that from this vantage, with the roof close to eye height, it is almost imperceptible. Upon entering, the ceilingscape is the floorscape. An inversion of the childhood game of walking around the house looking down at a hand-mirror for the illusion of walking on the ceiling. The power of peripheral vision and its separateness from focused (foveal) vision is highlighted by the startling experience of someone’s approach along the walkway being accompanied by the peripheral perception of motion at the ceiling plane. Ceiling is unperforated at the north/uphill side; the tiny geometric openings slowly appear and become more dense as one walks under it to the south/river side. Perforations have the surprising effect of breaking the illusion of depth at the ceiling, revealing it as a thin material object, rather than 3-D space. Thus the spatial experience totally changes even though the ceiling height remains the same.

Entrance from canal side, downhill Entrance from uphill, ceiling barely visible