New Glass Pavilion

A pavilion concept is explored for a three bedrooms mountainous getaway house. Composed as two separate volumes stacked vertically then reconnected horizontally via continuous planes, the architecture intends to re-interpret the pavilion for the program and the mountainous context. Conceptually, rather than demarcating between manmade and natural environments, the pavilion provides the minimalist setting for contemplating and viewing nature. By observing nature and meditating on observations, man relearns to be an integral part of nature’s process. Only through this contemplative and pacifying process, we can alleviate the environmental crises of our time caused by us. If the last century is about the triumph of man over nature, this century is the reconnection within and to man’s primordial origin in Nature.

The pavilion offers an uninterrupted frame for review and for this reunion. At both levels, a meditation or focus room is provided. Facing opposite orientations, they offer opposing views of the world: an inward-looking examination of oneself via the inner garden and an outward-looking observation of Nature via the mountain. This search for both inside and outside, for the balance, is a strive for a golden mean - as Aristotle sum up in Nicomachean Ethics - and to reunite one with Nature.

Expressed in concrete, glass and local materials, the house anchors in and celebrates its natural context. A sky-atrium breaks the horizontal dominance for ‘higher’ view. The house’s levitation from the ground for better observations imparts an airy feeling and a sense of other-worldliness within this world. This house is a dwelling in nature, a spiritual sanctuary, hence a place of true healing.