“Lighthearted and playful” inflatables intended to evoke clouds have been incorporated into this cluster of three pavilions in rural China, completed by architecture firms Practice on Earth and Increments Studio.
Set among the rice fields of Dun’ao Village in Zhejiang Province, the Down in the Clouds pavilions replace three abandoned structures on the site and are hoped to promote agrotourism in the area.
Practice on Earth and Increments Studio used modified steel shipping containers and white inflatables to create them, providing visitors with a cafe, reading room and cinema.
“The design seeks to amplify [the site’s] atmosphere of stillness and peace, inviting visitors to pause and reconnect with the rural landscape,” the architects told Dezeen.
“It also aims to rekindle interest in the often-overlooked agricultural regions of China, revealing the potential for built structures in a field to be lighthearted and playful in nature,” they added.
A disused utility building at the entrance of the site became the location of the first pavilion, named The Cloud Café. Raised on an area of wooden decking, the shipping container has been positioned on one end to create a tower-like form.
Placed over this tower on steel wires is an oversized inflatable canopy called the “cloud”, which shelters the cafe’s decking and is passed through by visitors on their way up to an elevated viewpoint.
“For The Cloud Café, its large size and need to retract in bad weather led us to adopt a continuously inflated PVC mesh system,” explained Practice on Earth and Increments Studio.
“With air vents along its two-metre-high sides and 100-square-metre base, two blowers maintain internal pressure, ensuring stability even if punctured,” they added.
On the site of a former billboard is the cinema space, which comprises a single container raised at one end on a giant balloon-like inflatable that sits slightly squashed beneath its weight.
This 15-degree angle creates a sloped internal space into which stepped and curved seating areas have been placed, facing towards a projector at the container’s lower end.
The library, which replaces another abandoned utility building, was created with the steel frames of four shipping containers, with a reading space surrounded by large inflatable balls.
Visitors must squeeze between these inflatables to access the large reading table, the back of which overlooks the landscape through a fully-glazed wall.
“These soft spheres form a circular ‘wall’ without a door, where visitors must part them to enter,” explained the architects. “Many visitors later remarked that it wasn’t until their bodies touched the inflatables that they realised the spheres weren’t solid, but soft, bouncy balloons.”
“This sense of intrigue invites closer engagement with the structures, ultimately encouraging playful interaction between architecture, nature, the body, and the community,” they added.
Many initiatives across China are seeing architectural interventions used as a means of promoting tourism to rural and remote areas. Other recent examples include The Seaside Pavilion by GN Architects – a kinetic pavilion on the remote island of Chaishan topped with sails that flutter in the breeze.
Other pavilions recently completed in China include a glass-tiled structure overlooking lake in Suzhou by BIG and a rest stop for hikers on a mountain by Aptdotapt.
The photography is by Wang Yun.
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