Fuente: Jenică Craiu
Fotografía: Jenică Craiu, Ricardo Marsicano

SPACE AS SIGNAL The project is the result of a design competition for the project and construction of a 38m2 interior pavilion that should represent the Massana School of Art and Design at the Barcelona Educational Fair for 4 editions.

Generally, experiencing an exhibition fair is exhausting due to the amount and excess of information. Each product stand needs to stand out and attract, in order to remain a strong image in the mind of the passers by. Therefore, we have decided upon working the space as a strong element by itself, and chose to use a minimum of materials, unusual in this context, yet expressive and familiar. The project outlines and does not ”build”, avoiding the use of a rhetoric. The resulted spatial experience conveys the concept of an art and design school, facilitating the introduction in the world of design, modeling, and craftwork.

PROPOSAL A “lightweight volume” is hooked to a custom designed metallic structure. Walls and the ceiling are suspended. The ceiling, made up of a large quantity of nautical rope (almost 60km in total), creates a wide and lighted volume, which shelters and defines the space of the pavilion. The display area turns into an empty container shaped by all its limits: vertically – the walls, horizontally – the floor onto the same suspended structure. A web of projectors directs light to the information area.

As a result, the pavilion becomes visible and recognizable form various places of the fair, and the initial budget is invested in the fastening system and light elements to be used in the coming years. The available space was optimized through the elimination of the support elements which would be discharged on the ground; At ground level, the stand includes an information area for advertising materials and a small storage space for the additional graphic materials also working as a cloakroom for the staff.