Design and fabrication practice Ball-Nogues Studio has completed the “Healing pavilion”, a structure that provides shade and seating within the new garden of a Los Angeles Hospital. The pavilion was created using 2,793 linear feet of 2-inch diameter mild steel tube. In total, 352 individual components were precisely bent with a computer numerically controlled rolling system. Together, the tubes form an occupiable structural shell with no extraneous elements. Importantly, the pavilion’s intricate patterns, and the shadows they cast on the ground, are meant to capture the imagination and temporarily transport the visitor’s mind away from illness.

“The irregularity of the tubes create a layer of transparency that provides a semi-sheltered and a very meaningful place for patients and guests to relax,” Gaston Nogues of Ball-Nogues Studio told Designboom during a studio visit earlier this year. “It could also work as a shading device, but mainly it is an experience that symbolizes hope.”
The project, which was selected as a 2017 FABRICATE finalist, has been designed for both individual occupation and to be shared with another person.

“It explores the challenges of bending and rolling tube steel to form a design in the shape of a shell,” added Benjamin Ball. “The result features pretty unique three-dimensional curvature of the steel, where each piece is at a fixed distance to its neighbor.” Other completed schemes by Ball-Nogues Studio include a pavilion at Coachella Music Festival and a Porous Partition between a baseball field and a children’s playground. See our full archive here.

Design: Ball-Nogues Studio
Photography: Marty Snortum and Pat Dalbin

https://www.designboom.com/architecture/ball-nogues-studio-healing-pavilion-cedars-sinai-medical-center-los-angeles-09-03-2017/