The timber elements in the structure are fabricated following the somewhat arcane and notoriously difficult process of steam bending. Each strip is bagged, steamed, and bent over an adaptable, moldless formwork using a holographic model as a reference to the desired result. This fabrication process utilizes two forms of feedback: holographic models provide fabricators with clear visual feedback on the accuracy of the forming process and allow them to intuitively adapt fabrication techniques or formwork positions until parts match digital models within accepted tolerances.

Physical parts can also be digitized and fed back into the digital model, allowing the design to accommodate and adapt where necessary. In each case the feedback is a direct collaboration between designer and maker, between expected behavior and observed results. The beauty of the project lies in this tension, in deciding when to give and take, when to adhere to preconceived design intent and when to abandon precision and begin to react.

“We are interested in approaches to making that hybridize analogue construction with the precision and flexibility of digital models. By rendering digital models as holographic overlays directly within construction environments, fabricators can use their own expertise and inventiveness to produce highly intricate and complex objects entirely by following these holographic guides using relatively primitive analogue tools,” said Hahm.

“This approach removes the necessity of anticipating every aspect of material behavior in digital models and in so doing leaves open a certain degree of indeterminacy as material affects are discovered, desired and amplified during construction. It is this liberation of digital expression from the constraints of digital fabrication, together with the opportunity for nuance and material affects derived from material craft, that drive the architectural effects of the pavilion,” concluded Hahm.