The Twist Pavilion

The Twist is a design and construction experiment of the 2015-2016 cohort of Emergent Technologies and Design at the Architectural Association Graduate School of Architecture.

Using 1:1 experiments, the students manipulated the material properties of thin plywood to develop articulated surfaces with variable orientation of its elements.

The system is composed of planar arcs that are CNC-milled from 6mm plywood sheets with the grain direction oriented for high longitudinal stiffness.

The other components are 120mm wide straight strips of 4mm ply with the grain perpendicular to their length. These are connected at specific angles and distances in order to obtain both bending and twisting.

A ’T’-shaped edge beam served to lock the geometry in place locate the rib elements during the assembly process.

Computational techniques used to generate forms were calibrated and tuned from the results of physical experiments. These tests identified the twisting angles that could be achieved with different end rotations and curve radii, giving the effective range of geometries, and served as the bridge between the physical and digital design.