The project team described the Cempasúchil Pavilion as a provisional structure designed to offer shade and shelter for a four-day period. This pavilion was conceived as a meeting place, organized around a common table, where various groups of people can gather throughout the day, fostering informal interactions and collective use. In addition to fulfilling its practical functions, the project investigates architecture as a temporal event of spatial organization.
Located in a rural pasture area, the design uses its immediate environment as a starting point. The straw bales, which normally serve as feed for the horses and mares present at the site, constitute the fundamental concept of the pavilion. The project argues that an object's identity is not defined solely by its material state, but by the purpose for which it is used.
When arranged around the shared table, the straw bales temporarily cease to be food and begin to function as seating, establishing the necessary spatial arrangement for joint occupation. After the pavilion is dismantled, these elements resume their original agricultural function. Thus, ephemeral architecture resides not in the object itself, but in the deliberate act that alters its condition through use and space.
The structure is light and self-sustaining, built entirely with 3/8-inch steel rods. This structure rises above the straw bales and supports six textile canvas panels. The canvas, simply supported on the structure, defines the geometry of the pavilion while maintaining an open and permeable connection between the interior and the surrounding landscape.
The generated space provides shading during the day and transforms into a softly lit shelter at night. Instead of dominating the terrain, the pavilion establishes a reversible relationship with its context, temporarily reorganizing familiar agricultural elements to generate architecture, before discreetly returning to its daily activity.