ARCHITECT & ARTIST

MILAN FASHION PAVILION

This proposal seeks to shed light on the paradoxes within the fashion world through the lens of architecture and sustainability. By exposing the dualities within fashion, this pavilion encourages the audience to look inward and question their own values as consumers and producers. While this pavilion celebrates the overlap between fashion and architecture, the ultimate goal is to inspire action towards positive change against pollution from the fashion and architecture industries. The notion of transparency plays a central role throughout the pavilion experience. This is explored with the materiality and form of the facade which symbolizes the varying levels of material honesty within fashion and architecture. Fabrication methods are translated from the fashion realm into architectural gestures across varying scales. The exterior cladding acts as a draped fabric that wraps around the internal wooden volume to accentuate, reveal or conceal what's underneath. The high transparency of this zinc mesh further emphasizes the double skin structure, and the interstitial spaces in between the double skin facade can serve as gallery displays. Spatially, the pavilion can be experienced as a vortex like volume that expands and contracts creating dramatic proportions evocative of haute couture. These stark contrasts symbolize the exclusivity of high fashion and the inclusivity of fast fashion. The central gathering space can serve as a stage, runway, gallery and amphitheater. This multipurpose nature is enhanced by the reflecting monumental staircases which can function as tiered seating platforms, and the external glazing that bookends the space and frames it from above. This pavilion can host events such as exhibits, workshops and panel discussions that raise awareness of the harmful repercussions of unsustainable practices within fashion and architecture, but more importantly to expose more people to how these extremes can be mitigated and ultimately reversed.