COURTYARD-RECITAL-PAVILION

The COURTYARD-R-PAVILION 2005-2007 ( COURTYARD-RECITAL-PAVILION ) BINNENPLAATS-VOORDRACHTSPAVILJOEN, Nijmeegse Scholengemeenschap Groenewoud, NSG.

At the courtyard of NSG-highschool, in the city of Nijmegen, I’ve encountered a huge, empty space, covered with big stone plates/tiles. There was nothing, it was out of use.
My proposal for the school was to change the space into a usable spot where students could gather and hold all kind of presentations for each other. In this school there is a lot of focuss on dance, stage, performance, film and video, improvisations and fashion-shows.
The Recital-Pavilion, I have designed and built for them, offers a stage for these many different activities.
• A pavilion of layers of wooden floors. They can be walked on and they can be used as presentation tables.
• One floor has an opening in it, providing a place to sit around with 10 people, listening to a performance. There is a free standing stage for 1 or 2 speakers or a few musicians. Another floor that is 10 meters long, sometimes serves as a “catwalk”, and also can be changed into a market-table.
• The positioning of the different floors has been organized in a way that they are easy to walk on and off ( ± 25, 50 en 75 cm. heigh )
• There are several possibilities to span the coverings/curtains with ropes and pullies, providing seperated spaces.
• One canvas can be projected on.
• In second phase we’ve built a “roundabout” with a platform that can be used for presentions on a bigger scale, for the school as a whole and by occassion for their parents.