From the Ground Up is a series on Archinect focused on discovering the early stages & signs of history's most prolific architects. Starting from the beginning allows us to understand the long journey architecture takes in even the formative of hands and often, surprising shifts that occur in its journey. These early projects grant us a glimpse into the early, naive, ambitious and at points rough edges of soon to be architectural masters.

From the Ground Up is a series of features based on the first built projects of many of our most revered architects and yet, Lebbeus Woods—in all his architectural relevance and virtuosity—creates an enigma, one that only pushes Lebbeus' status further towards that of an architectural icon. Lebbeus Woods, a seminal reference for starry-eyed first-year students and the image of precedent for visionary architecture, has both a first and only project. Cemented into a single image, in classic Lebbeus fashion, his single Pavilion completed in 2012 is not made of a material of classical implications, it is one made of Light—The Light Pavilion. 

creates an enigma, one that only pushes Lebbeus into more architectural icon status.

The Light Pavilion was designed as a space understanding how to become a space; a space that is unsure which direction it shall cast a shadow and which direction space should be found: towards the shadows or towards the light? It brings to the forefront the most basic if not simple versions of architectural spaces, light and shadow. With such volatility, this pavilion perfectly exemplifies Lebbeus to the core. 

Bringing poetic elements of Woods' drawings to life, the Pavilion is located perfectly within another's context, within Steven Holl's Sliced Porosity Block in Chengdu, China. The pavilion uses architecture as context, a key theme within Wood's work. The structure of the space and the structure of the image stems from the lighted columns which splinter to create the image of stability and weightlessness while implying ephemerality in the purest of senses. 

The Pavilion was designed as a space understanding how to become a space. A space that is unsure as to which direction it shall cast a shadow...

Lebbeus uses the space to show the potential that lays latent within all of our spaces, to hint at new means of discovering volumes in voids, light in darkness and lightness from the insurmountable weight of reality. What Woods found in this one and only architectural endeavor is the invisible framework that all his preceding architectural thoughts have themselves been grounded within. Woods' Pavilion of Light is the quintessential metaphor for both Lebbeus Woods himself and his work. Woods discovers space that is constantly fluctuating between pure architecture and questioning all architecture while being located precisely at the epicenter of architecture itself.