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Kwong Von Glinow Design Office proposes a modular pavilion for long-term use and mobility

2017-10-30T19:17:00-04:00

The US-based Kwong Von Glinow Design Office, who have won a few competitions for their creative solutions to affordable housing, have released a proposal for a temporary pavilion in Hong Kong’s West Kowloon Cultural District Nursery Park. Titled the Primitive Pavilion, the project riffs on Marc-Antoine Laugier’s 18th-century idea of the “primitive hut.”

Courtesy of Kwong Von Glinow Design Office.

Responding to Laugier's theory that man wants nothing but shade from the sun and shelter from storms, the architects envision their pavilion as "a deep roofscape set upon elemental columns, harboring man between earth and sky first at West Kowloon and, in the future, at other parts of Hong Kong."

Courtesy of Kwong Von Glinow Design Office.

Pavilions of the 21st century often have a short lifespan, and Kwong Von Glinow offer theirs a longer future by designing a modular system that allows for efficient reassembly in other locations. Drawing on nature's...

Back to basics: building primitive architecture using only primitive tools

2016-10-12T13:33:00-04:00

Of the countless DIY YouTube channels out there, Primitive Technology has to be one of the most impressive. Starring an unidentified Australian protagonist—known as "Prim" by some within the channel's millions of followers—the videos document our primitive hero building huts, spears, a forge, and all kinds of other tools for survival using only what he finds in the bush of Northern Queensland.

Perhaps one of the most impressive projects, for the labor, time and complexity involved, is the tiled roof hut, complete with in-floor heating and an oven. How's that for design/build?

Despite always appearing shirtless in his videos, Prim still has a t-shirt tan, backing up the channel's origin story as a free-time hobby within a dude's otherwise modern life (although he'd like to pursue it full-time). All of his videos have millions of views, presenting one kind of project each episode, with no narration or introduction—only occasional subtitles—making them remarkable pedagogical resources fo...