Chinese practice LIN architecture has completed a pumping house in the Yunnan Province village of Botou. Named the 'Concrete Pavilion,' the structure seeks to both meet the needs of locals’ water and electricity needs and give an architectural “breath of new life” to the rural landscape.

The pavilion is defined by sloping roofs, high and low windows, multiple external platforms, and a series of skylights. The elements incorporated into the scheme take their inspiration from those of the nearby village in a process the team calls “the extreme abstraction of cultural elements.” While incorporating the many viewing elements, the team sought to create different observation experiences, whether inside the pavilion, observing the countryside, or looking at the pavilion from different surrounding angles.

“Although the constituent elements are common to architecture, they are organized in an unconventional way, such as shadow walls with odd proportions, suspended platforms, broken staircases, sloping sidewalls, half-arched ceilings, low side windows, and skylights with only a single slit,” the team explains.

Supported by a steel structure and finished with concrete panels, the light, smooth surface of the pavilion is intended to allow “acts of nature to add gestures to the skin of the building, making the facade a paintbrush in the field.” The shadows of clouds are intended to alter the exterior surface, while on sunny days, make the building’s subtle texture more visible.

“Whether setting out for the fields early in the morning or returning with the hoe in the evening, the stylized shape is a static guide,” the team adds. “On the way to plowing in the field, the villagers read its image in different states. The interior of the space is chopped up, guided by a large staircase space that extends out into the interior and sides of the space. The skylight was designed to add interest to the exploration and is as much a medium for external observation as the platform.”

The pavilion is one of several recently completed schemes to feature in our editorial this month. Last week, we reported on SOM’s completion of a new Rice University engineering and science building as well as Zaha Hadid Architects’ new Zhuhai Jinwan Civic Art Centre in southern China. At the beginning of December, meanwhile, we covered a 3D printed ceramic facade by Studio RAP in Amsterdam inspired by weaving textiles.