Fragmented Cave proposal- Collaboration of Zhaobo Yang, Junchoa Ren and Patrick Jones

Fragmented Cave proposal, animatation, 1m17s

Fragile Cave is a space of care formed through the continual act of restoring its geometrical fragments. A site enriched through the theatre of endlessly changing light and shadow as the day becomes night. The structure is to be continuously reassembled into different arrangements, a state of ‘continuous incompleteness’, continuous collapse. Design that triggers people’s interaction and movement. An unstable fully fragmented place,

         A precarious glass-like structure within a metal frame with each wall 4.5m high. Geometric forms are used to construct a precarious exterior as well as to provide interior cave-like furniture. Forms that act as organic containers of fragments and collages. We imagine a variety of materials from local wood debris, rock, and slate to artists’ speculative forms. Forms whose interiors continuously decay only to be replaced by other fragmented interiors. Fragments are bound together by organic meshes or eco-materials such as that used for insulation. We imagine asking artists and friends across the world to help by contributing speculative fragments and containers. In the spirit of the Merz Barn, a cave is never to be completed and therefore always contemporary ‘total construction’.

A place for people to interact and continuously change in both material and form. Fragmented lightweight materials are scattered around the pavilion; people can insert them onto the surface of the building. Fragments rest on transparent walls. A cave-like place of light and shadow where the fragments of the world, meshed in ever-changing configurations can be contemplated as one. Forms stacked and restacked ‘precariously’.

‘..one finally came to the centre, where there was a seat on which I sat down. I was overcome by a strange sensation of rapture.’Rudolf Jahns speaking of the Merzbau