Crimson Collective’s ‘Ascension’ @ the 2010 Coachella Music Festival

Crimson Collective, a multidisciplinary group of architects, artists and designers, have unveiled their party pavilion: “Ascension” at the 2010 Coachella Music Festival (from April 16th-18th)

The concept for the pavilion is based on the Japanese legend (Senbazuru) which promises that anyone who folds one thousand paper crane will have their wish granted. Just as the thousands of paper cranes are collected as a whole, the thousands of visitors that seek shelter in the pavilion, will be brought together as a whole by “Ascension.”

The large white crane is 150′ wide and 45′ feet tall and is composed of an aluminum and tension wire skeleton with white fabric. The structure was developed on the principles of tension integrity which means the pavilion has an equal balance of parts in tension and in compression. To ensure mobility, the structure of the crane is completely modular. The crane can be built on almost any flat site. It is composed to over a hundred components and 700sf of 80% mesh texilene sunshade material.

Surrounding the crane are two solar collectors that will collect the energy required to illuminate the mood lighting system at night. in the center of the pavilion will be an area designated to showcase innovative and beneficial ideas. The first idea to be shown will house a fuel cell demonstration, which illustrates the concept of creating energy spontaneously, rather than making it by extracting it from the Earth.

Although I find the pavilion to be almost too literal, I’m happy to see that the pavilions designed by architects are actually being incorporated into events that are more widely known to the public and less within the bubble of architects. It is actually only the 2nd  year that designers were invited to create something for the event. Last year, SCIarc, an architecture school in Downtown Los Angeles, was invited to create a pavilion under the theme of “Rock and Roll Fantasy”