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Architects: Studio Morison
- Year: 2018
Text description provided by the architects. In recent years, artists Heather and Ivan Morison, of Studio Morison, have become familiar with architectural constructions that play with ideas of escape, shelter, and refuge. For Into Nature, they have built a special sculptural pavilion, Escape Vehicle #9, within the landscape of Holtingerveld, Netherlands, that can be stayed in overnight. Escape Vehicle #9 comes from a future in which the bigger elemental forces of the planet have reasserted themselves, leaving mankind a refugee from nature, having to tread quickly and lightly on the land they occupy.
“When first imagining Escape Vehicle #9 I had a vision of a flight into the future. I saw a lightness from that future within the darkness of the present, and this is where the Escape Vehicle can take us towards.” Ivan Morison, artist
With Escape Vehicle #9 Studio Morison presents a lightweight demountable shelter, one that booked for two people to spend the night in, allowing a first-hand experience of place, the sense of darkness, of solitude, of instability and the possibilities of what is to come.
Experience
Overnight occupants experience a slowly rising intensity of yellow as morning approaches, with the day’s first rays of light creating an ever-changing shadow play of nature and geometry across the yellow inner membrane. As the day moves on the illumination becomes more intense rotating around the curved wall; the strong yellow glow within this chamber creating an enveloping and calming effect, one which is emphasized when the occupant emerges into the stark ice white light of the outside world.
Materials
Escape Vehicle #9 is made entirely from aluminum and PVC. Conceived as a set of connecting components; it is fully demountable with all parts handle-able by a single person. The legs are supported and anchored by four Spirafix screw anchors, making and leaving practically zero impact on the landscape. The curtain wall of the main circular chamber consists of an outer ‘protective’ layer of specially commissioned aluminum expanded mesh, and an inner taut curving membranous ‘weather’ layer of lemon yellow PVC. The ceiling of the main chamber includes a quilted foil insulation layer that helps maintain a habitable temperature day and night. On the top deck, the conical ‘navigational buoy’ was bent from sheet aluminum.
