THE SENSORY PAVILIONS
The brief was to develop interpretation concepts to tell the four key “stories” associated with the Pagoda at Kew Gardens. The stories were disparate in nature, ranging from George III and the weekly auctioning of sheep around the building, the use of the tower for model bomb drop testing in WWII and the splendour of the architecture itself with a 360 degree view at the top.
Our proposal is to engage with visitors to the Pagoda through their five senses - each of the senses telling one or more of the four stories. As a sequence of immersive experiences, the existing Ground Floor of the Pagoda together with four new Pavilions are to be used to house one of the five sensory experiences. Each floor of the Pagoda reduces in height and width as it rises up - rather like a set of child’s stacking cups - the size and shape of the 4 new pavilions therefore took their cue from this proportional reduction and represented four imagined additional stories of the building, set at ground level.
The ‘new floors’ create four octagonal diminishing pavilions which are located around the base of the Pagoda, allowing “Access for All”.
This project demonstrates our ability to weave together a set of disparate stories and create linking narrative in order to convey those stories in an interactive way.
