Silver Lining

project: Mercedes-Benz National Trade Show pavilion Competition

date: 2008

scale: Interior Pavilion

status: Second Place

design: Ramiro Diaz-Granados, F.A.R. (Frohn & Rochas), Heather Flood

 

Mercedes-Benz, the leader in automotive luxury, holds three annual trade shows: international, national, & regional. In 2008 we participated with F.A.R.  in an invited competition to design the pavilion for their national shows, which take place in 11 major cities. While the brief called for explicit implementation of signage and display strategies it was the implicit call of dealing with the Mercedes brand in relation to luxury that became the kernel of our proposal. Specifically, we challenged the notion of luxury and its associations with refined taste. Instead, refinement is understood as a material condition, as in ‘free from impurities (refined sugar)’.

Acoustic & Starry Atmospheres
One of the primary problems of auto trade shows is the clear distinction of a brand’s identity and boundary within the vast space of a convention hall. Rather than close off the pavilion with walls and isolating it from the rest of the space our proposal uses the anechoic chamber as a performative model that defines boundary through acoustic refinement; in this case eliminating as much sound as possible from within. An anechoic chamber is a shielded room designed to attenuate acoustic or electromagnetic energy by eliminating the reflection of sound waves. Here, the acoustic energy gets absorbed into foam extrusions that line the walls and ceiling of a room. Our proposal locates the performative weight on the ceiling condition which demands an increase in acoustical mass.