Adolfsson . Stadler . Fernández

Ringen pavilion . Copenhagen

design team: Sofia Adolfsson . Camila L. A. Stadler Buschle . Teresa Fernández

Kongens Have is the oldest garden in Denmark and a very popular place to meet and relax in the center of Copenhagen. King Christian IV established the Renaissance style of the garden in the early 1600s, reflecting in very simple geometrical shapes. After that, the garden passed throughout different stylistic periods, as baroque and a romantic period. And influenced by the historical landscape pattern, Ringen was designed, challenging the old with the new, with a contemporary space shaped as a circle, an united element, to support the geometry dialog.

Ringen is a wooden pavilion located in the middle of Kongens Have. It creates a unique environment for the users during the summer time in Copenhagen and a natural meeting point within the parkland. The organic profile of the pavilion offers a bench area, accessible from both sides, and a large space to lay and relax. The rotation of the ring is strategically placed towards the castle and the lower part towards the sun.
The large furniture pavilion combines wooden construction and functionality, exhibiting its beautiful organic shapes and inviting users to interact with it. The shape creates a wave system from different standpoints and a light pattern according to the sun exposure and color of the wood. A walk around the pavilion shows the very smooth movement of the pieces creating a nice and welcoming space to host locals, tourists and performances for a nice day or evening at the core point of Kongens Have.
Ringen was created with a sustainable mindset. The strategy used to create the pavilion was to reuse the leftover wood from the top surface to build the vertical and the bottom elements. All of the frames can be easily disassembled and reutilized after the pavilion’s lifecycle expires. Ringen is a self-supporting structure using a minimal amount of non-wooden parts, this harmonizes with the surrounding organic materials in the park and creates a small environmental footprint.

Construction and material
Ringen contains 2880 pieces of pinewood, which forms 720 frames. In total, Ringen uses 3189m of 48x48mm elements and 285.2m of 36x68mm elements. The different profiles and an angle of 0,5 degrees between frames give shape to the circle. The inner circle has a radius of 9.6m while the outer circle shape is modeled according to the movement of the wooden elements. The top surface has an area of 100m2 and the outer perimeter is 69m long. The top pieces, which create the top surface, are all 1600mm long. The other pieces are unique and interconnected sections following the curve.
These elements are the leftover of the main pieces, in order to make the best use of the wood. The vertical pieces vary from 10 to 1500mm, while the horizontal pieces vary from 563 to 1600mm. For improved stability, the rectangular frames have a diagonal member. The assembly system is composed by dowel pins and bolts for the individual sections and a cable system for the overall assembly.