Textile Room, MOCA Pavilion

Textile Room aims to physically stage a direct response to the exhibition brief set up by the curators, following the tradition of formal experimentation and material innovation in Southern California that the show embodies. The project explores the possibilities of extreme lightweight materials in architecture by producing a supple, quasi-rigid, and cloth-like space that physically and experientially blurs the threshold between hard and soft, textile and tectonic, intimate and public.

The design and material development of Textile Room was developed in collaboration with North Sails Flexible Composites division, taking advantage of their advanced technology. The pavilion surface panels were constructed of yellow aramid and black carbon fiber tape and resin coated tow. The radiating patterns articulate the edges of the saddle shapes in black while highlighting the inner areas in yellow, producing varying fiber densities and therefore generating a vast range of opacities. An original video art projection created by Casey Reas illuminates and activates the surface stripes with movie clips depicting architecture in Los Angeles.