designboom · Creativity & design

Modular Pavilion Uses Woodland Branches for Biodiversity

Italian architects m²ft architects have designed HUT-SPOT, a modular pavilion in the Romagna hills that utilizes stacked woodland prunings and dry branches. The structure serves as a shelter for both humans and other forms of life, aiming to create a small-scale biodiversity hotspot.

The pavilion is situated on the edge of a woodland, reclaiming an abandoned asphalt clearing. It acts as a threshold between human-made and natural environments, housing forest residues within a ziggurat-like formation inside a parallelepiped framework.

Named 'HUT-SPOT', the pavilion combines ecological and technological connotations, referencing a place of high biodiversity and connectivity, while also evoking a basic shelter. It is designed as a prototype adaptable to urban contexts.

The architecture contrasts a regular human framework with irregular organic content, using materials like concrete and fibreglass alongside natural elements. The voids hold branches as fragments of the landscape, repositioning them within the forest's natural cycle.

HUT-SPOT functions as a shared refuge, supporting microhabitats in an area of habitat fragmentation. The decomposing branches nourish an ecosystem that attracts insects, bees, birds, small mammals, and amphibians.

A central seat invites humans to share the space, acknowledging the need for shelter and connection across species. The pavilion's design reflects a tension between controlling nature and allowing it space, intentionally placed on the former tennis court.

The pavilion is designed to endure by accepting change. It is a space that offers hospitality to living beings, envisioning new forms of closeness between humans and non-humans, with potential for replication in urban settings.

AI-samenvatting op basis van de bron.