In the dry, fertile farmland of the South Okanagan, in a small green park beside the Okanagan River, people gather every Saturday for the farmers market. In this era of slow food and hundred mile diets, artisan cheese and vine-ripened tomatoes, the event was outgrowing the venue – there was a need for more permanent shelter and a bandstand for outdoor concerts. The clients were a small non-profit market society with limited funds. They had originally approached a steel-building manufacturer about a modest structure which could accommodate their market stalls, weekend picnickers and occasional performances. They were offered a large, octagonal pavilion, which in addition to costing twice their budget, would have forced the market vendors to fight over a diminishing wedge of storage space behind them while funnelling rain onto the customers in front of them. We felt we could do better. The design process consisted of two architects, a structural engineer and a steel fabricator sitting down over a case of beer to hammer out something that would use a minimum of material, take the minimum time to fabricate and provide maximum utility to the market vendors. It would also need to be an attractive centrepiece for the park.
The pavilion uses standard steel sections, with no angled cuts or welds, to support two unequal roof planes canted into a structural steel gutter. The construction module was derived from a standard 8’ folding table, allowing for up to 10 market stalls around the perimeter. The inward slope of the canopy avoids dripping water onto the shoppers. it also projects sound out into the park from the larger roof when the building is used for performances. The roof is made of tongue and groove beetle-kill pine decking covered with corrugated metal. The building was put together over the course of a few days by the fabricator, Thomas Born, who to our good fortune is also an artist and contributed a witty sculpture to enliven the building. Cut from rusty steel plate, it uses one of the shear panels as a backdrop to an abstracted tableau of the ancient ritual played out in this building every Saturday. It is a small thing, which brings some joy to a small town. It’s also the most sustainable building we’ve done, in every way we can think of. v
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On Site review 23
Small Things
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