WMembrane
Roof System
Architectural Association
London, United Kingdom, 2004
Architect: Ciro Najle
Collaborators: Jose Arnaud Bello, Homín Kim, Caterina Padoa Schioppa, Jordi Pages i Ramon
Construction: Clide Brianni
Engineering: Adams-Kara-Taylor
Wmembrane is a roof-and-ground system conceived as a canopy for ceremonies, openings, and temporary events. Its organization exploits the structural and material interdependence of roof and ground as an opportunity to define a self-contained geometrical continuum with structural interdependence between its subsystems, thus constituting a structural landscape and mediating the relationship between spatial, organizational, programmatic, and tectonic determinations.
The first sample of the system was commissioned by the Architectural Association in 2004 for its end-of-the-year exhibition and graduation ceremony in Bedford Square, London. It was designed to host seasonal events and emphasize their theatricality by exaggerating its character in a tense mix of extreme exteriority and intense interiority. Its textural richness and material softness establishes continuity with the smooth surface of the surrounding English garden, which it swells and mirrors through its reflective finish.
