Transformation and integration through interpretation

Abstract

This article focuses on the re-examination and re-interpretation of a small but noteworthy pavilion designed and built in 1937. Compromising with the client's demands by creating a common ground and shared judgment, minimizing new resources and conserving energy by working with the local climate and conditions, the architect, in the late thirties, achieved an integrated design having both sentimental value and a raison d'être, that is to say, poetic and rational meanings of sustainability, which appear to be of significant value to contemporary design. The basic objective of this study is to rediscover, reinterpret and represent the architect's peculiar solution to the problem of addition and transformation, along with his conception of preservation and remodeling issues; to underscore the complex web of spatiotemporal relations the design establishes with various regional and global contexts through observations, analysis and survey studies in the framework of the concept of integration. This particular design, an evident example of sustainable design and timelessness; concepts not yet then on the agenda of architecture, reveals that sustainability is not an added concept, but rather should be an intrinsic part of any architectural design.