Rio Kobayashi and Webb Yates ask questions at Olympia
By Tom Howells
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Kensington Olympia’s huge, glass-plated Victorian Grand Hall and the serene vernacular of Japanese domestic architecture might not seem immediately synonymous. But such is the quiet revelation explored in Off The Shelf, a new pavilion collaboration between maker-designer Rio Kobayashi, and multidisciplinary London engineering firm Webb Yates.
The pair were brought together by Vickie Hayward of Company, Place, the site-specific architectural facilitator that has overseen the pavilion’s curation and construction, as a precursor to the more comprehensive overhaul of the Olympia site.
Kobayashi’s concept is beautifully simple: a grid-like wall of geometric recesses, constructed in Portland stone and douglas fir. Instead of welds, joins or screws, the entire structure is cleverly weighted, prestressed and clamped together so it can be dismantled and the materials redistributed – an environmentally conscious decision in thrall to a circular design economy.
Kobayashi – who trained as a carpenter, channelling his skills as a furniture maker into the pavilion – grew up in Japan in a family of artisans who built their own houses. To this end, he initially embraced the underlying concept of the shoji screen (a semi-opaque domestic wall, designed for observation with a grid design on one side and spaces for art on the other) for Off The Shelf.
As the final concept evolved, the screens were jettisoned; but their essence (and that of Olympia’s OG glasshouse) remains in the geometric aesthetic and the pavilion’s inaugural installation, a sculptural botanic project by artist-biologist Cynthia Fan (the first in a programme of events based around themes of art, science and nature, dubbed On The Shelf).
The pavilion is a first stone in Olympia’s ambitious transformation, the 138-year-old site set to be transformed into a new destination for creativity, complete with new cultural, leisure and hospitality venues.
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“What we are trying to do is create space for others to engage with and animate, whether it be via On The Shelf or through creating vistas for installations or stages for performances,” explains Hayward. “Which I think, in a way, nods to Olympia’s past/present as a great showcase.”
Fundamentally, Off the Shelf has been conceived as a place to foster discovery; an architecturally engaging zone for positing bigger questions. “I like to confuse people,” laughs Kobayashi. “I want people talking about this place; to create an environment where not only one person is in focus. Somewhere people can bond: that’s what I really like.”
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