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c.a.f.a atelier 央艺

Salt and Scaffold

Index
013
Status
In progress
Year
2025
Discipline
Architecture
Materials

A pavilion meant to last one rainy season. The walls are pressed salt block, the scaffold is hired, and by the end of the rain the walls stand forty centimetres lower. The contract names a date for dismantling it; it does not say how much wall will be left by then.

Design
Qi Nan
Structure
Chen Li
Mentor
Shen Zhibai
The salt-block wall and its hired scaffold, before the first rain.
The press mould and a half-finished salt block.
The wall in its first week, the arrises still straight.
Week six, with rainwater cutting a channel at the foot of the wall.
A scaffold coupler — the only part of the building that will not dissolve.
The weekly height comparison, photographed from the same spot each time.
Crystal left on the ground at the end of the season.