WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass. — A Williams College class has brought together art and architecture, sustainability and design, and learned a whole lot about carpentry and math, in a curling, open pavilion on Main Street. 

 

The product of professor Giuseppina Forte's fall 2023 class "Design for the Pluriverse" took nearly a year to design, model and construct and is meant to be a welcoming space to meditate and connect. 

 

President Maud Mandel said she'd been getting quite a few queries about the little structure between First Congregational Church and Hopkins Hall.

 

"If you tell them you're building a pluriverse, they just kind of look at you like you're something out of a three-dimensional portal from 'The Matrix' movies, which so it's been it's been fun to say that," she laughed at last Wednesday's ribbon cutting. 

 

It's based on anthropologist Arturo Escobar's work of bringing multiple perspectives into design.

 

"The pavilion embraces diverse forms of engagement and the pluriverse concept," said Forte. "The fact that multiple people were involved in the design and construction of this small structure, per se, already speaks to the fact that I do believe architecture should be a collective endeavor, and so there is no sole author here, something that we've been used to think in the 19th century and 20th century with this kind of sole authorship."

 

The pavilion is designed to be open and inviting while also creating a sense of coming together or shelter as it curls in. The materials were chosen based on sustainability, aesthetics and how their production impacted the environment. Because it is made of wood, its carbon footprint is negative.