Snakelike Pavilion Can Adjust to its Surroundings

The 'Reptile' exhibition space was developed through the collaboration between freehand tattoo artist Gakkin and architecture firm Rabatanalab.

by Beckett Mufson

December 11, 2014, 7:15pm

Reptile, the proposed morphing pavillion from Rabatanalab and Gakkin. Images courtesy of the artist

A winding, hydraulically-powered tunnel makes up the bulk of Reptile, a proposed mobile exhibition pavillion devised through an unlikely collaboration between Italian architecture firm Rabatanalab and Japanese freehand tattoo artist Gakkin.

The snakelike 32,000-square-foot structure is designed to curve and straighten to adapt to its environment, manipulating its specially designed joints, wooden skeleton, leather panels, and thermo-chronic varnish with the help of a programmable logic controller, the nervous system of the beast. In the press release, the project is described as "a bending opera whose changing shape adapts to the suggestive features of the place it is exhibited."

The proposed Reptile also has a layer of leather skin, decorated by Gakkin's unique brand of ink tattoos. To help ventilate it during hot weather, its varnish would even have the ability to adjust these adornments. The heat-adaptive measures are particularly important, as Rabatanalab has planned that the pavilion be situated in the scorched desert of Ajmān, United Arab Emirates.

While it's still in its investment proposal stage, Rabatanalab's press release has high hopes for the project's potential, predicting that "the exhibition space will turn into a dynamic one, and walking visitors will be not more surrounded by a static urban context, but by a continuing, changing skyline."

Stay tuned to Rabatanalab's website to monitor the project's progress, and check out Gakkin's extensive body of freehand tattoo designs here.