Advanced Rhino Studio | Fall 2025

A 75 ft × 100 ft open-air shade pavilion that treats sunlight like a material to be sculpted rather than merely blocked.

The roof begins as a single, undulating NURBS surface—gently curved along its long axis, then lifted and warped into a low, sail-like form that hovers 24 ft at its peak. A secondary system of angular slats and perforated panels floats just above the primary surface, creating a porous double skin. Light filters through in shifting layers: some rays are caught and scattered by the slats, others slip through diamond-shaped cutouts, producing a constantly evolving mosaic of dappled shadow on the ground below.

Columns are kept minimal and deliberately varied in height, allowing the roof to appear almost weightless. Accurate Phoenix sun studies (summer solstice 9 a.m., noon, and 4 p.m.) reveal a space that feels different every hour—cool and intimate in the morning, dramatically striped at midday, softly luminous in the late afternoon.

Rendered in a warm terracotta tone against the desert light, the pavilion is less a static object than a quiet instrument for time and weather. Stand beneath it long enough and you’ll read the day in moving shadows.