Cache Me If You Can by FreelandBuck

Cache Me if You Can, a new installation by Los Angeles-and-New York-based architecture office FreelandBuck, is on view in King Plaza, Palo Alto in front of Palo Alto City hall through June 2020...

Architect: FreelandBuck
Location: Palo Alto, CA, USA
Year: 2019
Project Team: Brennan Buck, David Freeland
Photography: Eric Staudenmaier

From the architect: The project, commissioned by the City of Palo Alto, is a three-dimensional, materialized image documenting the life of the plaza over the course of one day. Moving around the structure and then inside, the 20 printed surfaces chart the course of one day, May 31​st​, 2019, describing the activity that took place, the changing light levels and shifting shadow patterns. The triangular panels are perforated in a variable pattern based on the same images. At night, the pavilion is lit from the interior causing the holes to glow and creating a new set of images of King Plaza.

Geometrically, the structure is composed of 10 identical triangular panels cut from rigid PVC plastic sheets. Each panel is printed on both sides with a projected pattern derived from photographs of the site, then perforated with a custom pattern that matches the print. Approaching from the front, on axis with city hall, the pattern image aligns with its surroundings: the building’s fenestration runs down across folded surfaces of the pavilion, and the plaza’s gridded paving pattern extends up to meet it. From other angles, this view is stretched, folded and mirrored, creating other, less faithful views.

Says FreelandBuck co-founder and principal Brennan Buck, “This project follows several of our previous large-scale installations designed as constructed drawings. In this case, we worked with images of the site, articulating them graphically as a pattern of overlapping circles. Each pixel of the photograph produced 5 circles in a range of hues that, when averaged together, match the hue of the original pixel. From a distance, the photograph is clear, but up close, the surface of the pavilion disintegrates into an abstract pattern of vibrating discs.”

FreelandBuck is interested in understanding the site as a place that produces different kinds of narratives. The office looked at significant buildings in and around Palo Alto, and observed the occupation of the space by people, and by light, at different points throughout the day. The resulting pavilion engages the idea that there is not one single view, or narrative, that surrounds our experience of architecture.

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