Anima Pavilion

Suzhou, China

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Anima Pavilion

Suzhou, China

Firm

Atelier Pensee

Type

Hospitality + Sport › Zoo/Aquarium
Cultural › Pavilion

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2024

SIZE

0 sqft - 1000 sqft

BUDGET

$0 - 10K

In July 2024, Atelier Pensee was invited to design a small structure at SIP No.1 Middle School in Suzhou to create a peaceful and healing space within the campus.

During conversations with the school headmaster, Xiaojun Zhao, we were deeply inspired by his childhood memories of herding goats after school. This experience was not only a way to support his family but also a source of comfort and emotional relief.

From this personal recollection emerged a simple yet unusual proposal: to build a small sheep shelter on campus, allowing students to encounter animals as part of their everyday school life.

Inspired by the layered spatial organization of Suzhou’s classical gardens, the pavilion adopts deployable enclosures to create multiple modes of interaction between students and animals.

In the quiet morning, Anima Pavilion reads simply as a small pavilion beneath the trees. On rainy days, when the sliding panels are opened, the pavilion and the sheep shelter become visually connected through the circular window. During open days, as the panels are fully retracted and the table is lowered, visual continuity is established between the pavilion, the shelter, and the yard. Students may occupy the space either from within the pavilion or directly in the garden, moving freely between observation and participation.

Constrained by a limited budget and unreliable construction conditions, Anima Pavilion was conceived as a structure that could be built using affordable, standardized materials and a simple construction method.

Its most distinctive feature is the bundled timber column, assembled from standard 50 × 50 mm timber sections readily available on the local market. Columns, beams, and bases are connected through straightforward bolted joints, reducing construction time and technical complexity. Beyond practicality, this strategy introduces a sense of lightness and permeability, allowing views of the western campus landscape to filter into the pavilion.

Since its completion, the Anima Pavilion has quietly become an integral part of everyday life on campus. On the opening day, students eagerly stripped the surrounding vegetation bare to feed the sheep—an unplanned but telling moment that revealed the immediacy of their engagement. During the summer break, when classes were absent, gardeners were often seen using the pavilion as a place to eat lunch and rest in the shade.

Surrounded by teaching buildings and the disciplined rhythms of school life, the pavilion offers a contrasting moment of pause. Rather than serving a single, prescribed function, it has gradually been absorbed into daily routines, accommodating care, rest, and simple coexistence between people and animals.