Desai Chia lifts 380-square-foot wildlife pavilion over a restored New York pond

A 380-square-foot (35-square-metre) pavilion shaped like the number eight now hovers over a remediated pond in Chatham, New York, giving its owners a front-row seat to the wildlife that has returned to the water.

US studio Desai Chia Architecture designed the Chatham Pond Pavilion as a wildlife-viewing station on an 80-acre (32-hectare) private property belonging to a couple with grown children. The New York City firm has already built several structures on the site: a main house, a guest dwelling, a livestock barn and a large greenhouse.

The pond itself has a working past. "Once used as a livestock watering hole, it has now been remediated and restored as a natural wetland haven for wildlife, birds, fish and pollinators," the studio said. Bears, foxes, deer, raccoons and possums also move through the area.

To limit disruption to the recovering habitat, the architects lifted the structure above the ground rather than building into it.

What does the pavilion look like?

In plan, the building reads as two overlapping circles — two platforms of differing heights joined like the figure eight. The higher platform cantilevers over the water so visitors can "observe natural wetland habitats at the pond, as well as activity in the forest beyond", the team said.

Above sits the pavilion's signature move: a sculptural canopy formed from three intersecting, hollowed-out cylinders. "The intersecting forms were inspired by overlapping concentric ripples of water created when raindrops fall on the pond's surface," the team said.

One cylinder carries a solid roof with a solar-powered ceiling fan, fed by a photovoltaic array on top.

How is it built?

The structure rests on galvanised steel columns and curved steel beams fitted together on-site. The canopy is clad in standing-seam panels of 98 per cent recycled aluminium — roughly a garage-sized roof's worth of material kept almost entirely out of the waste stream.

The finish works two ways. "The exterior of each cylinder is finished in a luminous satin grey, reflecting the surrounding forest and sky, while the interior is coated in a copper finish that casts a warm glow within," the team said.

A meandering path leads to the pavilion, which occupies the pond's southwest corner. That placement is deliberate: it shades the structure in the afternoon and frames the strongest light at the end of the day.

"As the sun sets, the light rakes across the pond from the west and lights up the forest canopy to the east, giving the pavilion an ideal sight line to the glowing row of trees and through the illuminated understorey," the team said.

The pavilion joins a Desai Chia portfolio that includes a cedar-clad New York home in Stanfordville and a Connecticut residence organised around courtyards for exhibiting artwork. The Chatham project shows how a small, lightly touch ed structure can turn a former farm watering hole into the centre of a property's ecological life.