The Purple Ink Studio draws on ship sails for seaside pavilion in Kerala

Architecture practice The Purple Ink Studio has created a temporary pavilion in India at the Kerala Literature Festival that aims to recall the region's Indo-German links.

Named the German Pavilion, the structure was designed to draw attention to forgotten historical ties between Kerala and Germany that date back to the arrival of a mission in 1830.

The Purple Ink Studio aimed to create a space that was both unusual and welcoming, while also highlighting connections between the city and the country.

"The form and the materiality of the pavilion offered an experience unfamiliar to the city, introducing a spatial language that felt welcoming and contemplative," said The Purple Ink Studio principal architect Nishita Bhatia.

The 1,020-square-metre structure was commissioned by the Goethe-Institut to mark Germany being guest nation at this year's festival.

Located on the beachfront in the southern Indian city of Kozhikode, the pavilion's roof features sloping planes that angle upward to resemble a ship's sail floating in the coastal wind.

The concept resulted from a design competition that gave the studio the freedom to choose a site along the Arabian Sea shoreline.

"The seaside site was chosen for its direct engagement with the landscape of the beachfront and its close relationship with the city's everyday life," Bhatia told Dezeen.

"The directional planes of the roof bend and appear to be caught in a moment of movement by the winds."

Within the slanted envelope a series of open, informal spaces were created for talks, conversations and performances during the four-day festival.

The studio drew from the region's cross-cultural past and incorporated it into the pavilion's handicraft design language.

Both local craftsmen and a variety of locally sourced materials were used in the fabrication of the pavilion.

The structure was made of bamboo and covered with woven sheets of dried grass mats named paaya, forming the roof.

Under the canopy, the open space was designed to reflect the feeling of community that comes with the traditional Keralan courtyard homes.

The ground was paved with terracotta floor tiles, while cotton rope screens and unfinished cotton fabric hang from above, creating partitions.

"The materials allowed the pavilion to be constructed in a very small time frame on a sand bed by the beach, while also ensuring most of the materials have a thoughtful afterlife," Bhatia explained.

Though mainly open-plan, textile screens were used to filter the light and wind and also wrap around semi-enclosed pods.

One of the pods contained the Berlin kitchen. Used for German culinary workshops, this space was centred around a large communal table to evoke the collective aspects of Keralan homes.

Facing the beach, reading and printing rooms provided spaces for visitors to pause and reflect away from the energetic festivities. On the landward side was the Salon – an amphitheatre enclosed within bamboo screens – used as a venue for talks.

The temporary installation was built in 17 days and was dismantled shortly after the end of the festival. However, that was not the end for the materials.

The untreated bamboo and the paaya were returned to the village they were sourced from to be used in construction again. The terracotta tiles were also sent back to the factory, to be used elsewhere, while the woven screens were donated to three local schools.

The photography is by Stories of Kunju, Advait Vinot, Saurabh Suryan.

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