Video: Student-Designed UHPC Pavilion Installed in National Park

Students at the University of Southern California School of Architecture have completed an iconic building project in a national park.

The Carapace Pavilion, which won a 2022 PCI Design Award for Best Custom Solution, now graces the landscape in California’s Joshua Tree National Park. The completed project is currently featured in a 1-minute YouTube video published by USC.

The structure was built with precast Ultra-High-Performance Concrete (UHPC) and is designed to last 100 years with little to no maintenance.

“Several rounds of preliminary analysis revealed that Ultra-High-Performance Concrete was not only capable of achieving the strengths required, but that the material could also eliminate the complicated rebar and result in an astonishingly thin wall,” the team from USC explained in its project summary.

As was previously reported by WOC360.com, the pavilion is meant to reflect the attributes of the surrounding landscape. Over time, it will rust by design, streaking and staining like natural rock.

Thanks to UHPC, the Carapace Pavilion has a wall thickness of just 2 inches and contains no rebar.

Future USC students will continue to study the pavilion to report on how it performs. For more details, watch a video about the project on USC’s website.