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Second time around

A vintage carousel brings brand-new joy to Greenport, New York, thanks to a SHoP-designed pavilion

Aric Chen -- Interior Design, 6/1/2003 12:00:00 AM

What goes around has truly come around in Greenport, New York. As part of the Long Island town's ambitious waterfront redevelopment plan, architecture firm SHoP/Sharples Holden Pasquarelli has designed an eye-catching pavilion for a 1920s carousel donated by the Northrop Grumman Corporation. Sited in a new 4-acre park, the building contrasts old-world and modern, reflecting SHoP's reputation for both nuts-and-bolts engineering and digital virtuosity.

The architects calculated that, to house a carousel 40 feet in diameter, they needed to design a pavilion 62 feet across. And they needed to do it without interior structural columns. The system SHoP devised is based on pairs of ipe timber beams sandwiching steel plates. The beam pairs span 26 feet—from exterior columns to a central steel compression ring 10 feet in diameter—to support the pavilion's plywood roof panels.

Between the 12 exterior columns, also of paired ipe timbers, SHoP installed custom bi-fold doors. The 15-foot-high steel-framed glass elements embody the project's most lyrical combination of newfangled and old-fashioned. Held in place by angled mullions, panes of gray glass are etched in wave patterns of rather abstruse derivation. "We analyzed the horses' movement by computer, accounting for the voices of moving riders as they're changed by the Doppler effect," explains principal Bill Sharples.

The bi-fold doors play a utilitarian role, too. Independently operable, they reinforce a connection to the outdoors while offering passive temperature control. As Sharples sums it up, "We built a transparent structure that encloses the carousel in winter and opens it up in summer." And continues to display lightness and grace as the seasons go around.

Clockwise from top left: A steel compression ring creates an oculus to support both the plywood roof above and the carousel's spokes below. The circumference of the pavilion comprises 12 bays defined by timber columns and independently operable steel-and-glass bi-fold doors. SHoP also designed the park's trellised harbor walk. Up-lights and down-lights illuminate the interior as dusk falls over the Peconic Bay.

The movement of the 1920s carousel horses and the Doppler effect on riders' voices were analyzed on a computer. SHoP then etched the resulting patterns on gray glass panes installed in the bi-fold doors around the pavilion's facade.

Up-lights: Bega. Down-lights: B-K Lighting. Etched glass: McGrory Glass. Metalwork: L.D. Flecken. Carpentry: J.E. O'Donnell Construction Co. Electrical contractor: Johnson Electric Construction Corp. Landscape contractor: Steven Dubner Landscaping. Landscape architect: Quennell Rothschild & Partners. Engineers: Buro Happold (structural); Laszlo Bodak Engineer (electrical, mechanical); Leonard J. Strandberg & Associates (civil, electrical). General contractor: Carriage Hill Associates.