mimicking a glowing moonrise, this pavilion by THEVERYMANY lands in chattanooga

Moonrise marks the Wheland Foundry Trailhead in Chattanooga, Tennessee, rising from the park path as a pale, porous dome. The pavilion is made from white aluminum with circular cuts that bring sky, foliage, and clouds into the structure. From outside, it appears lightweight, while from beneath it functions as a shaded room with daylight falling through the perforated canopy in round patches across a concrete floor. The design is named for the moment the moon appears at the horizon, creating a collective pause. Visitors can sit, move through arched openings, and look up as shadows shift. The dome uses a double-layer shell of custom aluminum structural strips only three millimeters thick, joined by rivets into a geometry-based interlocking system. Visible seams and faceted panels turn assembly into pattern, while openings reduce weight and create a lunar-like rhythm and pools of light.

"Moonrise rises from the park path like a pale shell caught between the trees. Designed by Marc Fornes / THEVERYMANY, the permanent pavilion forms a porous dome of white aluminum, its surface opened by circular cuts that bring sky, foliage, and passing clouds into the structure itself. From the outside, it reads as a lightweight object in the landscape. From beneath, it becomes a shaded room, with daylight falling through the perforated canopy in round patches across the concrete floor."

"The project takes its name from the moment the moon appears at the horizon, when a familiar scene starts to feel altered. That sense of collective pause runs through the pavilion. Visitors can sit on low concrete cylinders, move through the arched openings, or look up into the layered skin as shadows shift with the sun. The work gives the park a small civic interior, open to the weather and to the surrounding green, while still creating a feeling of enclosure."

"Moonrise, that research takes the shape of a double-layer shell made from custom-fabricated aluminum structural strips, each just three millimeters thick. The pieces are joined with rivets, forming an interlocking system that gains strength through geometry instead of mass. The dome's surface carries the logic of its assembly. Thousands of seams, fasteners, and faceted panels remain visible across the white skin, turning construction into pattern."

"The large openings ease the structure's weight while giving it a soft visual rhythm, almost like a lunar surface translated into architecture. Some apertures frame treetops. Others cast circular pools of light onto the ground, so the interior shifts throughout the day as the sun moves behind the perforated canopy."

Read at designboom | architecture & design magazine