Prototype Architecture explores architects’ long-standing and growing fascination with prototype design as a significant means of exploration and innovation in modern architectural practice. In architecture, prototype most commonly and simply refers to a design scheme that is meant to be constructed multiple times or a developmental mock-up—often at full-scale—that is constructed as part of the design process. This project is part of the Experiments in Architectural Prototypes course at NCSU school of architecture, which focuses on prototyping as a method of making, trying to make conceptual prototypes as a means of addressing large scale social and technical issues.

The project defined as a music pavilion (20 by 20 feet) which could be install in different parks. Starting with the simple idea of a folding umbrella, different folding forms have been explored. With the inspiration from traditional paper-folding techniques, the dome shape digital models in grasshopper and 3D print models have been created. 

The final design is like an origami folding, the modular strips of triangles which bends in different directions. Each strip was bent at it;s two sides to connect to the other with nuts and bolts. The prototype of the Fold Up pavilion was designed by Narges Alizadeh and built with metal sheets at NCSU Materials Lab.by Narges Alizadeh, Sarveswaran Sunambedu and Gillian Scott.