Ermanos Pavilion

The Ermanos Pavilion creates a welcoming and shaded outdoor drinking and dining area that is the result of the City of Tucson wanting to see restaurants back in business during Covid. The project straddles a portion of the sidewalk and the right-of-way to create a unique shaded pavilion with a kinetic led light show above, to enjoy drinks with delicacies at the restaurant’s entryway. The design takes into account the Secretary of Interior Historic Standards and positions an entirely new aesthetic for this pavilion that juxtaposes new with the almost 100-year-old building that it sits in front of.

The Ermanos Pavilion transports one out of an ordinary urban situation and into a trellised enclosure to enjoy the award-winning restaurant’s offerings of spectacular food and drink in an inspiring vessel of delight. Inspired by creating a unique outdoor dining space, this project uses ordinary materials in extraordinary ways. The project implements ubiquitous galvanized conduit to create a filigreed structure to house outside dining and drinks that was in part a transition promoted by the City of Tucson to allow restaurant structures in the right-of-way. The shape of the structure is informed by creating a line of sight to the existing signage on the building canopy while providing shade from the afternoon sun, comfortable headroom for its occupants and cooling breezes through the openings in the outer skin.

The gently moving colored led lights that line the ceiling create a slowmoving pattern of light that reflects the kinetic energy of the street. The curving enclosure defines a new experience that straddles the road and sidewalk in a new paradigm of private yet public urban space.