Shortlisted for small building of the year at Dezeen Awards 2019, A Room for Archaeologists and Kids by Studio Tom Emerson and Taller 5, PUCP, provides shelter for archaeologists in Pachacamac, Peru.

The pavilion forms the culmination of a collaborative project that teamed students from Studio Tom Emerson – a design and research studio in the architecture faculty at Swiss university ETH Zurich – and Taller 5 at Lima's PUCP. A woven white canopy, bamboo cane walls and earthen floors form this workspace for archaeologists making their first examinations of artefacts that emerge from digs. Four outdoor wooden walkways form the rectangular shape of the 37 metre by 16.3 metre structure with a sandy courtyard in the middle. White polyester textile woven in between planes of wooden struts forms a roof over the walkways, providing the archeologists with shade from the strong Andean sun, as well as views to the sky and landscape beyond.

The open structure was designed by the students so that work can be undertaken in view of passing visitors and children from a nearby school. New finds are stored in rooms at each end enclosed by woven cane walls before being transferred to the museum for permanent conservation. The project is located in Pachacamac, an archaeological site 40 kilometres (25 miles) southeast of Lima that covers around 600 hectares of desert. Architects Guillaume Othenin-Girard and Vincent Juillerat led the students on the design, producing the outdoor structure in just three weeks during June 2018.

Architect: Studio Tom Emerson and Taller 5, PUCP
Project: A Room for Archaeologists and Kids in Pachacámac