Gabo Festival 2024 - Parametric Stages
Client:
Páramo Presenta / Fundación Gabo
Industry:
Cultural Festival / Literature / Stage Design
Start:
End:
Duration:
2 months
Read time:
4 min
For Festival Gabo, a festival focused on literature, journalism, and written arts, I worked as the main architect and co-art directed the project with María Rugeles. The work was developed for Páramo Presenta for Fundación Gabo.
The festival included several spaces for talks, reading, cultural programming, music, and a main entrance tunnel. All of them were designed through a shared parametric language based on a curved visual pattern.
Starting point
The challenge was to create multiple festival spaces that felt related while serving different functions: a main stage for talks, a smaller conversation stage, a library that also worked as a medium-size stage, a music stage, and the entrance experience.
Because the whole design followed a curved graphic logic, the system needed to be built parametrically instead of drawing each element manually.
Problem solving
I developed the stages and entrance tunnel in Rhino and Grasshopper, using the original curved pattern as the base for the architectural system. The parametric workflow made it easier to adapt the same language across different scales, formats, and uses.
Each space had its own function, but the geometry kept the festival visually unified. The entrance tunnel worked as the first immersive moment of the festival, while the stages translated the same curved system into spaces for conversation, reading, and performance.
Implementation
The final proposal included a family of parametric elements: the main talk stage, the small conversation stage, the library stage, the music stage, and the main entrance tunnel. Each one used the same curved design logic while adapting to its program, scale, and audience relationship.
The system created a consistent festival identity across different cultural activities, from intimate talks to music performances and the first arrival moment.
Results
The project delivered a cohesive architectural language for Festival Gabo, connecting literature, conversation, performance and arrival through one parametric design system.
It shows how computational design can support cultural events by creating flexible spatial families: different spaces, different uses, but one recognizable identity.
