Before a new form of architecture can be executed on a large scale, it has to be demonstrated through smaller structures, making temporary pavilions an ideal way to experiment. These 14 pavilions represent novel and often radical designs and construction methods, from carbon fibre structures woven by robots to living architecture made by silk worms.
1. Evolving Pavilion Made by Silk Worms
Nature and technology work together on a pavilion that grows and transforms like a living organism. The Silk Pavilion by the MIT Media Lab features a basis of silk threads made by a CNC machine, which grows into a cloud-like structure with the addition of natural netting from dozens of silk worms.
The worms were essentially deployed as a biological ‘printer’ to create the secondary structure on top of the geometric base. If the sculpture were to remain in place indefinitely, it could reproduce on its own, with new generations of silkworms constructing up to 250 additional pavilions.
2. Serpentine Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto
This 2013 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion by Sou Fujimoto is a contradiction in form, translucent yet solid.
20mm pipes are arranged in a lattice form to create a cloud-like appearance, inviting visitors to enter and climb the framework.
3. Abstracted & Faceted Bloomberg Pavilion
Looking like an oversized piece of paper origami, the Bloomberg Pavilion by Akihasa Hirata is actually inspired by a tree and constructed from pleated metal.
“I wondered what would happen if the walls were to keep growing upwards and present an uneven surface like ‘pleats’. Pleats resemble a tree in the way that they spread out and capture the sun and I felt that they would produce a bright, impressive exterior. I also thought that the space beneath this surface would present a relaxed atmosphere, similar to that of tree shade that would be an ideal quality for an exhibition space.”
4. Carbon Fibre Pavilion Based on Beetle Shells
This incredible carbon fibre pavilion inspired by the lightweight shell encasing the wings and abdomen of a beetle was woven by a robot. Installed at the University of Stuttgart, the ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion 2013-14 was fabricated using a custom-built system of robotics used to create a series of modular fibre-composite components.
Says team member Marshall Prado, “It offers not only a unique architectural expression and spatial experience, it is also extremely lightweight and resource efficient.”
5. Holographic Pavilion
It may not look like much from the outside, but visitors who stepped into the Korean Pavilion at the 2013 Venice Art Biennale were treated to a dazzling immersion of colour and light thanks to reflective aluminium mirror panels and diffraction grating film.
The holographic effect creates the feeling of being inside a crystal.
6. Echoviren: World’s First 3D-Printed Pavilion
The world’s first 3D-printed architecture came in the form of a small pavilion, installed in a redwood forest near Oakland, California. Echoviren is a modular structure made of 585 interlocking components printed over the course of 10,800 hours, and measures 10x10x8 feet.
Made of bioplastic, it will be left in that environment to weather, decay and ultimately biodegrade, becoming a part of the ecosystem.
7. Bubble Pavilion
This fun example of ‘bubbletecture’ is less ephemeral than one made of actual soap bubbles, but still highly portable. Portapavilion is an event space that can quickly and easily be inflated, deflated, packed up and transported from one location to the next.
Throughout the summer of 2010, it travelled to 15 parks throughout London to host productions by the English National Ballet, the Tate Modern, the Royal Society of Arts and more. The whole structure pops out of the back of a van, and the translucent bubble can wrap around trees or squeeze under bridges to fit within tight spaces.
8. Zaha Hadid’s Burnham Pavilion
Architect Zaha Hadid brought her organic aesthetic to Chicago’s Millennium Park with the shell-shaped Burnham Pavilion, created to mark the 100 year anniversary of David Burnham’s Chicago plan.
The temporary installation is made of a tent-like lightweight aluminium structure covered in a tensile fabric.
9. Inflatable Diamond Grid Pavilion
Another inflatable pavilion takes a different approach with a diamond grid of inflatable tubes arranged in the atomic structure of diamonds.
Light and air shafts penetrate the structure to provide natural light and ventilation, and at night, these shafts radiate light ‘like a diamond.’
10. Vanke Pavilion by Daniel Libeskind
The twisting shape of architect Daniel Libeskind’s Vanke Pavilion design takes its inspiration from the ancient thinking of Confucius and Lao Tzu.
Evocative of a massive dragon covered in scales, the structure houses an installation of 300 multimedia screens designed to create the feeling of a virtual forest.
11. Smiljan Radic’s Serpentine Pavilion
Looking like the shell of some monstrously oversized snail, Smiljan Radic’s Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2014 is balanced precariously atop a pile of rocks.
From the outside it seems incredibly heavy and solid, but inside, with the light streaming through the shell, it’s clear that the structure is actually quite light and delicate.
12. Latticed France Pavilion by XTU Architects
Made of locally sourced reusable wood, France’s pavilion for Expo Milan 2015 is envisioned as a covered market that can be disassembled and reused.
Herbs, hops and other vegetation climb up the latticed wood structure, which the designers see as a metaphor for new perspectives on food and nutrition.
13. ArboSkin Bioplastic Pavilion
This curving, faceted pavilion is made of bioplastic containing over 90 percent renewable materials. It is made by students and professors at Stuttgart University’s Institute of Building Structures and Structural Design.
The freeform modular pavilion demonstrates the structural properties of this new bioplastic developed for use in the construction industry.
14. High-Tech Research Pavilion by ICD and ITKE
In another case of high-tech and highly unconventional construction, the University of Stuttgart programmed a robot to wind 60 kilometres of carbon and glass fibre filaments into a pavilion. The same team that created the carbon fibre pavilion inspired by beetle shells also came up with this beautiful structure.
The designers researched the load-bearing capabilities of a lobster’s exoskeleton, which is composed of complex layers of glucose and protein. The robot wound resin-saturated carbon and glass fibres onto a steel frame rotating on a turntable.
Top image: ICD/ITKE Research Pavilion by the University of Stuttgart.
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