Pavilion: The Latest Architecture and News

This week, Museum Gardens became the host to the annual Triumph Pavilion, this year focusing on the concept of "energy." Five Line Projects' aptly titled "Energy Pavilion" takes a multi-faceted approach to the theme, addressing social sustainability, movement and the power of community. The pavilion presents a playful meeting place, designed to explore the impact of a single positive action on its surroundings.

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On June 11th, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art, also known as Manifesta, began its 100-day stint in this edition's host city, Zurich, Switzerland. The festival's center-piece is a timber raft floating on Lake Zurich, known as the Pavilion of Reflections. The temporary structure was designed and realized by Studio Tom Emerson and a team of thirty students from ETH Zurich. Constructed primarily of timber, Christian Jankowski, curator of Manifesta 11, describes the exhibit “as a floating multi-functional platform with a giant LED screen, a stand for spectators, a swimming pool and a bar.”

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Studioninedots have designed a new pavilion, “The TrueTalker,” to generate a space for open communication and storytelling. The pavilion is one of approximately fifty at Amsterdam's temporary Fab City, an initiative organised by Europe by People to promote self-sustaining, innovative cities. The project also comes as a reaction to Amsterdam hosting the European Union this spring, where rigid and official conversation will be scrutinised and recorded from every angle. In contrast, Studioninedots said that "The TrueTalker" creates a space where “everyone is invited to sit down, relax and share warming, unreasonable, crazy, unimaginable and hilarious ideas.”

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The University of Southern California's American Academy in China (AAC) has announced the seven winning designs for the international Napavilion Competition. Entrants had to design prefabricated wood structures with the sole function of providing space for guests to nap in. The winning designs will be built at Jade Valley Winery outside of Xi’an in western China, with three to be completed in time for the Napavilion Festival in July.

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Edinburgh-based studio, Konishi Gaffney Architects, has won the competition to design a temporary pavilion for the Pop-Up Cities Expo. The Pop-Up Cities Expo is a headline event at Scotland’s Festival of Architecture, featuring pop-up pavilions at Mound Square from cities around Europe. Konishi Gaffney will be representing Edinburgh – the host of the expo - with their winning pavilion design.

Following a competition that received 286 entries from 26 of the 32 states of Mexico, 31 proposals have been selected to be presented at the Mexican Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Narrating the “deep history of social participation in Mexico,” the exhibit, “Unfoldings and Assemblages,” will feature “architectures assembled from fragments, modules, relations, stories, tactics, technologies and construction strategies.” The exhibit will focus on work and experiences that can change, propagate and adapt, rather than closed systems or final products.

Devnya Cement AD, a member of Italcementi Group, and Varna Design Forum invite all students of architecture and design, and all young professionals up to 35 years old from all over the world to participate in the international contest for conceptual design of a small trading pavilion, to be situated in the Seaside Park in the city of Varna. The goal is to enrich the urban design of Varna through the realization of a contemporary and inspiring concept for a trading pavilion constructed with the innovative materials of Italcementi Group. The contest will finish with the announcement of a winner selected by a five-member Jury Panel. The winner will be awarded with monetary prize, visit to the "i.lab" research center in Italy and realization of their project as a real-size prototype.

Israel has unveiled its theme for the 2016 Venice Biennale: “LifeObject: Merging Architecture and Biology”. Their pavilion will be comprised of a large-scale sculptural installation and seven speculative architectural scenarios relating to Israel. The exhibition will focus on the relationship between biology and architecture, acting as a “research oriented platform.”

MVRDV’s design for the Dutch exhibition “Hola Holanda” at the Book Fair of Bogotá (FILBO) features a modular system of crates that will be repurposed as neighbourhood libraries after the Book Fair ends. Avoiding the waste of resources created by one-time pavilions, the Dutch firm has introduced a playful element of sustainability to the fair, maintaining its spirit even after the event ends.

International architecture competition organizers Bee Breeders have announced the three winners and honourable mentions of their competition to design a Charlie Hebdo Portable Pavilion. Intended to be a travelling exhibition of the work of the French Magazine “Charlie Hebdo,” participants were asked to “support and promote” principles of free speech in their design. Responding to the terror attacks against Charlie Hebdo and the ensuing global discourse on free speech, the competition sought to deconstruct the “conventional assumptions of free speech,” and look specifically at “what makes speech free and how much of it comes at a cost.”

Entries were judged for the way they challenged these assumptions in terms of space, material and form. Preference was given to projects that had clear concepts, circulation, sequence and narrative, in addition to public engagement and a “reconciliation between the abstract and theoretical with the physical and real.” Consideration was also given to the way projects contributed to a discourse – rather than expressing an opposition - concerning the growing grey areas between "ideological, political, and cultural binaries." 

MCASB invites proposals for a large-scale, outdoor, traveling pavilion ​to be built and installed at each site of its new public art program, TakePart/MakeArt. As a central feature of TakePart/MakeArt, the mobile pavilion will be a bold and vibrant beacon for MCASB as it travels through three different communities across Santa Barbara County: Isla Vista, the Westside, and the Waterfront.

archasm invites architects, students, engineers, designers, artists and philosophers to send in their entries for our competition

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The advent of parametricism has brought architects many new design capabilities; form finding, sun shading and visual texturing are just a few of the ways the technology has impacted structures. But perhaps its most noble function is its ability to optimize structure, especially through the folding of thin, rigid materials. This is the function that architect Tal Friedman has chosen to explore in his Origami Pavilion.

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A design for a pavilion constructed out of recycled clothes hangers has been selected as the winner of the sixth annual City of Dreams Pavilion Competition. The temporary structure will be built on Governors Island and available to the public for summer 2016, pending final approval and fundraising.

Hosted by FIGMENT, the Emerging New York Architects Committee (ENYA) of the American Institute of Architects New York Chapter (AIANY), and the Structural Engineers Association of New York (SEAoNY), the competition speculates on possible futures with solutions to the current strain on economic and natural resources. Designers are required to consider their materials from sourcing to disposal, or ideally, reuse, promoting sustainable thinking.

Over 100 design proposals were submitted, and the jury selected four finalists who were each given a month to further develop their designs in response to jury comments. See the winning design and the three finalists after the break.

Following the recent trend of luxury pre-fabricated structures like Muji’s recent three huts, Robbie Antonio’s “Revolution Pre-Crafted” is a collection of pre-fabricated pavilions by 30 top designers and architects, including Zaha Hadid, Sou Fujimoto, Daniel Libeskind and Gluckman Tang. Some have already been built, being exhibited at Design Miami, while others are planned for the future.

With recent advancements in building technology, Revolution Pre-Crafted hopes to democratize the design of pre-fab structures, offering a line of products that incorporate the distinct spatial and social brands of the designers. See a selection of the Revolution Precraft line after the break.

Based on the concept of listening to the sounds of the ocean inside a shell, STUDIOKCA, commissioned by NASA, has created the NASA Orbit Pavilion to immerse visitors in the sounds of satellites orbiting in outer space.

The traveling, nautilus-shaped pavilion provides a space in which to experience the trajectories of 19 satellites orbiting Earth. Made with 3,500 square feet of water-jet cut aluminum panels, the pavilion is "scribed with over 100 'orbital paths' fitted together and bolted to a curved framework of aluminum tubes."

The south of France is known for its endless beaches, nineteenth century architecture, lush greenery, and monuments to its storied history. For nearly a decade, Le Festival des Architectures Vives (Festival of Lively Architecture) has been infusing contemporary architecture into the staid Southern French landscape through the creation of an array of artful temporary pavilions. Beginning in 2006 and 2013 respectively, the towns of Montpellier and La Grande Motte have played host to a series of structures designed to animate historical segments of the two cities. Founded with a mission to celebrate the seminal work of burgeoning architects, the festival aims to produce meaningful and interactive works designed to activate the historic centres of the two ageing cities.

Explore the bizarre and inspired installations of Le Festival des Architectures Vives after the break.

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The Sherman Contemporary Art Foundation (SCAF) has announced the fourth iteration of its annual pavilion series Fugitive Structures. Designed by Vo Trong Nghia Architects, the pavilion centers around “the innovative use of bamboo, and [the architect’s] passion and self-imposed duty to green the world’s urban landscapes with plants and vegetation.”