Bjarke Ingels will design 2016 Serpentine Gallery pavilion
by Kim Megson | 10 Feb 2016
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels has six months to develop the BIG pavilion / Jakob Galtt
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his studio BIG have been chosen to design the 2016 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion within London’s Kensington Gardens.
The studio now have six months to develop and complete their design before it goes on display as the centrepiece of this year's Serpentine Galleries summer pavilion exhibition.
For the first time, the galleries have also announced an expansion to the annual four-month event, with four other architects invited to create summer houses which will surround the BIG pavilion.
Architects Kunlé Adeyemi, Barkow Leibinger, Asif Khan and Yona Friedman will create these structures, which will be inspired by the nearby Queen Caroline’s Temple, a classical style summer house built in 1734.
All five practices have been selected for "consistently extending the boundaries of architecture practice.”
“After 15 years, the Pavilion programme has expanded,” said Serpentine Galleries directors Julia Peyton-Jones and Hans Ulrich Obrist in a statement. “It now comprises five structures, each designed by an architect of international renown, aged between 36 and 93.
“All projects have been thrilling to commission and will be equally exciting to realise. We cannot wait to unveil them all this summer.”
The pavilion brief, as in previous years, is to design a 300sq m (3,200sq ft) site to be used as a café by day and a forum for learning, debate and entertainment in the evenings.
The annual commission was first conceived in 2000 by Peyton-Jones and has since developed into an annual site for architectural experimentation. Herzog & de Meuron, Jean Nouvel, Sou Fujimoto and SANAA are among the international architects to have previously taken part.
Spanish architecture studio SelgasCano built last year’s pavilion – an amorphous, double-skinned structure consisting of panels of a translucent, multi-coloured fluorine-based polymer (ETFE) woven through and wrapped like webbing.
All the 2016 schemes will be submitted for planning later this month.
There is no budget for the project, which is funded through sponsorship, help-in-kind support and the eventual sale of the pavilion.
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FEATURE: Arts – Pavilion in the park
Danish architect Bjarke Ingels and his studio BIG have been chosen to design the 2016 Serpentine Gallery Pavilion within London’s Kensington Gardens. The studio now have six months to develop and complete their design before it goes on display as the centrepiece of this year's Serpentine Galleries summer pavilion exhibition. For the first time, the galleries have also announced an expansion to the annual four-month event, with four other architects
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