Amanda Levete creates weather-responsive forest in the city for Melbourne’s 2015 MPavilion
by Jason Holland | 14 Jul 2015
City dwellers in Melbourne will get to experience the sensation of being in a forest canopy thanks to a new temporary pavilion designed by Amanda Levete’s AL_A studio.
It will open in October in the Australian city’s Queen Victoria Gardens as the second edition of the annual MPavilion architecture commission and design event.
Built using the latest nautical-engineering technology, a series of carbon-fibre poles that bend and sway in the wind will support a roof of translucent ‘petals’ made from composite materials – each of which is 3-5m (10-16ft) wide but only a few millimetres thick.
The petals will act as speakers capable of recording and playing back the daily soundscape that occurs underneath the canopy. These amplifiers will then be wired seamlessly through the carbon-fibre poles. At night, LED lights will be used to further enhance the ambience.
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“Our design subverts the norms of immovable. It embraces and amplifies such distinctions, so that it speaks in response to the weather and moves with the wind rather than trying to keep it at bay,” said Levete, a Stirling Prize winner and founder and principal of AL_A.
Joining the London-based studio on the project team are Australian manufacturers mouldCAM and builders Kane Constructions, as well as engineering firm Arup.
MPavilion was initiated by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation with support from the City of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government, with four years of commissions originally agreed. The inaugural 2014 version was designed by Australian architect Sean Godsell.
This year’s MPavilion opens on 5 October 2015 and runs until 7 February 2016.
At just a few millimetres thick, the petals make use of the latest composite materials Credit: Kane Constructions – photo by Kane Jarrod
AL_A’s MPavilion will be located in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens Credit: AL_A
City dwellers in Melbourne will get to experience the sensation of being in a forest canopy thanks to a new temporary pavilion designed by Amanda Levete’s AL_A studio. It will open in October in the Australian city’s Queen Victoria Gardens as the second edition of the annual MPavilion architecture commission and design event. Built using the latest nautical-engineering technology, a series of carbon-fibre poles that bend and sway in the
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