Each year, the Queen Victoria Gardens in the heart of Melbourne plays host to an eye-catching popup pavilion designed by an internationally acclaimed architect. This time around it was esteemed Spanish designer and educator Carme Pinós who took the reins, crafting an origami-inspired shelter that explores light, shadows and an inner-city connection with nature.
Nestled into the city's arts precinct by the banks of the Yarra River, the MPavilion 2018 will be used as a gathering space for talks, workshops and cultural events across the summer months, just like previous instalments. Beyond that, it is an open public space for anybody to stop by, unwind and take in the surroundings.
In designing the new MPavilion, Pinós sought to come up with a way to connect the structure to the city. This is visibly manifested in the grassy mounds that surround the pavilion and offer tiered seating, while also serving as anchor points for the huge floating planes that make up its walls and roof.
These consist of metal framing with latticed timber laid over the top, while a clear layer of polycarbonate inside offers protection from the rain. That latticework leads to distinct patterns of light and shadows as the Sun moves through the sky, while the transparent polycarbonate allows the pitter patter of the rain to be heard and water to be seen running across the surface.
"We will be inside the pavilion, but always feeling as if we are also on a balcony facing nature, and connecting with the surrounding community," Pinós writes.
The way the two large timber planes fold and join with one another is inspired by origami, and is designed to blur the boundaries between "architecture and urbanism." The structure was also conceived to be easily disassembled and reconstructed because, like previous MPavilions, it will be gifted to the city and rebuilt elsewhere once the official program ends in February.
If you want to see more of the MPavilion, there are a few more images in the gallery, and you can hear from its creator in the video below.
More information: MPavilion