Fibreglass petals overlap to produce the transparent roof of Amanda Levete’s forest-inspired MPavilion, which opened to the public right now in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens (+ film).
More than forty fibreglass petals are joined on slender columns to type the gently swaying pavilion by London-based architect Levete, whose firm AL_A is also currently functioning a new subterranean extension to the V&A museum.
Billed as Australia’s rival to the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, the temporary MPavilion will give a venue for over 200 free of charge occasions, ranging from talks and workshops to performances and exhibitions, until its closing date on 7 February 2016.
“Our pavilion is a celebration of those natural shelters exactly where we come with each other and we have accomplished an exceptionally light, open structure that sits gently on the land and permits the light, the wind, and often the rain, to kind part of the show,” said Levete.
Related story: V&A Exhibition Road by AL_A
“It is made to give a contemplative, personal experience as nicely as a area to congregate,” she additional.
AL_A worked with mouldCAM, an Australian firm specialising in fibreglass fabrication, to produce the transparent petals that make up the shelter.
Described as a “graceful forest canopy”, the overlapping fibreglass petals shade a patch of decking under. The density of the petals lower towards the edge of the pavilion, allowing sunlight to filter through.
The canopy is created up of 13 huge petals and thirty smaller petals with diameters of 3 and five metres. Each and every petal is just two millimetres thick and is attached to the best of a network of 95 carbon fibre stalks that enable the canopy to sway gently in the wind.
“We conceived it as a tree canopy that lets in dappled light via this very complex construction formed from a series of interlinked petals,” Levete advised Dezeen earlier this 12 months.
“The roof is really light-weight so that when there’s a breeze the complete thing moves,” she additional. “We have turned the prime of the canopy into an amplifier, to amplify the sound.”
LEDs inside the transparent petals are activated at sundown, illuminating the structure at night. The lights synchronise with music creating a nightly soundscape developed in collaboration between the architect, lighting designer Ben Cobham and sound artist Matthias Schack-Arnott of Talk Percussion.
This is the 2nd of four pavilions commissioned by the Naomi Milgrom Basis, an arts fund that is also supporting the V&A’s David Bowie exhibition at the Australian Centre for Moving Image and the new Australian Pavilion in Venice by Denton Corker Marshall.
The basis commissioned Sean Godsell to design and style the inaugural MPavilion in 2014, a metallic box with automated flap-like panels that folded from the walls and roof.
Photography is by John Gollings. Drone video footage by Radar Kane and Flying Dragon Aerial Cinematography.
Venture credits:
Architecture: AL_A
Collaborators: Arup, mouldCAM
Development: Kane Building
