London's Architectural Association Summer Pavilion

For those escaping to London (even virtually), the current summer pavilion outside the AA's Bedford Square home was revealed July 3. The annual student competition focused this year on designing a structure using sustainable timber, and the "chosen pavilion, titled Driftwood, is by third-year student Danecia Sibingo and is made of 28 layers of 4mm plywood creating a 'sculptural installation and prototype that defies classification'."

The pavilion will be on show at Bedford Square until July 25. If you're in London, hurry!

Read the full article here at bd (Building Design).

Images: Sue Barr/AA

Comments (8)

What a waste of resources.

(you knew someone was going to say it)

So is all that metal in those silly Calder mobiles (they're so big); and really, did anyone but a dead guy live in those Egyptian pyramids? I think not.

Archie, you sound like the postings by commentators on the Building Design site. It's good experience for students to both work on a team (which they will work with in work) and to actually build something - to construct something with one's own hands is something which, unfortunately, few architects and designers have.

However, that said, I do agree it would and could have been better and more interesting to give some use to it (just like the pavilion in Millennium Park....).

I'm going to have to go with everyone else here and say that Archie is kind of missing the point.
Architecture student projects are done so that we (speaking as an architecture student) can learn. And a project of this scale, when manufactured by the students (as was done here) is probably one of the most valuable experiances one can have. It is one thing to design something and quite another to actually build it yourself.
These kinds of comments are something I have been noticing more and more here on APT Therapy, and it always ticks me off. I am all for sustainability but people need to stop immediately judging a project (viewed only on their computer screen) based on it's perceived "green-ness". I highly doubt all those pretty couches people buy from DWR are terribly "green" and yet house tours with all that "designer" furniture never have their "green-ness" factor pointed out!

Ok...rant over

i attended the sotheby's institute, which is right next door to the architecture school, and we loved to sit in the shade of the summer pavilions in bedford square to enjoy sunny london summer afternoons!