British architect Peter Cook has collaborated with the Danish toymaker Lego to create the domed Play Pavilion for children at the Serpentine Gallery in London.
Play Pavilion is clad with colourful protrusions formed of Lego bricks and opened today in London’s Kensington Gardens to mark Lego‘s World Play Day.
It was designed by Cook as a space for families, children and teenagers alongside this year’s Serpentine Pavilion by Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum, which opened last week.
Open until August, the Play Pavilion comprises a single domed volume designed to encourage play through its use of vivid colours and, according to Cook, “the eschewal of totally functional features”.
“[The concept was] to express joy, playfulness, cheerfulness, exuberance, and a little bit of irreverence,” Cook told Dezeen.
“To use much brighter and purer colours than in a regular building,” he continued. “To make the enclosure free and ‘wavy’ and liable to burst out into strange shapes.”
Undulating, orange-coloured walls enclose the pavilion’s central space, which is sheltered by a translucent, geodesic canopy supported by a steel framework.
Externally, colourful protrusions made from Lego blocks decorate the shiny PVC-covered walls, which are punctuated by irregular openings. At one end of the structure is a yellow slide, accessible via a set of stairs within the pavilion.
Two openings lead into the Play Pavilion’s interior, where a trio of large colourful columns built from Lego rise towards the roof and movable yellow furniture fills the space.
Storage boxes filled with Lego blocks wrap around the edge of the space and are backed by Lego boards that serve as a canvas for displaying creations. These boards are framed by more Lego protrusions that also decorate the interior.
Described by Cook as “a piece of theatre”, Play Pavilion will be used for events and activities throughout the summer.
“I believe that all architecture should provide for the inhabitant or observer to enjoy the theatre of space, tantalisation, variety of form and surface,” Cook said.
“From the park, we see hints of the towers within,” he continued. “The positioning of the whole thing seen as a curious object first spotted through the trees: all of this is ‘theatre’.”
Play Pavilion was created alongside this year’s Tabassum-designed main pavilion to mark the 25th anniversary of the annual Serpentine Pavilion commission. It is also the latest in a series of programmes led by Serpentine that cater to families and younger audiences.
Last year’s main pavilion was a star-shaped shelter by South-Korean architect Minsuk Cho, and in 2023, Lina Ghotmeh created a structure that referenced table discussions and the surrounding tree canopy.
The photography is courtesy of Serpentine.
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