THE PROPOSITION.
A circular public artwork conceived to celebrate World Play Day. Designed by Sir Peter Cook with Serpentine and the LEGO Group, the pavilion turned experimental architecture into an inviting place for curiosity, making and shared play.
FROM EXPERIMENTAL SKETCH TO BUILDABLE PAVILION.
SPC developed the architectural idea into a coordinated structural and fabrication system. Steel wind-posts carried a sequence of orange-faced plywood walls, while a halo of steel tubes and node connections formed the geodesic roof canopy.
Steel wind-post structure · Laminated plywood walls · Geodesic steel canopy · Tensioned fabric membrane.
MATERIAL, COLOUR AND DETAIL.
Technical development · Structural coordination · Prototyping · Fabrication.
Colour, finish and fixing details were resolved as part of the design. LEGO brick embellishments arrived on site in prepared sections and were face-fixed to the timber walls, with screw heads concealed beneath LEGO capping bricks.
ASSEMBLED FOR DISCOVERY.
The steel canopy was fabricated and painted in the workshop, lifted into position by crane and finished with a tensioned waterproof membrane.
Undulating walls and viewing holes drew visitors towards the interior, where low-level plywood units supplied LEGO bricks for open-ended making. A yellow slide offered a second, playful route out of the pavilion.
