Architect Bjarke Ingels is designing another summertime installation, this time across the Atlantic from his 2014 BIG Maze at the National Building Museum. London's Serpentine Gallery announced today that Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) will design this year's Serpentine Pavilion, an annual commission to design a temporary structure at the gallery.
Despite a steady stream of recent commissions, the Danish firm has not designed a built, permanent structure in England—an eligibility requirement for architects of the summertime pavilion program, which began with a piece by Zaha Hadid, Hon. FAIA, in 2000. Last year's Serpentine Pavilion was designed by Madrid-based SelgasCano, and past pavilion designers include Oscar Niemeyer; Frank Gehry, FAIA; Jean Nouvel, Hon. FAIA; and Peter Zumthor, Hon. FAIA.
New to the program this year is the commission of four tiny Serpentine Summer Houses. Stemming from the nearby 1734 Queen Caroline’s Temple, these 25-square-meter (269-square-foot) houses will also be located near the gallery, and the inaugural teams are NLÉ, which has offices in Amsterdam and Lagos, Nigeria; Berlin- and New York–based Barkow Leibinger; London's Asif Khan; and Paris-based Yona Friedman.
BIG's portfolio includes the under-construction Via 57West, a stepped concept design for Two World Trade Center, and a newly released concept for a tower called the Spiral—and that's just in New York City. Kunlé Adeyemi founded NLÉ in 2010, and the firm has completed projects such as the widely published Makoko Floating School in Lagos. Led by Frank Barkow and Regine Leibinger, Barkow Leibinger's work includes the Fellows Pavilion at the American Academy in Berlin, completed last year, and the HAWE Factory in Kaufbeuren, Germany. Khan attracted attention for MegaFaces, a pavilion with an interactive 3D façade at the 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Friedman, the fourth designer of the Summer Houses, wrote L'Architecture Mobile (1958), and his work includes the Museum for Simple Technology in Madras, India.
The Serpentine Pavilion and Summer Houses will open on June 10 and run through Oct. 9.
