'Unzipped Wall' Opens in London

The pavilion, coined the "Unzipped Wall" by Ingels, is the 17th pavilion for the Serpentine Galleries, which launched the architecture program in 2000 under outgoing Director Julia Peyton-Jones. The annual commissions are given to architects who have not built in the UK, though BIG is designing a square as part of the Battersea Power Station development in London. This year is the first that the 300-square-meter Serpentine Pavilion is joined by 25-square-meter "houses" inspired by William Kent's Queen Caroline’s Temple in Kensington Gardens.

In a statement from Ingels, BIG "attempted to design a structure that embodies multiple aspects that are often perceived as opposites: a structure that is free-form yet rigorous; modular yet sculptural; both transparent and opaque; both solid box and blob." Further, "The wall is erected from pultruded fiberglass frames stacked on top of each other ... then pulled apart to form a cavity within it ... This unzipping of the wall turns the line into a surface, transforming the wall into a space." Most noticeably, "This simple manipulation of the archetypal space-defining garden wall creates a presence in the Park that changes as you move around it and as you move through it."

The four 25sqm Summer Houses were designed by Nigerian architect Kunlé Adeyemi, who created an inverse replica of Queen Caroline’s Temple; Germany's Barkow Leibinger, who were inspired by an extinct, 18th Century pavilion also designed by William Kent; Parisian architect Yona Friedman, who developed a modular structure that can be assembled and disassembled in different formations; and London's Asif Khan, who was inspired by the way Queen Caroline’s Temple catches the sunlight from The Serpentine lake.

The five structures, sponsored by Goldman Sachs, will be on dipslay in Kensington Gardens from 10 June to 9 October 2016.