AECOM-engineered Serpentine Pavilion launches for 25th year
AECOM, the trusted global infrastructure leader, has completed the delivery of the Serpentine Pavilion project for a 12th consecutive year as the scheme’s technical advisor and project manager.
Established in 2000, the Serpentine Pavilion is one of the UK’s leading architectural programmes, challenging renowned international architects to create a temporary structure at the Serpentine within London’s Kensington Gardens. Designed and built within a matter of months, the Pavilion offers a platform for experimental design and engineering, pushing the boundaries of materials, sustainability and construction innovation.
A quarter of a century since the inception of the Serpentine Pavilion programme, this year’s commission for the lawns of the Serpentine South Gallery was designed by internationally acclaimed Bangladeshi architect and educator Marina Tabassum and her firm, Marina Tabassum Architects (MTA). AECOM has provided multidisciplinary engineering, project management and technical advisory services for the structure, collaborating closely with the architect, the Serpentine and specialist contractor Stage One to realise the distinct design vision.
Marina Tabassum’s design, A Capsule in Time, draws inspiration from the movement of light and people, and the architectural language of Shamiyana tents or awnings of South Asia. It comprises four wooden capsules with a translucent façade that diffuses and dapples the light infiltrating the space. A tree in the central courtyard symbolises our connection with nature and the surrounding parkland.
AECOM’s engineers worked closely with MTA to deliver a slender, lightweight and modular timber canopy structure with simple translucent cladding. All elements of the main Pavilion have been manufactured off-site and assembled in Hyde Park, and the majority of A Capsule in Time’s foundations have been reclaimed from a previous Pavilion, significantly reducing the embodied carbon of the build.
Central to Tabassum’s design is a kinetic element where one of the capsule forms is able to move, operated hydraulically on rails, to bring greater flexibility to the Pavilion’s event spaces.
Jon Leach, Director at AECOM, said: “It was a joy to bring the vision for this year’s Pavilion to life, working closely with Marina and her team, the Serpentine and Stage One. We’ve delivered a modular design to create a lightweight, versatile space adaptable for different uses and events, and have substantially reduced the embodied carbon of the structure through the re-purposing of transportable foundations from a previous pavilion, emphasising our commitment to making the pavilions as demountable and reusable as possible.
“Each year, the Pavilion offers our engineers a platform to gain invaluable experience. It is great to see the team thrive during the delivery of this unique project.”