This year’s Serpentine Pavilion, by Chilean architect Smiljan Radic is a semi-translucent shell-like hoop resting on oversized boulders – an other-wordly creation inspired by the architect’s exploration of Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant’s Castle.
Radic’s 2010 papier mache model for a work of that name sat on his desk and was apparently used as a paperweight. Creating the life-size version fell to Aecom, which acted as structural engineer, QS and project manager, along with specialist contractor Stage One.
It is built from glass reinforced plastic, left in a unbuffed finish to recreate the hand-made artisan quality of the papier mache original.
But the pavilion had to be tough enough to withstand hundreds of thousands of visitors, and the tight timescale for realising it was just six months, including a six-week installation phase.
Tom Webster, Aecom’s project lead for engineering and project management, told CM that he saw the first sketches for the design on Boxing Day 2013.
“The challenges were to recreate a form originally conceived in papier mache at 1/1000th scale, and giving it the right texture and translucency, and to do it in a six month period.
“The design had to be deliverable within those timescales, so we had to push the materials and the technology to get the end result,” he said.
The GRP shell was prefabricated by Yorkshire company Stage One, which also successfully tendered to build the two previous Serpentine pavilions, by Sou Fujimoto in 2013 and Ai Weiwei in 2012. The Aecom team worked with Stage One to come up with a bespoke jointing detail, which allowed the structure to be prefabricated in around 60 pieces then re-assembled on site.
Temporary supports were needed during construction, but the finished pavillion is virtually self-supporting, with just two slim steel columns adding rigidity to the structure around the two entrances. The 13 mm thick GRP material used to create the pavilion is similar to that used in high-performance yachts, but has been left deliberately unbuffed.
In a statement, Smiljan Radić said: “The Serpentine 2014 Pavilion is part of the history of small romantic constructions seen in parks or large gardens, the so-called follies, which were hugely popular from the end of the 16th Century to the start of the 19th. Externally, the visitor will see a fragile shell suspended on large quarry stones. This shell – white, translucent and made of fibreglass – will house an interior organised around an empty patio, from where the natural setting will appear lower, giving the sensation that the entire volume is floating.”
The Pavilion will remain open from June until October, during which time visitors are encouraged to enter and interact, making use of the multi-purpose social space and café.
