An event hub, a meeting place and an invitation to experiment, each MPavilion brings creative collaborators together to present a free, four-month program of talks, workshops and performances from October to February. The 2015 MPavilion has been designed by AL_A, the studio of Stirling Prize–winning architect Amanda Levete. The temporary installation, initiated by Naomi Milgrom Foundation, was unveiled in Queen Victoria Gardens. For the next four months, the public is welcomed to populate the artificial ‘forest canopy’, whose translucent petals were developed using aerospace technology to demonstrate how an ultra-lightweight structure that can ‘sit lightly on the landscape and gently respond to the climate’. The organizers explained that, each petal is fitted with LED lights that are activated by the sunset to give a light performance synchronized with music.
Amanda Levete stated that she is delighted that the 2015 MPavilion can now be shared with the public. She added by saying that the Pavilion is a celebration of those natural shelters where everyone comes together and which is achieved as an exceptionally light, open structure that sits gently on the land and allows the light, the wind, and sometimes the rain, to form part of the show. It is designed to provide a contemplative, personal experience as well as a place to congregate. The use of composite technology has revolutionized engineering industries such as aerospace and has the potential to do the same for construction. The use of composites enables structures of unprecedented lightness combined with great strength and the potential applications in architecture are tantalizingly unexplored. Composites are particularly exciting for AL_A because the sector is propelled by research into new techniques and processes that in turn give rise to new formal and expressive possibilities for us to discover. The MPavilion will remain on view through February 7, 2016, and will be populated with more than 200 free events.