Featuring the latest technology in nautical engineering and creating the sensation of a forest canopy in Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens, the renders for the 2015 MPavilion by AL_A, have been revealed with the announcement that Martin Roth, Director of the Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A) in London will officially open the structure on 5 October 2015.
“Our MPavilion 2015 is designed to create the sensation of a forest canopy, made up of seemingly fragile, translucent petals supported by impossibly slender columns that sway gently in the breeze,” says designer, Amanda Levete.
The MPavilion 2015 employs hi-tech nautical engineering to create a series of three and five metre wide petals, made out of ultra-thin translucent composite and carbon fiber. The design was developed in collaboration with Australian specialist mouldCAM.
At night MPavilion will have a glowing aura and extraordinary sculptural presence in Queen Victoria Gardens. The slender carbon fiber columns conceal the wiring of lights and speakers. A halo-like effect is created by a LED strip forming the capital to the column, while using the latest technology turns the petals into amplifiers. Inside MPavilion, the performance space is oriented to provide a backdrop of Melbourne’s skyline to the north or the delicately layered tree line to the east.
“By exploiting the temporary nature of the pavilion form, our design subverts the norms of immovable. It embraces and amplifies such distinctions, so that it speaks in response to the weather, and moves with the wind rather than trying to keep it at bay,” says Levete.
Naomi Milgrom, Chair of Naomi Milgrom Foundation who commissioned Amanda Levete to design the pavilion commented: “With MPavilion this year we supported a meaningful Australian-British collaboration and therefore delighted that Martin Roth will be officially opening MPavilion 2015.”
“With a focus on exploration of hi-tech techniques and new technology, the result is inventive, risk taking and experimental – encouraging design debate and cultural exchange. Architecture is about experience and ultimately enhancing people’s lives – MPavilion 2015 offers people a meeting place for ideas.”
Martin Roth who is working with AL_A on a highly anticipated new entrance, courtyard and major exhibition space for the V&A in London, commented: “I’m thrilled to be officially opening MPavilion 2015. Amanda Levete has a great deal of curiosity for new material and new design – it’s about the design of a building however it’s also about the details, the floor, the wall, the light that comes into the building. It’s the detail in the end that creates the quality of an entire space.”
The second MPavilion will be presented free to the public from 5 October 2015 until 7 February 2016. For more information, visit: www.mpavilion.org for details.
Image: the 2015 MPavilion design by AL_A