Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2012

Open from June to October 2012, this was the twelfth in the gallery’s annual series of summer pavilions. The design team behind the national stadium built for the 2008 Olympic Games came together again for the commission, presented as part of the cultural festival around the 2012 Games.

So many pavilions in so many shapes and materials had been built since 2000 that the designers tried to avoid making yet another object. Working like archaeologists, they dug into the lawn to find the traces of the eleven earlier pavilions.

On each of these footprints they extruded a new support, eleven in all plus one for the current pavilion. Together they carry a floating platform roof about 1.4 metres above the ground, its shallow surface holding a mirror of water that reflects the sky. Beneath it, the excavated landscape is lined with cork, shaped into steps and seats where visitors can sit, stand or lie.