T10A Pavilion

The pavilion is built mostly from discarded plastic. More than forty thousand used plastic bags were collected and remade into its skin, a community effort carried by volunteers who gathered the material and took part in the building.

It served as an exhibition space for a selection of award-winning architecture, and as a public demonstration of what recycled material can do. Temporary by design, it sets out to show that waste, plastic above all, can become architecture with beauty and purpose, and to change how people see a resource that is plentiful but rarely valued.

The design draws on the city’s tradition of handmade dó paper and on the improvised building found in its neighbourhoods. Recycled plastic from shopping bags is paired with handmade paper and held by a light steel frame that echoes the resourceful character of local vernacular building. Kindergarten children were invited to draw on the paper domes, adding their own pictures of the city.

Three wing-like roofs cover the three exhibition zones, for houses, interiors and sustainability, each in its own range of colours to guide visitors through. The translucent plastic turns daylight into moving coloured shadows. At night the pavilion glows like a lantern, its textured surfaces lit from within.

Beneath the wings sit the paper domes, small rooms for drawings, diagrams and interactive content. Their different sizes and heights invite visitors to wander and look closer.

After the exhibition, the plastic roof panels were reused once more to make new objects such as bags, extending the life of the material and keeping the project true to its circular intent.