Portobello Pavilion 2018 London Design Festival, Architecture Images
Portobello Pavilion 2018 London
LDF: Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea Building – design by ArchitectureDoingPlace
11 Sep 2018
Portobello Pavilion 2018 in West London
Design: ArchitectureDoingPlace
Location: West London, England, UK
Dates: 10 – 16 September
Portobello Pavilion 2018
ArchitectureDoingPlace are appointed architects for this year’s Portobello Pavilion in a joint collaboration between North Kensington artists, the Museum of Architecture, InTRANSIT curators O’Neill/Ross and the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s Arts & Culture Service which looks to signal a new way of working in partnership.
The pavilion will be open to the public from 10 – 16 September 2018 to coincide with London Design Festival, offering full days of programming and activities.
This year’s highlights include screenings of Performance, marking the 50th anniversary of the films release, JC Kamau’s film “Grenfell Inspired Art” about the community artists response to Grenfell, the creation of a crowdsourced artwork by Toby Laurent-Belson Make your Mark inside and out, a final weekend of programming entitled Redesigning the Hostile Environment, which will examine strategies for overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges for many different communities. There will be plays and talks about stop and search; the forced deportation of British Citizens to the countries of their birth; and the history of social justice in the UK. Finally, a new initiative, Brilliant School sees young people learning about Film Making and Architecture.
THIS YEAR’S ARCHITECTS
To appoint an architect for this year’s Pavilion, a charrette led by the Museum of Architecture was held at the Tabernacle opposite Powis Square, where the final design was built. The participating practices were OMMX, Practice Architecture, West Port and Co, The Decorators and ArchitectureDoingPlace. Following a local history presentation made by Tom Vague, the practices were given one hour to respond to the design brief, developing exciting proposals that included elements of performativity, close engagement with the local community, innovative use of materials and modular structures, as well as attentive responses to the specificity of the site. ArchitectureDoingPlace was selected as the winning practice for their sensitive approach to the local context and attention to the rich history of Powis Square.
Elegant town houses and a utilitarian housing estate make up the other edges of Powis Square, the site of key civil rights actions over the years which resulted in the founding of a public green space in 1968. It is a typically complex London environment, where resolving multiple ownerships determines the possibilities of small urban spaces. Grenfell Tower is a short walk away. The design developed by ArchitectureDoingPlace explores and illuminates these boundaries of ownership, by proposing a neutral ‘clearing’ where everyone can come together to celebrate the creative benefit of urban proximity. The proposal comprises a habitable threshold, 40 capacity learning space, a planted terrace which doubles as a stage, and pergolas from which to appreciate the square.
A NEW WAY OF WORKING
The Portobello Pavilion was the brainchild of local curator Tim Burke and was supported by Kensington and Chelsea’s INTRANSIT festival (focusing on new site specific endeavours) into being in 2015. Over the next few years, the Pavilion became the hub of the festival, tying in various local projects through free art-and-doing sessions held there each day. Following the Grenfell fire, the borough’s Arts & Culture Service re-evaluated the delivery of its two flagship festivals (Nour and InTRANSIT) to inform and forge a new way of working collaboratively with local creative community. The Pavilion this year will be a beacon project in which the council’s Arts & Culture Service sit on equal footing with locally based artists, curators and institutions to each support local arts in their own way through the Pavilion project. The evolving group, some of whose members are mentioned below hope that this year’s Pavilion will give awareness and opportunity to other local practitioners who might visit the Pavilion and help to steer the future of the project.
As well as supporting the Museum of Architecture in holding a charrette to appoint an architect, the group will also collaborate on programming the free arts activities on offer within the Pavilion itself. These will include gardening workshops, film screenings and a final weekend entitled Re-designing the Hostile Environment; a series of interventions, theatre pieces and talks about the resilience of diasporic communities.
This year’s Portobello Pavilion is kindly supported by FINSA & Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
Other MoA Events
Upcoming MoA Events at Future Cities Catapult
On the Line: Risky Business
Date: 17 September 2018
Time: 6.30-8.30pm
Speakers: James Soane, Director, Project Orange
Chloë Phelps, Head of Design, Brick by Brick
Dr Emma Street, Associate Professor, University of Reading
Dr Janice Morphet, Visiting Professor, the Bartlett
Portobello Pavilion 2018 London images / information received 100918 from Museum of Architecture
Location: Portobello, London, England, UK
London Building Designs
Contemporary London Architectural Designs
London Architecture Links – chronological list
London Architecture Walking Tours – bespoke UK capital city walks by e-architect
Open Air Theatre Studios, Regents Park, Westminster, Central London
Design: Reed Watts Architects
photo : David Jensen and Simon Kennedy
Open Air Theatre Studios in Regents Park
Portsoken Pavilion, Aldgate Square, City of London
Architects: Make
image Courtesy architecture office
Portsoken Pavilion Building
100 Leadenhall Street, City of London
image Courtesy architecture office
100 Leadenhall Street Building
Comments / photos for the Portobello Pavilion 2018 London page welcome
Website: Portobello London
