A blurred, floating but elegant timber framework responds to the solidity and monolithic nature of Sir John Soane’s gallery building in Dulwich Village of London-and the porous, ever-changing nature of the landscape creates an illusionary backdrop for the new Dulwich Pavilion designed by IF_DO.

IF_DO is a new London-based emergent talent who won Dulwich Pavilion competition with its emblematic, lightweight and low-budget installation- which will be set for the temporary events in the grounds of Dulwich Picture Gallery. 

Image © Forbes Massie

The project will bring together the world’s oldest public gallery and the world’s largest public architecture festival, and will be the stage for a vibrant programme of public events for the London Festival of Architecture 2017- opens in June.

The Dulwich Picture Gallery partnered with the London Festival of Architecture to showcase an emerging architectural talent, address some real practical issues facing Dulwich Picture Gallery, and offer a model that could be applied elsewhere. IF_DO won the competition from a field of 75 entries.

Image © Forbes Massie

''Being selected for the Dulwich Pavilion gives us a really exciting opportunity to create an inspirational structure for the London Festival of Architecture'', said said Al Scott, Director at IF_DO.

''Blurring the boundary between gallery and landscape, the pavilion creates a heightened sensory experience through a series of unfolding, translucent mirrored screens, inspired by the work of Sir John Soane''. 

Image © Simon Webb 

''Simple but sophisticated, edgy but engaging, IF_DO’s pavilion has many layers, but most importantly is conceived as an attractor for a new audience, designed to reach out to a wider public helped all the more that the practice are based in neighbouring Camberwell'', commented jury member Carl Turner, Founder and Director, Carl Turner Architects.

Named After Image, the pavilion mediates between the monolithic nature of Sir John Soane’s gallery and its ever-changing nature of the landscape, breaking down their delineation and creating a new visual experience for the gallery’s visitors. 

Image © Simon Webb 

The illusory-looking installation is composed of a series of translucent mirrored screens—some fixed, some movable—reflect and disrupt the context. Fragments of the building appear in the landscape, and fragments of the landscape in the building, while the translucency of the screens creates an overlay of moving images: of building, of landscape, of personal reflection and of others beyond.

Image © Simon Webb 

The pavilion’s simple rectangular form responds directly to that of the existing building. When closed, the panels form a strong axial alignment of the bar and the square plan of the event space, while the horizontal banding of the elevation—the plinth, mesh veil and roof structure—echoes the datums of the gallery. The lightness of the structure, by contrast, engages with the wider landscape, and with the lanterns of the gallery. 

The timber truss roof and surrounding veil create a canopy-like environment, with their shadows—and the reflections of shadows—adding to the layering of images, and to the interplay of space, perception and memory.

IF_DO team. Image © Simon Webb  

The Dulwich Pavilion competition was judged by a panel of leading architectural and cultural figures including Ian A C Dejardin (Sackler Director, Dulwich Picture Gallery), Kirsten Dunne (Senior Cultural Strategy Officer, Greater London Authority), Nancy Durrant (Arts Commissioning Editor, The Times), Mike Hussey (Chief Executive, Almacantar), Ruth Rogers (Chef and founder, River Café), Tamsie Thomson (Director, London Festival of Architecture) and Carl Turner (Founder and Director, Carl Turner Architects).

Top image © Forbes Massie

> via IF_DO