London Design Week 2016

It was Design Week in London and also my last weekend. In the courtyard at the V&A they have installed a robotic building machine that was dynamically constructing a super-light and super-strong structure in response to the movement and flow of people around the courtyard, which also is home to a busy cafe.

Described as a Garden Installation, the experimental Elytra Filament Pavilion (in fine architectural-speak!) is designed to

"explore the impact of emerging robotic technologies on architectural design, engineering and making. Inspired by a lightweight construction principle found in nature, the fibrous structures of the forewing shells of flying beetles known as elytra, the Pavilion will be an undulating canopy of tightly-woven carbon fibre cells created using a novel robotic production process. The Pavilion will grow over the course of the V&A Engineering Season in response to data on structural behaviour and patterns of inhabitation of the Garden that will be captured by real-time sensors in its canopy fibres." 

I wish I could see it now - did it respond to me as I moved around taking photos?

Another 2016 Design Week installation is the Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG). The Serpentine Gallery has a tradition of inviting an architect of note to design and build a summer pavilion beside the gallery in the Kensington Gardens. This year BIG created what they call "an unzipped wall that is transformed from straight line to three-dimensional space". During the day it houses a café and free family activities and at night it becomes a performance space.