• Location London, United Kingdom
• Area 192.0 m2
• Project Year 2017
The Dulwich Pavilion is a transformative project for Dulwich
Picture Gallery and Almacantar, a breakthrough moment for a
young architecture practice, and an important legacy for the
London Festival of Architecture 2017.
The Gallery’s first pavilion extends into the surrounding
landscape, celebrating Soane’s original architecture and allowing
the Gallery to overcome a lack of existing space and meet
increasing visitor demand. IF_DO’s design, developed with
engineers StructureMode and realised by bespoke fabricators
Weber Industries, offers a model for other cultural institutions
facing similar issues, and responds to the LFA’s mission to
champion London architecture and promote positive change to
the city’s public realm.
The London Festival of Architecture and Dulwich Picture Gallery
launched the pavilion design competition in autumn 2016, with
support from Almacantar. Entrants were challenged to design a
contemporary response to the original Soane building and its
garden setting, while working with a modest construction budget
of just over £100,000. Bermondsey-based practice IF_DO,
established in 2014 by Al Scott, Sarah Castle and Thomas Bryans,
overcame competition from a field of 75 entries with their
design ‘After Image’. It was chosen by a judging panel of leading
architectural and cultural figures including Ruth Rogers (chef and
founder, River Café), Carl Turner (founder and director, Carl Turner
Architects), Mike Hussey (Chief Executive, Almacantar) and Nancy
Durrant (arts commissioning editor, The Times)
The Dulwich Pavilion has been designed as a temporary public
structure, which engages with the adjacent buildings, landscape
and visitors alike. Conceptually it responds to the solidity and
monolithic nature of Sir John Soane’s Gallery building, and the
porous, ever-changing nature of the landscape. Structurally the
pavilion is lightweight and minimal, comprising a timber truss
roof suspended over a level timber deck supported on three
fixed slender mirrored panels. All of the remaining wall panels
are moveable or removable, creating a flexible space enabling
numerous configurations for different events. A fixed bar/café
pod opens up when in use to reveal a serving area.