The new Serpentine pavilion was unveiled (and it's worth having a look at it)

It was designed by a Burkinabe architect, Diébédo Francis Kéré, the 17th Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, last of a unique series of works of the most important international architects. The design has a lot to do with weather, which could be many things. Spreading from a central ellipse of steel supports, a layered canopy of timber and translucent polycarbonate filters the sunshine. The blue, curving walls provide degrees of breeziness and shelter from the wind.

Rainwater, something which Kéré thinks the British appreciate too little – “you don’t know what you have” – will slosh from the canopy into a central void formed between the supports, at speed and with volume, to make temporary elliptical waterfalls.

When Serpentine Gallery decided to commission its Pavillion (it is showed until 8 October) to Kerè “it was a heavy, heavy burden” but, however, he decided to be “true to myself”. He came up with the idea of making an architectural version of a big tree in Gando, where people could gather in its perforated shade. Its structure is a festival of triangles, with curved walls beneath the orange-ish roof in complementary deep blue.

The Pavilion commission, conceived in 2000 by Gallery Director Julia Peyton-Jones, has made the Serpentine an international site for architectural experimentation. Each Pavilion is completed within six months and is situated on the Gallery’s lawn for three months for the public to explore and enjoy.

Sources and images: https://www.dezeen.com/2017/06/24/this-week-news-riba-winners-serpentine-pavilion-oma-mpavilion-grenfell-tower-fire/

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/jun/25/francis-kere-serpentine-pavilion-2017-review-burkina-faso http://www.serpentinegalleries.org/about