“MPavilion,” the new pavilion in Melbourne by renowned architectural studio OMA, celebrates community and is intended to act as a cultural laboratory. Located in Melbourne?s Queen Victoria Gardens in the Southbank Arts Precinct, MPavilion takes the form of a floating roof with amphitheater seating underneath, designed to encourage discourse, conversation, interaction, and performance. The pavilion can be used as an event space or simply serve as a place to spend some time immersed in the park’s lush environment. Its design is a collaborative effort between Rem Koolhaas and David Gianotten, both of whom work for OMA.

The deep aluminum roof is a 19 x 19-meter rectangle with a series of waffle-like perforations along its edges and a central infill, the underside of which is made up of a grid structure that’s been fitted with rows of colored lighting tubes to illuminate the space below. Beneath the roof are two banks of tiered seating: one fixed into a planted bank along two sides of the pavilion, and another that can be moved as needed, allowing the ground plane to serve several different purposes. The seating itself is formed from a metal frame and timber planes on which visitors can sit, providing a nice visual contrast with the grayness of the aluminum roof overhead.
The planted mound surrounding the pavilion has been embedded with 12 different species of Australian flora to incorporate the area’s natural vegetation into the project. This gr...