sustainable, queer architecture
How can architects celebrate LGBT pride month? That was the question answered by designers from {tag:pracownie}, who built a pavilion with a meaningful name - In Pride of Idleness- at their London headquarters in 2022. The installation incorporated the celebration of diversity into the thought of English philosopher Bertrand Russell.
Detail of the Foster + Partners pavilion
Photo credit: Aaron Hargreaves | © Foster + Partners
recycling during LGBT+ Pride Month
In 2021, a team of young architects from Foster + Partners won the competition for the Pride Pop Up pavilion, organized by Architecture LGBT+ and the London Festival of Architecture.
The Rainbow After the Storm pavilion, located in the gardens of St. Anne's Church in London 's Soho, symbolized the dissonances and synchronicities in the experiences and responses to two pandemics - AIDS and COVID-19 - while focusing on a community built with a spirit of optimism.
As part of Foster + Partners ' efforts to reuse building materials, the studio organized an internal After-life competition, inviting colleagues to design a structure using dismantled elements of the pavilion. Judged by a panel of architects and staff from the office's sustainability department, three winning designs were selected, chosen based on the creativity of the concept, the percentage of material reuse and the quality of the design itself. The winning designs were erected on the grounds of the office's London headquarters.
A view of the Pavilion at Foster + Partners headquarters
Photo: Aaron Hargreaves | © Foster + Partners
What are they reading at Foster + Partners?
The title of one of them - In Pride of Idleness - refers to Bertrand Russell's famous essay In Praise of Idleness. He puts forward the thesis that in the (contemporary to him, let alone in ours!) world, technological development and automation have gone so far that we should fundamentally rethink our attitude to work, to which, according to the philosopher, we should simply spend less time. The designers of Lord Norman Foster 's office translated this thought into a pride matrix.
In today's culture, pride and dignity are derived from work, productivity and self-reflection on being busy; while idleness or "doing nothing" is not necessarily respected or glorified.
The main idea of the pavilion is to offer an enclosed space as a resting place for employees to have space for intentional breaks, while offering a view of the sky. The pavilion is about taking pride in natural ways of being and living that we should not be ashamed of.
The interior of the In Pride of Idleness pavilion
Photo credit: Aaron Hargreaves | © Foster + Partners
Pride and dignity in body language is expressed by holding one's head high. The idea of "In Pride of Idleness" materializes in the closed frame of the octagon. Ropes in all the colors of the rainbow flag rise to join at the top to form a spirograph with an opening to the sky. The space offers the visitor the opportunity to look up and raise his head in a gesture of pride. Meanwhile, ropes on either side act as a translucent screen to establish a dialogue between the interior and exterior of the pavilion.
say the pavilion's designers, Akash Changlani, sustainability designer, and Isik Goren, sustainability coordinator.
