Dezeen Magazine

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

London Design Festival 2011: architect David Chipperfield has installed two metallic glass pavilions outside the Royal Festival Hall in London as part of the London Design Festival

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

Copper-coated fabric mesh is sandwiched between vertical glass panels to create the bronze-coloured walls of one pavilion.

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

The walls of second pavilion are silver in colour, as they encase the same mesh coated in aluminium.

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

The project was delivered in collaboration with engineers Arup.

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

You can see all our stories about David Chipperfield here, and all our stories about the London Design Festival here.

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

Here are some more details from the London Design Festival:


Size + Matter is one of the London Design Festival’s cornerstones, pairing a leading designer or architect with a material or manufacturing process. We ask them to explore the dynamic between their own creativity and the material or process. As a result, since 2007, three million people have experienced this series of remarkable explorations – by David Adjaye, Shigeru Ban, Paul Cocksedge, Zaha Hadid, Amanda Levete and Marc Newson – at the Southbank Centre.

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

This year they are joined by one of the UK’s most important architecture practices, David Chipperfield Architects, who teamed up with structural engineers and glass specialists from Arup to create a composition using Sefar Architecture Vision fabric. The metal-coated fabric mesh, black on one side and metallic on the other, is layered between two sheets of glass and gives the installation's panels both translucent and reflective qualities.

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield

David Chipperfield Architects has created a sculptural dialogue between two identical forms, different only in their orientation and aluminium and copper finishes. Each form consists of a series of unframed laminated glass panels with corresponding coloured stainless steel connections. Two Lines oscillates between a sculptural relationship of two orthogonal forms and a regular series of simple vertical elements. The interlayer of 50% mesh gives a stronger materiality to the glass, appearing at times monolithic and dynamically translucent, changing over the course of a day. As a result, the installation creates a variety of different experiences as visitors move within and around it.

Size + Matter by David Chipperfield