MELBOURNE.- The Naomi Milgrom Foundation today released the design for MPavilion 2018, the fifth MPavilion in an ongoing series, by Barcelona-based architect Carme Pinós of Estudio Carme Pinós. The sharp design reveals an open civic space that invites interaction as well as a discourse between people, design, nature and the city. Celebrating Carme’s design philosophy, which advocates building communities, inclusivity and universal connection, the pavilion will be a sensorial summer experience built in the Queen Victoria Gardens.

Carme’s sculptural design incorporates floating planes resting at angles on elevated points within the park, connecting the MPavilion to the city. The structure’s interconnected shapes bring to mind folded materials like origami. Dissolving the lines between architecture and urbanism, an ease of relationships is suggested—material, environmental and human.

Naomi Milgrom AO, founder of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, which commissions each year’s MPavilion, said: “Carme Pinós’s philosophy of community closely aligns with MPavilion’s own mission to facilitate meaningful dialogue about the role of design and architecture, and what it means to foster socially inclusive cities in the context of design and the built environment. I’m excited to see Carme’s MPavilion come to life, and to also see the new collaborations and discussions that unfold through her vision.”

Commenting on her MPavilion design, Carme Pinós, founder of Estudio Carme Pinós, said: “MPavilion 2018 is a place for people to experience with all their senses—to establish a relationship with nature, but also a space for social activities and connections. Whenever I can, I design places where movements and routes intersect and exchange, spaces where people identify as part of a community, but also feel they belong to universality.”

The design for MPavilion 2018 is an open geometric configuration assembled in two distinct halves supported by a central steel portal frame. Two surfaces of timber latticework intersect with each other to form the pavilion’s roof. An altered topography forms three mounds that incorporate seating, allowing a multitude of community-focused experiences: dynamic, spontaneous and collective.

Pinós’s design has inspired MPavilion’s program themes which include: building communities, fostering inclusive cities, women in leadership, visual languages: fashion and architecture, regional contexts, and landscape and nature.

Carme will speak at the Living Cities Forum 2018—Shaping Society, presented by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, on Thursday 26 July at Deakin Edge, Federation Square, Melbourne.