The London Design Biennale 2023 Debuts 40 Exceptional Pavilions From Renowned Architecture Studios

London Design Biennale 2023 kicked off at Somerset House two days ago, drawing together people from all over the globe to highlight innovative methods of global collaboration in design. Aric Chen and the Nieuwe Instituut will be leading this year’s Biennale as Artistic Director, and they have selected “The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations” as the topic for the exhibition’s 40-plus installations. The primary research institutions in the UK, in addition to their local participants, will also display multidisciplinary discoveries at the Eureka exhibition.

Saudi Arabia. © Taran Wilkhu

“Let’s treat this as a kind of experiment, a little version of the world, to examine how a different geopolitical environment may be created via design, one that is propelled not by rivalry and war but by collaboration.” Chen declared at the inaugural ceremony of the biennale.

London Design Biennale 2023 Pavilions

Forty exhibits from as far away as Nigeria and Chile will be present, along with the first-time humanitarian pavilion created by renowned Japanese architect Shigeru Ban. In no particular order, these are the must-see exhibits to look for at the London Design Biennale 2023.

1) Openwork l Melek Zeynep Bulut (Turkey)

The Turkish pavilion in Somerset House’s inner courtyard resembles a large hexagonal wind bell made of a pair of steel gates. Each doorway has three increasingly smaller arches, from which steel poles drop and jingle in the wind. The architect Melek Zeynep Bulut envisioned the pavilion as a theatrical display exploring the idea of gates and their function in maintaining boundaries and social structures.

2) Chowk & Charpai: An Urban Living Room l Archohm (India)

A traditional handmade day bed called a chairpai and an open-air chowk market, which design company Archohm calls “the urban Indian living room,” are explored in this pavilion on the riverbank terrace. A metal stand covered with hundreds of kullad clay cups used for sipping chai serves as the focal point of the pavilion, which is created from woven ropes laid atop an angular foundation. The magnets that attach the unpainted cups to the structure allow their eventual return to the ground.

3) Poetics of Necessity l TŁO Michał Sikorski Architects (Poland)

This international pavilion was inspired by the charitable endeavors of architects Petro Vladimirov and Zofia Jaworowska, who have been collecting old windows in Poland to repurpose them for constructing new dwellings in Ukraine. This is vital since Russian attacks often destroy windows, and most of Ukraine’s glass supplies originate in Russia.
Over thirty windows provided by Londoners were featured in the exhibition as part of the London Design Biennale 2023 before being shipped to Ukraine. The project showcases one of over a hundred methods for fitting windows into any space, developed by Vladimirov and Jaworowska in tandem with regional architects.

4) Baking the Future l Chmara.Rosinke (Austria)

Anna Rosinke and Maciej Chmara, two designers, will spend the duration of the biennale baking bread at the Austrian pavilion as part of their investigation of the historical and political circumstances and the scientific operations behind this staple meal. The designers have also curated a series of exhibitions, including a vinyl player where guests can listen to the bread to explore the bread’s sensual appeal alongside the bakery.

5) Bidi Bidi Music & Arts Centre l Hassell and To.org (Uganda)

Australian architecture company Hassell and the To.org foundation employ bio-bricks to build a music center for refugees in northern Uganda. They let guests try squeezing raw earth construction blocks as part of their display.

Taking cues from the designs of Burkinabé architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, the blocks are on show next to a full-size replica of the roof, which will collect rainfall through a massive tube. The goal is to investigate the potential of commonplace regional materials and methods for producing environmentally friendly structures to aid long-term sustainable growth.

6) Inner Peace l Foster + Partners and Royal College of Art

To develop a work of art that fuses smart fabrics with live music, Foster + Partners teamed up with Royal College of Art MA fabrics student Amelia Peng and artists and composers from the Royal College of Music.

The installation, titled Inner Peace, looks like a textile cascade spilling down Somerset House’s Nelson Stair. Throughout the London Design Biennale 2023, there will be live musical performances featuring musicians outfitted with a headset depicting the impact of music on the brain.

The Specialist Modelling Group at Foster + Partners has created data processing that uses linked optic fiber in textiles to translate brain signals into motion and color.

7) Natural Synthesis l Omotunwase Osinaike (Nigeria)

The centerpiece of the Nigerian installation is a vast metallic stick-insect shape filled with sand. Sand gently slides through the insect’s center part to symbolize the tons of phosphorus-loaded sand blown from the Sahara to the Amazon basin annually to replace its mineral makeup, highlighting the worldwide links between environments. Alongside the insect-like shape is a collection of furnishings inspired by arthropods. Omotunwase Osinaike said that this was an improvement in the practice of using animals in storytelling, which is a staple of West African culture.

8) Ephemeral l PLP Architecture and the University of Cambridge

The Centre for Natural Material Innovation at the University of Cambridge collaborated with PLP Architecture to design a modular wooden partition wall for a model home. Designed to adapt to its inhabitants’ evolving demands over time and remain affordable, the structure was unveiled at Somerset House in London as part of the London Design Biennale 2023.

This adaptability is achieved by making the dividing walls collapsible and mobile to rearrange the interior. Using a process dubbed kerfing, the engineered wood used to construct the pliable wooden dividers is made to be incredibly resilient and resilient to bending.

These are by no means the sole exhibits that will be on display during the London Design Biennale 2023. These are only a few of the more than 40 exhibitions on display, all of which propose rethinking design as an interactive endeavor and encourage visitors to consider the value of working together across norms and fields of study.
Additionally, Shigeru Ban’s Paper Sanctuary, Borrowed Matter’s Materia Prestada, Chile, Automorph Network’s Creative Differences, ImPrinting: the Artist’s Brain, and Beatie Wolfe’s ImPrinting: the Brain are all worth mentioning exhibitions as well. Between June 1 and 25, 2023, the Melbourne London Design Biennale 2023 will be on display at Somerset House in London.