On 13 July our second Build Your Own Pavilion workshop (and the first one on the tour – next stop Liverpool!) took place in The Magazine; a beautiful white curved structure next to the Serpentine Sackler Gallery.

Zaara, Leyan, Mina, Luis-Angelo, Barnaby, Mahie, Andreza, Ananya from King Solomon Academy visited the current Pavilion before arriving at The Magazine for their workshop with Dejan and Alice Theodorou, an architect assisting Dejan on the tour. The group felt it was inspired by nature and began thinking about what else could influence a Pavilion’s design. “A Pavilion can be anything, it’s like a building that has been inspired by something really special,” Zaara said.

Everyone then sketched out their initial ideas and eight Pavilions – including a fish in a fish bowl design and a puppy one – began to take shape. Dejan gave the group a tutorial in using 3D CAD software, which isn’t as daunting as it sounds, “I loved making the sculptures on the computers,” Mahie said.

CAD (Computer-aided drafting) is a brilliant way to turn 2D sketches into 3D objects. Dejan and Alice went around helping everyone to create digital spheres, cones, pyramids and cubes and then putting them together. Andreza (whose Pavilion was inspired by wanting to have pet fish when she was younger) successfully made her fish shape using the non-uniform line drawing tab.

All the CAD drawings closely resembled the original designs, which is great because as Alice explained, “it took me months to work out how to use CAD!”. The group then went on to use these digital 3D models to make physical ones – you can see their colourful results on the ‘Your Pavilions’ page. If you’d like to see yours next to these exciting designs enter the competition now!