‘s_pavilion’ by the students of platform 2 in london, england all images courtesy of the chelsea college of art and design

s_pavilion by the chelsea college of art & design‘s platform 2 students is a structure constructed out of 200 speedo swimming suits. made for this year’s chelsea college undergraduate summer show and the london festival of architecture, the project is directed by senior lecturer of BA interior spatial design (ISD) cyril shing in collaboration with platform 2 tutor yiching liu and visiting tutor daniel piker.

the objective of the pavilion was to challenge students and researchers of different backgrounds to explore various design issues such as sustainability, methods of production and use of materials. sponsored by speedo, the group received 600 ‘LZR racer’ swimming suits, one of the most technologically advanced performance suit ever produced which was recently made obsolete by changes in competition rules. in order to re-use these previously manufactured suits, the group collaborated on taking the material to an architectural scale. comprised of textile designers, materials engineers and programming engineers, fabrication methods ranged from sewing to digital modeling with rhino 3d and grasshopper.

the s_pavilion will be a part of the london design festival from 18-26 september and temporarily on view at the cass sculpture foundation near west sussex.

speedo swim suit pavilion

speedo swim suit pavilion

speedo swim suit pavilion

speedo swim suit pavilion

speedo swim suit pavilion

speedo swim suit pavilion bird’s eye view

speedo swim suit pavilion speedo suit detail

speedo swim suit pavilion construction phase