Lanza Atelier designs snaking brick Serpentine Pavilion in London

Mexican studio Lanza Atelier has created A Serpentine, a snaking brick-walled structure for the 25th edition of the Serpentine Pavilion in London.

The sinuous red brick structure, which opens to the public this weekend, was designed by the Mexico-city based studio to reference a traditional English brick wall, known as a crinkle-crankle wall.

These one-brick-thick walls are sometimes found in English gardens and are know for using fewer bricks than a straight wall.

The structure is the first Serpentine Pavilion to be built from brick.

“There was no serpentine pavilion before made of brick, so that was a main target – to achieve something different as a practice and for the pavilion,” Lanza Atelier co-founder Alessandro Arienzo told Dezeen.

“We also became very enamoured with the serpentine wall concept,” he continued. “It resembles our philosophy in the studio that we want to build with less.”

The design by Lanza Atelier is divided into two halves – a main public space topped with a transparent roof and an outdoor gathering area framed by a winding brick bench.

The crinkle crankle wall stretches across the garden creating an “undulating boundary” that encloses the pavilion’s main, habitable space, along with a second, similarly-sinuous wall at the pavilion’s northern end.

Its red brick structure was built without mortar to allow for disassembly, instead using steel plates to stabilise the walls and columns.

Gaps in the envelope create entrance points at either end of the space.

Inside, single-brick columns, reinforced with steel, divide the interior and support the pavilion’s overhanging roof structure, which follows the curvature of the walls below.

The roof’s gridded white steel structure was topped with transparent panels that allow daylight into the space.

Lanza Atelier’s use of red brick extends to the pavilion interior, which is lined entirely with brick paving.

A built-in, stepped seating area is tucked within the curve of the rear wall and doubles as a stage for the space.

The interior contains a largely open and flexible events space, complete with bespoke wooden seating designed by the studio that can be moved freely around the space.

“We haven’t designed any fixed areas for people to do certain things,” studio co-founder Isabel Abascal explained.

“We decided to have a simple chair and a simple stool, so people can move around and build their own environment and be part of the space itself.”

Lanza Atelier hope that people find ways of using the pavilion that they could not have anticipated.

“To me, the beautiful part of doing a pavilion in a park for people of all backgrounds to come and experience is the fact that each of these peope are unique, and they will have unique experiences,” said Abascal.

“I want to come and see people doing things that we could never have imagined, that we could never have expected,” she continued.

“Yesterday we had the staff tour, for example, and our kids were here, and they were just walking around one single column for five minutes, which is something that, of course, nobody could have planned for, but it happened because they just felt like doing that.”

The pavilion will remain on the site until 25 October 2026 and be used to host the Serpentine Gallery’s public programme throughout summer.

The programme will include a two-day symposium to commemorate the life and work Zaha Hadid, who designed the inaugural Serpentine Pavilion in 2000.

Last year, Bangladeshi architect Marina Tabassum created a segmented pavilion made from wood and polycarbonate panels for the event, which was accompanied by Peter Cook’s domed Play Pavilion clad with colourful protrusions formed of Lego bricks.

The photography is by Iwan Baan unless otherwise stated.

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