Brunswick and Columbia Wharf building, which has served as a platform for creating and displaying art since 1990, stands out towards the Haggerston Bridge with its protruding upper left corner. This building embodies the very concept of an “as found acropodium” of art and architecture, which we aim to explore in our response to the Antepavilion 2025 session. By erecting ten columns that imitate classical orders, we seek to inspire people’s imagination, inviting them to associate the body of the building and its artworks with the Acropolis plateau and its temples. Our purpose is to celebrate the place, its history, and the traces left by previous Antepavilions as a living entity.

Deliberately creating monumental forms from inexpensive, recycled materials, we wish to highlight the tension between informal construction practices and top-down urban development policies. The ongoing conflict between the council and the Antepavilion revolves around the council’s refusal to recognize the erected structures as art installations or as fitting within the historic environment. While urban policies tend to be ambiguous regarding aesthetic criteria, with decisions often based on personal judgment, our proposal represents a continuation of the Antepavilion’s fight for creators’ freedom to define art and reclaim power in urban spaces.

The architecture we envision with these ten columns defines an undefined, open space where various activities can take place. This is a response to the challenge of reconciling architecture with art installations. Can art be functional? Can functional architecture be considered art? In fact, architecture is not solely about the buildings themselves; it is about the spaces they create and the interactions they foster. What the council criticizes is precisely what the Antepavilion program values: creating spaces that provoke dialogue, invite discussion, and engage people in meaningful conversations.

Just as the function of the Parthenon has evolved over time—from a temple to a Christian church, a mosque, and now a world heritage site—we wish to draw attention to the complexity of architecture and its potential for transformation.

In the contemporary context, where visual aesthetics are increasingly prioritized due to the influence of graphic media and the extensive use of digital tools in the design process, tolerance is often reduced to a corrective measure aimed at achieving a purified image of the designer’s intention. However, the ongoing climate and political crises urge us to reconsider this obsession with perfection and return to working with raw and local materials as well as traditional methods, where tolerance takes on physical forms and becomes a visible part of craftsmanship. Elements such as corner cleats in woodworking or stitching in textiles demonstrate how tolerance can be integrated into, and even celebrated within, the final work. To encourage students to adopt a whimsical design attitude that acknowledges and celebrates imperfection in response to the growing complexities of our environment, we propose a workshop inviting students to rethink tolerance as a strategic design element—an opportunity for inclusive and resilient design.

Our work with the earth often evoke simultaneously opposing movements. In construction, excavation proceeds alongside filling. In defense, trenches are dug while ramparts are constructed, and by turning over the pavement, barricades are built. It is within these complementary phenomena that we perceive the infinite continuity of the earth’s surface and understand that we all inhabit the folds of space-time. Our project involves exploring the significance of our interactions with the earth and investigating our relationship with the univers by constructing, through these actions, a pavilion of imagination.

unearthing – In the archeological work on the site, dating back to the early nineteenth century is the same thing as excavating 180cm to the ground. Upon reaching this depth,we encounter remnants from various periods of history. From the cartography we learn already the past constructions taken on the site and the industrialization of greater scale of its surroundings. However, what stands out is a wooden plank, likely part of the base plate of a small building, probably a peasant cottage that appeared in the Faden’s map in 1833. Despite its simplicity, this building was the first to be constructed on the site when the latter was still a field.

Tracing – The small building, a solitary figure rising from the vast floodplain on the south bank of the Thames – an image increasingly rare in our urban landscape which is characterized by typologies rather than individus. To trace the footprint of the small house, is to remind us of the primitive form of our existence. By marking it with the recycled steel profiles, we are once again naturally led to conduct a typical earthwork, that is to build a lagging wall to retain the excavated soil while serving as a framework that provides a familiar interior finishing.

Erecting an earth wall – With the earth excavated we build upwards. The deeper we dig, the higher rises the wall. The exterior façade of the solidified excavation wall represents time itself in a most tangible manner, and also act as the folded surface of the earth, unveiling its inner past.