Studio Mumbai founder Bijoy Jain has revealed his design for this year's MPavilion, billed to become the largest bamboo structure ever built in Australia (+ movie).
The Indian architect plans to use bamboo, earth, stone, rope and manure for the 2016 edition of the MPavilion, an annual commission touted as Australia's answer to London's Serpentine Gallery Pavilion.
His 12-metre-high structure will feature a bamboo framework, an awning-style roof canopy and a rooftop "tazia" – a type of decorative tower that features in traditional Indian ceremonies.
Like many of Studio Mumbai's projects, the design is intended to embrace different types of handmade construction.
Its faceted roof will be created from karvi panels, which are made by mixing cow dung and earth. These will be tied to the bamboo structure, before being coated in a waterproof layer of white lime daub.
"I wanted to create a space that connects the entire culture of the land," said Jain.
"The tower or 'tazia' is an imaginary building that reaches deep into the stars, so it is otherworldly, and through it you can see the stars, the sky, other dimensions."
Jain will be the third architect to build an MPavilion since the programme launched in 2014, following the tree-canopy-inspired installation by British architect Amanda Levete and the folding structure by Australian architect Sean Godsell.
The architect has spent six months working with a team of Indian craftsmen to construct a series of small and full-size prototypes in Mumbai.
The pavilion will be constructed in Melbourne's Queen Victoria Gardens by Australian and Indian builders. The team claims it "will be the largest bamboo structure ever built in Australia".
"I want the MPavilion to be the scaffolding that provides a creative space that suspends visitors between earth, ground and sky," said Jain.
"The idea is not to guide observers but to allow discoveries through visual layers of thinking, making and seeing."
The project is sponsored by the Naomi Milgrom Foundation, an organisation set up by businesswoman and philanthropist Naomi Milgrom.
Milgrom founded the programme, so her foundation pledged to fund the first four pavilions. She chose Jain for the third edition because of his "deep concern for craft, sustainability and community".
"Bijoy Jain's practice is unique in that it focuses on honouring age-old crafts and building-techniques, which resonate strongly in this technologised world," she said.
"As an architect, Bijoy thinks like an artist. His buildings are realised around a central idea, and are then fleshed out through an extensive process of collaboration, and always, careful consideration of the surrounding environment."
The MPavilion is scheduled to open on 5 October 2016 and will remain in place until 18 February 2017.
Photography is by Nicholas Watt and Studio Mumbai.
