look! look! look! pavilion by studio morison is presented at berrington hall in england

‘look! look! look!’ is a pink sculptural pavilion created by studio morison which has been unveiled at the national trust’s historic berrington hall in herefordshire. taking center stage within the garden of the georgian mansion, the piece aims to highlight the work of landscape designer capability brown.

heather and ivan morison first designed the structure in paper using origami, then worked with structural engineers, artura, to bring the designs to life. the pavilion is built using a sunken metal foundation frame, held with screw anchors, with a timber structure over-laid with a special woven fabric, supplied by mermet, which can withstand all weathers – in a pink colour chosen from a traditionally georgian palette. 

studio morison spent more than a year researching berrington’s georgian history and the significance of the walled garden which would have been used as a symbol of the family’s wealth, cultivation and contemporariness. the resulting work tries to reconnect with some of the fundamental ideas, themes and activities that were present in the georgian garden, to trace them out to wider georgian life, and specifically back to berrington hall and the national trust’s collection. 

the folded form of the structure echoes the geometric shapes found in the interior design of the mansion, and it also bears more than a passing resemblance to a pineapple – inspired by eighteenth-century traditions of importing exotic fruit, particularly pineapples which are thought to have been once grown at berrington. 

the structure was initially broken down into 90 frames; each made up of an intricate jigsaw of cnc’d timber pieces, constructed at the artists’ studios. the fabric was pulled over and fixed to each rhomboid and then assembled on site in the walled garden. the wooden cobbled floor is made from timber which is cut, brunt and then oiled to make it weather-resistant.

‘look! look! look!’ is open to the public until december 2019 and will house a programme of events and activities including music and yoga.