The next MPavilion for Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens will create the sensation of a forest canopy for visitors and will be designed with aid from an Australian boat builder.

These two hints were provided by British architect Amanda Levete who was recently selected by The Naomi Milgrom Foundation to be the designer of Melbourne’s second of four annual MPavilions.

Levete’s pavilion will open in 2016 and follows Sean Godsell’s inaugural pavilion that opened in October last year and saw over 90,000 visitors and hosted 300 cultural events before it closed in February 2015.

The announcement was made by chair of the Naomi Milgrom Foundation and philanthropist, Naomi Milgrom during the program launch at the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne on April 9.  

Godell's pavilion in 2014. Images: Earl Carter/Articulate 

In response to her successful appointment, Levete said she welcomed the brief from Milgrom and was seeking to create the sensation of a forest canopy in the heart of the city.

“The brief from the Naomi Milgrom Foundation is a great opportunity to design a structure that responds to its climate and landscape. I’m interested in exploiting the temporary nature of the pavilion form to produce a design that speaks in response to the weather,” she said.

“Rooting the pavilion in its parkland setting, I am seeking to create the sensation of a forest canopy in the heart of the city that gives shelter to a program of events. We have a long history of working with boat builders and Australia has some of the finest. We’re working with a yacht fabricator to employ the boundary--‐pushing technology of composite materials to create the canopy.”

As principle of her own AL_A architects, Levete’s recent works include the Stirling Prize winning Media Centre at Lord’s Cricket Ground and the Comme des Garcons stores in New York, Paris and Tokyo. She was trained at the Architectural Association in London and has previously worked for Richard Rogers and Future Systems.

Godsell’s inaugural MPavillion will be permanently relocated to the Hellenic Museum in Melbourne’s CBD as a gift to the City of Melbourne.