Madrid-based architecture firm SelgasCano will follow in the footsteps of Koolhaas, Gehry, Nouvel and Fujimoto by designing the 2015 London Serpentine Pavilion for the institution’s summer architecture celebration.  

Founded by José Selgas and Lucía Cano, SelgasCano will create the 15th design for the London Serptentine’s annual celebration of architecture which will open at Kensington Gardens in June.

SelgasCano are known for their avant-garde work that employs unusual materials, such as plastic, often rarely applied to architecture.

As with previous Pavilion commissions, the brief is to design a flexible, multi-purpose social space with a café that is open to all throughout the summer.

From that it is anyone’s guess to what the architects will imagine for the Pavilion but if a statement from the architects is anything to go by then a monolithic transparent structure with a unique structural technology seems to be on the cards for visitors.

While the architects have yet to submit plans, previous projects – such as the amorphous Plasencia Auditorium and Congress Centre, Cáceres (above) and the light filled harbour-side structure of El ‘B’, Cartagena Auditorium and Congress Centre (below)—offer clues as to what the architects make conjure. Images: Hisao Suzuki and Iwan Baan.

"This is an amazing and unique opportunity to work in a Royal Garden in the centre of London,” reads the statement SelgasCano.

“Both aspects, ‘Garden’ and ‘London’, are very important for us in the development of this project.

“We are in the middle of a garden, a ‘Royal’ garden indeed, once divided in two and separated by a Serpentine.

“That garden clings in the middle of London. Garden and London (which best defines London?) will be the elements to show and develop in the Pavilion.

“For that we are going to use only one material as a canvas for both: the Transparency. That ‘material’ has to be explored in all its structural possibilities, avoiding any other secondary material that supports it, and the most advanced technologies will be needed to be employed to accomplish that transparency.

“A good definition for the pavilion can be taken from J. M. Barrie: it aims to be as a ‘Betwixt-and-Between’."

A design will be released by SelgasCano in February before the Pavilion is built and the June to October event begins.