serpentine taps sir peter cook and LEGO for radical ‘play pavilion’ in london

sir peter cook’s pavilion is a monument to play

Never one to shy away from the unexpected, the architectural provocateur Sir Peter Cook is teaming up with Serpentine and the LEGO Group to bring the Play Pavilion to London’s Kensington Gardens. The project is designed as an immersive, riotous celebration of fun, one of architecture’s most under-appreciated function. Set to be unveiled on June 11th, 2025 — World Play Day — the new pavilion will pop with color, form, and irreverence to prove that play, like good design, thrives on risk and curiosity.

Peter Cook’s pavilion will be a theatrical performance in Kensington Gardens. With its colorful gestures, it appears to have hatched from an anarchic sketchbook. ‘The Play Pavilion is a piece of theatre,’ says Cook. ‘From a distance, intriguing shapes rise from within the structure… A child might pop out on a slide, another may crawl through a hole on the ground.’

It’s less a static structure and more a living cartoon — teasing, hiding, revealing. Through pierced and scooped walls, visitors can glimpse flashes of activity inside and echoes of laughter. It invites Brits and tourists alike to embrace the strange.

the pavilions celebrates architecture as a space for fun | visualizations courtesy Serpentine Galleries

serpentine galleries and lego transcend the White Cube

By teaming with architect Sir Peter Cook and LEGO Group, Serpentine expands its reach beyond the gallery’s clean-lined walls and into the messier, livelier reality of the park. ‘We are thrilled to be collaborating with the LEGO Group… to realise the vision for play we all share with Peter Cook,’ said Serpentine’s Chief Executive Bettina Korek and Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist in a joint statement. ‘Zaha Hadid long envisioned a collaboration between Serpentine and Peter Cook… Now, that vision is becoming a reality.’ In this playful detour, architecture escapes the exhibition and becomes a real-world encounter, situated directly in Kensington Gardens.

The LEGO Group’s involvement is more than decorative. LEGO bricks form a key material in the pavilion’s composition, turning the familiar building block into a full-scale architectural gesture. ‘Play is not just a source of joy; it fosters connection and encourages exploration,’ said Julia Goldin, Chief Product and Marketing Officer at the LEGO Group. Indeed, the Play Pavilion becomes a tactile and communal space, where visitors are drawn into a three-dimensional celebration of imagination — something Cook has long championed.

Peter Cook describes the structure as a piece of theater designed to intrigue

a continuation of legendary Radical Design

As a founding member of Archigram, Sir Peter Cook famously redrew the boundaries of architectural possibility. With speculative projects like Plug-In City, he and his peers imagined flexible, kinetic cities built on modular systems and social ideals. While many of Archigram’s ideas remained unbuilt, Cook’s influence has been profound. The Play Pavilion nods to that legacy — transforming fantastical forms into lived experience. It joins a growing list of realized works by Cook, including Kunsthaus Graz in Austria and the Drawing Studio at Arts University Bournemouth. And yet, this project might be his most accessible to date. It’s a democratic monument to fun and unpredictability.

Throughout the summer, the Play Pavilion will host live activations from performances to public programs. Visitors will be invited to engage not just with the architecture, but with each other. Peter Cook sums it up best: ‘Play transcends survival, achievement, and common sense.’ In a world often over-engineered for efficiency, the Play Pavilion is radical. Visitors are challenged to waste time well. Whether you’re crawling through a mouth-shaped opening or simply eavesdropping on a hidden orator, you’re part of the performance.

LEGO bricks are incorporated into the design to highlight the power of play and collaboration

Peter Cook, portrait © Paul McLaughlin

project info:

name: Play Pavilion

architect: Sir Peter Cook | @sirpetercook

program: Serpentine Galleries | @serpentineuk

collaborator: LEGO Group | @lego

on view: June 11th — August 10th, 2025

visualizations: courtesy Serpentine Galleries