LSE Graduation Pavilion

Aligning with the sharp clarity of the ‘Centre Building’s grid, while echoing the soft arches, stonework details and repetitive fenestration of Houghton Street. The pavilion is completely free-standing, carefully weighted to account for wind loadings and designed to be fully demountable and reusable. It was entirely manufactured in panels off site and constructed in situ over the course of a day with a small team. Each component itself is designed to be easily deconstructed to allow for effective material recycling/ reuse at the end of the pavilion’s lifespan. It forms a mixed-use space, intended to create a shelter with a permeable boundary, that invites occupants to gather, celebrate and socialise throughout the graduation period. It also provides an opportunity to exhibit student’s work–framing the years achievements beneath its arched colonnades. A second satellite mini-pavilion sits as the entrance to Houghton Street (the main entrance used by graduates and their guests) which leads you down towards the main pavilion in John Watkins Plaza. The pavilion, made from birch ply, features colours inspired by the LSE’s own colour palette; deep magentas, blues, and of course the iconic LSE red in its central vaulted ceiling. At the end of the graduation season, the pavilion is deconstructed and stored on site, in readiness for next year. Location The pavilion sits centrally within the LSE campus in the John Watkins Plaza, through which students pass on their way to graduation and where they gather once it's over. It forms a junction within the graduation procession, where the 'Old Building' with it's stone detailing and arched windows manages to sit in harmony across from the RSHP-designed 'Centre Building' with its characteristic cross bracing. The plaza, edged by both old and new, has a wonderful symmetry with the experience of graduation. Its the embodiment of growth and reflection, celebrating both and is therefore a fantastic space in which to place a structure designed to frame and celebrate a meaningful moment of change for its occupants.