Tent London and The Lightbox in Woking have launched a competition to design a summer pavilion for The Lightbox- last year’s winner of The Art Fund Pavilion Prize.

The pavilion, which will be known as The Art Fund Pavilion, will provide additional exhibition and event space for The Lightbox, and presents a unique opportunity for a designer or architect to create a semi-permanent structure to sit alongside a RIBA award-winning building by Marks Barfield Architects.
The winning design will be built with funding from The Art Fund Prize of £100,000, the UK’s largest single arts prize, which was awarded to The Lightbox in 2008. The pavilion will be launched during the London Design Festival 2009 as part of Tent London before taking up residence at The Lightbox.
In the interest of seeking a forward-thinking approach, Tent London, who is managing the competition, has proposed a digital method of fabrication.

The process is simple:
1. Applicants should prepare their design for The Art Fund Pavilion in CAD
2. Entries will be judged by an elite international panel including Wayne Hemingway and Sarah Ichioka, Director of the Architecture Foundation.
3. Facit, whose strapline is ‘We Print Houses’, will engineer and build the winning design. The components are cut out using a computer controlled cutter and can be simply assembled on site.

The deadline for competition applications is 3 March 2009. Entry to the competition is free and the website lists full details of the application process: www.artfundpavilion.co.uk.

Marks Barfield Architects describe their Lightbox as followed:
‘The competition-winning project for the Lightbox is a new kind of community cultural centre for Woking. It originated from the community and is a flexible and adaptable, a meeting place, a cultural bridge between different groups, an opportunity to present art which goes beyond the walls of the gallery and connects back to the community. The Lightbox opened to the public in September 2007.  Since opening it has received a Civic Trust Award and has been shortlisted for the Art Fund Prize.

Sandwiched between the Basingstoke Canal and a six lane highway adjacent to the Town Centre, building will be clad in shades of gold and silver facing the roads; and timber on the more Arcadian canal and garden sides.’