Pavilion

The Empty Pavilion is an experimental architectural project in Detroit that explores emptiness, memory, and public interaction, questioning how architecture can activate latent public life in vacant urban spaces.

A curated selection of the most inspiring urban design projects of 2025, shared by designers and studios. Participation, sensory experience, and public space transformation stand at the core.

Dome Next Door / Kopā pie Doma is an interactive urban installation located in Dome Square, Riga. Inspired by medieval vaults and the Dome Cathedral, the project reimagines public space through play, rest, and social interaction. Hammocks, mirrors, swings, and seating transform the historic square into a living social landscape.

Brincacidade transforms Belo Horizonte’s Raul Soares Square into a vibrant, temporary play environment designed for children and caregivers. With colorful portals, tactile PVC totems, and a central core of nautical ropes, the installation invites sensory exploration and communal joy. It highlights the importance of child-focused public spaces and playful urban coexistence.

Designed by Merve Yumuk and M. Taylan Tosun for the Antalya Architecture Biennial 2025, HEM MEKÂN is a kinetic pavilion that transforms with its users. Built from custom-cut chrome mesh panels and a movable rail system, it explores the fluid boundaries between inside and outside, visibility and reflection, turning space into an ever-changing, shared experience.

At Dutch Design Week 2025, Umbra Pavilion by Pauline van Dongen and Tentech unveils Heliotex, a solar textile that provides shade while generating energy. Rising like a kite over Eindhoven’s Ketelhuisplein, the pavilion redefines how design can shape climate adaptation — turning sunlight into an experience of light, shade, and awareness.

Designed by Kelly Bair and Kristy Balliet for the Concéntrico International Design Festival, Crop Top is a circular pavilion made of partial rooms that invite shifting perspectives. Built with robotic precision using sheet materials and offcuts, it can be assembled without fasteners. With its open roof and minimal structure, Crop Top turns the idea of “cropping” into an architectural act—highlighting absence, sustainability, and the poetics of framing.

Designed by Mamou-Mani Architects, Altostrata is a travelling pavilion fully 3D-printed with compostable sugar-based bioplastics and PLA. First showcased in Romania and later in Singapore and Dubai, the modular structure embodies the principles of reduce, reuse, repurpose, and recycle. With its spiral form and parametrically optimized trusses, Altostrata challenges wasteful exhibition design and envisions a new era of circular architecture where materials are grown, reused, a

Designed by i/thee, the Puddle Pavilion in Bondurant, Iowa is cast from algae-based bio-resin without formwork. Suspended above Mud Creek, it captures the fleeting beauty of liquid motion, embodying a philosophy of Abstract Realism. Part of a citywide masterplan, it invites visitors to pause and connect with the site’s ecology.

Reflection in Numbers by Yinka Ilori is a pavilion in Berlin addressing racism and accountability in sports. Using mirrors and West African calabash instruments, it creates a participatory and multisensory experience within HKW’s Ballet of the Masses festival.

Henrik Vibskov’s Circle Dome Square turns Louis Poulsen’s showroom into a colourful textile sanctuary for 3DaysofDesign 2025, inspired by Verner Panton’s iconic Panthella lamp.

Cappella del Suono by Studio Carraldo is a lightweight wooden pavilion that reacts to the wind with sound, offering a sensory and meditative experience in nature.