Olly Wainwright

3 weeks ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Wainwright |Olly Wainwright

Past pavilions have taken the form of inflatable balloons, teetering plastic pyramids and cork-lined lairs dug into the ground. We have seen a fibreglass cocoon perched on boulders, a wildflower garden enclosed by tar-daubed walls, and an assortment of undulating canopies, clad in polished steel and jagged slate. Now, to celebrate 25 years of building experimental structures on its front lawn, London’s Serpentine gallery has unveiled its first pavilion that moves.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Wainwright |Olly Wainwright

‘We used to have something called social housing,” you will be able to tell your grandchildren, should you ever take them to V&A East Storehouse, the Victoria & Albert Museum’s new outpost in east London. High up in the atrium, at the centre of this huge open-access repository of 250,000 objects, hangs a chunk of Robin Hood Gardens, a brutalist council estate in nearby Poplar that was recently bulldozed to make way for less affordable housing.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Wainwright |Olly Wainwright

Unless they have been signed by a mischievous surrealist, it is not often that toilets qualify as works of art. But at the Storm King Art Center, an outdoor sculpture park that rolls across 200 edenic hectares of New York’s Hudson Valley, visitors are now treated to a sublime restroom experience worthy of the spectacular sculptures on show. “It’s quite an upgrade from our porta-potties,” says Nora Lawrence, director of the centre, which has just reopened after a $53m (£39.7m) expansion.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Wainwright |Olly Wainwright

A teetering wall of gungy green bricks greets visitors to this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, forming an imposing blockade near the start of the show. The blocks are made of bio-cement, incorporating fishing nets and algae dredged from the depths of the Venetian lagoon. The wall’s steeply sloping gradient follows the curve of global population growth over the last millennium, terminating abruptly near the ceiling to represent the coming peak of humanity.

1 month ago | theguardian.com | Oliver Wainwright |Olly Wainwright

Few parts of any city have seen so many style wars waged over their future as the north-west corner of Trafalgar Square. Nelson may be safely ensconced on his column, but another Battle of Trafalgar has been rumbling for decades beneath his feet, seeing architectural grenades hurled to and fro at the western end of the National Gallery.