References

Sustainable Free Form timber Pavilion at IQL

London, UK

Brightly lit Pavilion at night

Sustainable timber Pavilion at IQL in London’s newly regenerated Stratford area

The three-storey timber Pavilion at IQL designed by ACME houses a café, brasserie and restaurant as well as a roof terrace open to the public and the visitor centre of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We were tasked with the planning, production and erection of the facade of the Free Form Pavilion.

As the sole timber structure, the Free Form Pavilion has formed the beating heart of the International Quarter London (IQL) urban development project since February 2020. The planners opted for timber as a building material due to the short construction time and because a train tunnel runs under the site, which necessitated a lightweight building. Spruce was used for the building structure. A substructure of stainless steel supports the facade, which is made with Accoya wood and serves to provide both shade and ventilation. A welcoming stairway gives access to the roof garden.

The Pavilion is made with 100% prefabricated components. The Accoya timber facade boards – each between 1 m and 4 m long – are all custom-made. Precise planning and prefabrication of the individual facade boards in the factory required careful sorting for delivery to London. Thanks to this thorough preparation and the high degree of prefabrication, on-site assembly was straightforward and did not require any adjustments. As a result, the assembly team at the construction site simply needed to install the facade boards in the right place with the help of a manual and specific assembly instructions.

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Project details

Client:
Lendlease
Architecture:
ACME
Project type:
Leisure and sport, Hotels and restaurants
Construction type:
Free Form
Services:
Timber construction
Construction:
2019-2020
Locality:
London
Country:
UK

Links

Full view of the IQL Pavilion by day

The Pavilion with its visitor centre also features a public roof terrace, restaurant, café and brasserie.

Close-up of the timber elements

Blumer Lehmann supplied the facade boards, which were then installed on site.

Facade of the IQL Pavilion with lots of glass and terraces made of timber

Following production, the facade boards had to be sorted and prepared in line with the construction plans and readied for assembly.

Restaurant inside the IQL Pavilion

Plenty of timber inside the IQL Pavilion as well

Timber stairway made of several sections on the Pavilion’s facade

The external steel stairway, clad in timber, provides visitors with access to the roof garden.

IQL Pavilion in front of high-rise buildings with glass facade at dusk

The Pavilion has a distinctive look with its timber structure and building shape.