Around the world, a new architectural form is emerging. In public places a progressive architecture is being commissioned to promote open-ended, undetermined, lightly programmed or un-programmed interactions between people. This new phenomenon of architectural form – Pavilions, Pop-Ups and Parasols – is presaged by rapidly changing social relationships flowing from social media such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. The nexus between real and virtual meeting is effectively being reinvented by innovative and creative architectural practices. People meet in new and responsive ways, architects meet their clients in new forums, knowledge is ‘met’ and achieved in new and interactive frameworks. It contrasts bluntly with the commercially structured interactions of shopping malls and the increasingly deliberate interactions available in cultural institutions. These experiences imbue a new type of client; casually engaged, flocking, hacking, crowd funding and self-helping.

Contributors include: Rob Bevan, Pia Ednie-Brown, Roan Ching-Yueh, Dan Hill, Martyn Hook, Minsuk Cho, Andrea Kahn, Felicity Scott, Akira Suzuki

Contributing architects include: Alisa Andrasek/Biothing, Peter Cook/CRAB studio, CJ Lim/Studio 8, Tom Holbrook/5th Studio, Matthias Hollwich/HWKN, Mamou-Mani Architects, Benedetta Tagliabue/EMBT

Leon van Schaik AO, LFAIA,RIBA, PhD is Innovation Professor of Architecture at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT). From his base in Melbourne, he has promoted local and international architectural culture through an influential practice-based research programme and the commissioning of innovative architecture. 

Fleur Watson is an architecture and design curator, author and the former editor of Monument magazine (2001-7). Most recently, she was appointed Curator for RMIT University’s Design Hub. She is currently completing a practice-based PhD through the invitational stream at RMIT University. Fleur is the co-author of the publication Architecture and Beauty (Wiley), 2010  and the editor of Cities of Hope Remembered / Rehearsed (Thames & Hudson), 2013.