The 2005 Serpentine Pavilion was designed by Portuguese architects Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura.

In designing the Pavilion, Siza sought to 'guarantee that the new building - while presenting a totally different architecture - established a "dialogue" with the neoclassical house'. The result was a structure that mirrored the domestic scale of the Serpentine and articulated the landscape between the two buildings. The Pavilion was based on a simple rectangular grid, which was distorted to create a dynamic curvaceous form. It comprised interlocking timber beams, a material that accentuated the relationship between the Pavilion and surrounding Park.

'The temporary pavilion has become unmissable, a rare opportunity to view the work of the finest international architects at first hand. This is how architecture should be exhibited and remembered. See it, and Siza's exquisite space will stay with you' - The Financial Times

The 2005 Serpentine Pavilion was a collaboration with Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura. Conceived as a ‘crouching animal’, it features a curving roof shape that turns at the eaves to splay outwards and downwards to the ground. Balmond shuffled the grid of the structure so that a cascade effect developed. This displacement sent a vibration shiver right through the form. The mortice and tenon joint adopted for the timber produced a vernacular feel to the structure and made it almost medieval. The gridded animal then came to life. And its skin, made out of polycarbonate, was studded with solar lights that came on at dusk.