3D Scanning the Serpentine Pavilion: Mass Studies' 2024

Every summer, the Serpentine Gallery hands its lawn in Kensington Gardens to a different world renowned architect, and every autumn that structure disappears. It's one of the more curious rituals in contemporary architecture; a building designed from the outset to be temporary, understood and experienced on its own unique terms rather than on contextual longevity.

Since 2024 we've been quietly scanning them. That year it was Minsuk Cho [ Mass Studies ], whose pavilion split into several distinct roof forms around a central gathering space - captured with advanced TLS laser scanning to preserve its geometry, atmosphere and material presence before it came down. We've continued the habit since, and now, with a new pavilion on the lawn in 2026, we've building an archive of that same site captured in the same way, with different unique pavilions.

Image: Top view: Mass Studies Serpentine Pavilion 3D scan data by cloudy.works , 2024

For us, the accumulation is interesting. Individually, each scan is an archive; a way of holding onto a crafted site that no longer exists. Together, they let us do something the physical pavilions never could: collage them. Compare their presence, edit them, deconstruct their material logic, and understand how each architect responded to the same patch of ground with a completely different set of ideas.

Image: Plan X-Ray view: Mass Studies Serpentine Pavilion 3D scan data by cloudy.works , 2024

This post is a first snippet of pulling those layers together - a look into our records for the 2024 site, told through the eyes of the machine.

Image: Perspective X-Ray view: Mass Studies Serpentine Pavilion 3D scan data by cloudy.works , 2024

Image: Perspective X-Ray view: Mass Studies Serpentine Pavilion 3D scan data by cloudy.works , 2024

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