Stichting Singeldingen, a cultural pop-up placemaking foundation in Rotterdam, asked us to come up with a characteristic and playfull temporary shelter for their outdoor programme. It had to be practical to store and easy to set up by non-trained volunteers. And of course, it had to be on a tight budget.

We got asked the most basic question of shelter which had already been answered and optimized by numerous generations before us; tents! We chose a prefab partytent with modular dimensions and got intrigued by its triangulated truss construction which became the leitmotiv for our design.

This inspired us to extend the formal language of triangles onto the walls and roof of the tents, creating diagonal zippers and triangulated windows. All surfaces got designed differently but based on the same modular grid they form a harmonious composition. In this way, volunteers for Singeldingen, who set up the tents each day, create different configurations of openings and closed surfaces, without knowing it. DIY design.

commissioned Stichting Singeldingen, Rotterdam
design LAGADO architects, 2013
realisation Schoots Zeilmakerij
location Heemraadssingel Rotterdam, The Netherlands
photography LAGADO architects
publications interview ArchitectuurNL magazine, talent series