In an interview with the Guardian earlier this month, Mexican architect, and this year's designer of the 2018 Serpentine Pavilion, Frida Escobedo told Rowan Moore her focus for the commission was on “how you feel inside the space, how you go about it in the moment.” Opening this Friday on the Serpentine Gallery lawn in Kensington Garden, visitors will finally get the chance to experience what she's created for them: an enclosed courtyard composed of a lattice of cement roof tiles, featuring a shallow pool of water to ward off the Summer heat.

The youngest architect to be given one of summer's hottest invitations, Escobedo is a welcome follow-up to the tree-inspired work created last year by Diébédo Francis Kéré, another fresh choice for the commission. Like Kéré, Escobedo has reflected her background into the British setting, fusing Mexican cultural references with British construction. Inspired by celosias—a traditional breeze wall common to Mexican domestic spaces—and built with cement tiles common to the UK, the structure has found a "beautiful harmony of Mexican and British influences," as Serpentine Galleries Artistic Director, Hans Ulrich Obrist and CEO, Yana Peel both noted. 

The shape of the pavilion is created through the nesting of two rectangular volumes. The first is positioned parallel to the Serpentine Pavilion's eastern façade while the second has been oriented along the Prime Meridian line, which, since established in 1851 at Greenwich, has become the global standard marker of time and geographical distance. Mirrored interior-panels and a triangular pool chart the passage of the day, further emphasizing time and its passing. Escobedo explains, "as the sun moves across the sky, reflected and refracted by these features, visitors will feel a heightened awareness of time spent in play, improvisation and contemplation over the summer months." 

The pavilion will be open to the public starting June 15th and going until October 7th, when it be moved to another location. During the summer months, ut will serve as the platform for Park Nights, Serpentine's annual series that invites eight international artists to respond to Escobedo's design with live performances encompassing art, architecture, music, film and dance.