Pavilions are like playgrounds for architects and designers, allowing them to show off what they can do when they really set their imaginations free. Unfettered by the typical limitations of a permanent structure, they can experiment with new materials and processes, potentially producing innovations they can apply to other structures. These pavilions are often subversive in the urban environment, too, taking over public spaces and giving them back to the people or creating micro housing that falls within grey areas of the law.

Transforming Street Cinema in Venice by Omri Revesz

Created for a V-A-C Russian contemporary art foundation exhibition at the Venice Film Festival 2017, this pop-up cinema celebrated the 100th anniversary of the start of the Soviet Revolution. The modular wooden structure is collapsible, its design inspired by the logic of Russian constructivism. Its wooden frame is on wheels set into rails so it can expand to make more space for performances, or contract to create a darker, more intimate setting.

Algae Dome in Denmark by SPACE10

IKEA’s ‘Future living lab,’ known as SPACE10, debuted its ‘Algae Dome’ in Denmark a couple weeks ago, demonstrating how we might be able to grow “the supercrop of the future.” Designed by a team of engineers, the dome-shaped structure supports a network of transparent hoses, regulating their sun exposure so algae grows in the water inside them. The dome produced 450 liters of microalgae in just three days of its demonstration, which SPACE10’s chef crafted into such foods as ‘spiraling chips.’

Super Hot Pavilion in Bucharest by Morag Myerscough

Designed for the 7th edition of the ‘Summer Well Festival’ in Bucharest, Romania by artist Morag Myerscough, the ‘Super Hot’ pavilion is envisioned as a fun and whimsical place to stage and take in performances. There’s space within the structure to hang out, dance, play or zoom down a slide.

Wave of Buckets in Mexico City by Factor Eficiencia

Hundreds of painter’s buckets are connected into a walkable structure that curls up into a wave at either end, occupying the central Alameda Park in Mexico City. Designed by Factor Eficiencia and 5468796 Architecture, the installation uses the bucket as a symbol of liberation of public spaces. In Mexico, it’s common for entrepreneurs to use buckets to block off certain areas of the city so they can aggressively charge for parking.

Urban Camouflage Pavilion in London by PUP Architects

PUP Architects wanted to disguise their pop-up, entitled ‘H-VAC,’ as ordinary rooftop mechanical equipment. Do you think they pulled it off? The designers are taking advantage of UK building legislation that makes it legal to install rooftop equipment without planning permission; they believe that if you can sufficiently disguise rooftop addition as infrastructure, thousands of new micro dwellings could be added to London and other cities. The temporary structure is clad in waterproof tetra-pak shingles and includes two rooms.

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Pop Up Pavilions 15 Playful Temporary Architecture Installations

Whether you’re in need of some quick sidewalk psychotherapy, a spa treatment in a subway station, sandwich delivery via parachute or a bowl of sugary cereal with a side of technology-dependence guilt, there’s a pop-up concept waiting for you. These 13 off-the-wall pop-up shops offer some of the most unusual goods and services that you could ever expect to find in your path while going about your day in the city.

Pop-Up Psychotherapy

Need to talk to someone about your problems? You’d be lucky to pass by the Unhappiness Repairer in the street, a pop-up psychotherapy stand by artist Silvia Neretti that explores the connection between happiness, psychotherapy and design. Neretti asks – Is it possible to design happiness? Sure, she’s not a licensed therapist, but the idea of having such easy access to mental health services is an intriguing one.

Pop-Up Spa on a Subway Platform

The typically unpleasant sticky heat of the 34th Street subway platform in New York City was turned into a positive with The Subway Spa, a prank by performance group Improv Everywhere. Figuring you might as well enjoy yourself if you’re going to get sweaty, the group set up a steam room, massage tables, sauna benches and table proffering fluffy white towels. Most of the people who took off their clothes to don robes and relax on the platform benches were actors, but a few citizens actually joined in.

Remote Controlled Pop-Up Shop

The world’s smallest pop-up shop is no more than a tiny box with a red awning reading ‘SHOP’ on top, zipping around the streets of Tokyo all on its own. The shop is built on a tiny remote-controlled car that zooms up to passersby to hawk British designer Duncan Shotton’s tiny push-pin figures. That’s certainly one way to get your products noticed.

Pop-Up Sandwich Shop Delivers Food via Parachute

A pop-up sandwich shop called Jafflechutes delivers piping hot sandwiches from the 7th floor of an apartment building to the street below using parachutes. Customers pay via PayPal and wait on an ‘X’ marked on the street until their sandwich comes floating down.

Pop-Up Store Tool Kit to Transform Vacant Lots

Got an idea for your own pop-up? Made in the Lower East Side (miLES), a group promoting urban revitalization, offers a Storefront Transformer that makes it easy for anyone who wants to open their own shop in a vacant storefront with plug-and-play shelving, partitions, tables, seats, lighting, wifi, power strips and more. miLES also facilitates the short-term rental of these vacant spaces.

Stairway Cinema: Pop-Up Sidewalk Theater

Duck under a red awning and take in a film with ‘Stairway Cinema,’ a mobile pop-up movie theater by experimental design collective OH.NO.SUMO. Fitted with a movie screen and a projector, the theater can be grafted onto the steps of vacant buildings. The designers created it in response to the lack of interaction seen between huddles of people waiting at bus stops and outside launderettes on the corner.

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Next Level Pop Ups 15 Creative Sidewalk Shops Services

Step inside the Zuo Corp. pop-up shop in Warsaw and you’ll feel as if you’ve just been transported to a different space altogether. Designed by Polish architects Super Super and Inside/Outside, this clothing store seems to go on forever, a frighteningly vast warehouse of a retailer that requires you to navigate daunting mazes in order to make your way back out again.

Gaze down the aisles of the showroom and you’ll see rack after rack of jackets, shirts and pants. There’s a fitting room, a storage room, and staff waiting to help you at various intervals. But wander too far and you’ll soon hit a wall – literally. Mirrors line the entire cube, and the edges are illuminated with LED strips that create an endless grid of light.

The effect is all the more disorienting when you consider what the outside of this shop looks like: it’s a tiny cube, consisting of two portable containers, sitting lightly upon a city square.

“Small, inconspicuous object, as it seemed from the outside, was creating an ‘Alice in Wonderland’ effect, to introduce the viewer to another world,” says Super Super.