Design: Super smart backpack boat

Thibault Penven says he was walking along the banks of Lake Geneva when he met a “passionate” fisherman. It inspired Penven’s graduation project at University of Art and Design Lausanne (ECAL). “I decided to design a boat,” the industrial design student remembers, “intended for use as a shuttle between the shore and a boat.” Penven’s boat is super-lightweight. And unlike traditional inflatable dinghies, Ar Vag assembles in minutes for Life Aquatic-style exploits. Ar Vag’s assembly sequence seems similar to a run-of-the-mill camping tent. The plastic sheet unfolds and a series of metal rods are strung along its edges to give it shape. The bench is what keeps the whole thing stable (“like a keystone,” explains Penven), acting as cross-bracing for the flimsy shell. When it’s completely folded up, the boat can be worn like a backpack. “The hull of the boat consists of a series of fiberglass sheets, covered with heat welded plastic tarpaulin,” Penven writes in a press release. Heat welding is a pretty common industrial fabrication technique, involving the use of a heat gun to create watertight seams between plastic pieces.The boat folds into a tiny square of material that can be worn as a backpack. Ar Vag isn’t meant for long adventures--rather, it’s a shuttle to take you from shore to a larger boat.

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Architecture: Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, London

Smiljan Radić is the fourteenth architect to accept the invitation to design a temporary Pavilion outside the entrance to the Serpentine Gallery in Kensington Gardens. His design follows Sou Fujimoto’s cloud-like structure which was visited by almost 200,000 people in 2013 and was one of the most visited Pavilions to-date.
Occupying a footprint of some 514 square metres on the lawn of the Serpentine Gallery, plans depict a semi-translucent, cylindrical structure of fibreglass, designed to resemble a shell, which rests on large quarry stones. This work has its roots in the architect’s earlier work, particularly The Castle of the Selfish Giant, inspired by the Oscar Wilde story and the Restaurant Mestizo – part of which is supported by large boulders.
The 2014 Pavilion is designed as a flexible, multi-purpose social space with a café sited inside. Visitors will be encouraged to enter and interact with the Pavilion in different ways throughout its four month tenure in the Park.