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    SelgasCano’s kaleidoscopic Serpentine Pavilion is coming to LA

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    Selgascano’s candy-coloured Serpentine Pavilion is set to make its Los Angeles debut at the La Brea Tar Pits this summer, where it will host film screenings, talks and music.
    Workspace innovator Second Home has purchased and reopened the pavilion, ahead of launching its first US outpost in Hollywood later this summer. It will be hosting a programme of events in the whimsical tunnel, which will explore everything from diversity in entrepreneurship to discussions around how LA can become more sustainable.
    The 2015 Serpentine Pavilion installed at London’s Kensington Gardens. Photography: Iwan Baan
    Spanish studio SelgasCano designed the iridescent structure back in 2015 for the Serpentine Galleries’ yearly pavilion commission. The Spaces contributor Jonathan Bell described it as ‘a riotously colourful composition, sprawling across the lawn with four distinct tentacle-like entrance tunnels and windows’.
    Second Home will open the pavilion to the public on 28 June.
    Read next: Why pavilions are the new collector’s items More

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      Could Second Home help reinvigorate west London’s creative community?

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      Photography: Iwan BaanAs London’s creative centre shifts ever further east, Second Home has chosen an unexpected location for its next space: the well-heeled residential enclave of Holland Park.
      The workspace innovator has commandeered the former home of legendary 1960s fashion photographer John Cowan. Working with SelgasCano – who designed Second Home’s first space in Spitalfields and the brand’s Lisbon outpost – it has created a colourful, plant-filled base spanning 12,000 sq ft for its community of creative entrepreneurs.

      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Photography: Iwan Baan

      Second Home Holland Park might be an entirely new breed of workspace for the area but, with Olympicopolis vying to tilt London’s creative epicentre towards Stratford, why is the group seeking to buck the trend?
      ‘It’s really unhelpful when a city becomes too imbalanced,’ says cofounder Rohan Silva. ‘For a long time it was the east that was neglected [in terms of creative investment], and now it’s the west. I think that will change.’
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Holland Park may be synonymous with stucco-fronted Georgian mansions, but it’s also home to the new Design Museum and is fringed by the HQs of fashion mega brands including Stella McCartney and Monsoon. Victoria Beckham is moving her empire to Hammersmith, just down the road, while over in neighbouring White City, the BBC’s old Television Centre is being transformed into homes, broadcasting studios, a Soho House outpost and 255,000 sq ft of workspace.
      Second Home Holland Park sets a high benchmark for the latter. Beneath the structure’s soaring trussed roof is a small forest of 35 trees, which swoop their way around curvaceous desks and glass office cocoons. Richard Rogers designed walkways for the building when it served as his HQ in the 1980s, which SelgasCano have retained, while adding new skylights to the roof and uniting the cluster of volumes with Second Home’s characteristic colour scheme.
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      ‘We want to help business escape the bland corporate cubicle,’ says Silva. ‘We care about architecture because we believe it helps businesses grow. Google are spending £1bn on their headquarters at King’s Cross because they know that it will help them win the war for talent. We’re trying to level that playing field… help small teams do better.’
      Among Second Home Holland Park’s new residents are Sharmadean Reid, founder of WAH Nails; music company TenWest; recruitment innovator Nurole; and new streaming app Marquee Arts TV.
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Second Home curates this mix carefully, in order to help teams forge business relationships and create opportunities for growth. ‘We’ve found that 75% of teams at Second Home are doing business with other people in the community, which is very high,’ Silva explains. ‘The architecture really helps that because you can see everyone else.’
      So will Holland Park experience a creative resurgence? The cost of space in the area remains a critical factor – and one that’s reflected in the Second Home pricing.
      Flexible ‘roaming’ membership cost £450 per month in Holland Park, compared to £375 in Spitalfields. As Design Museum director Deyan Sudjic joked at the opening, ‘It’s oddly appropriate that Second Home – which began life in Brick Lane – has now set up somewhere where there really are people with second homes.’ But the group’s new workspace certainly fills a gap for west London’s creative community and could be a catalyst for growth.
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Read next: Could London’s wild west offer artists a new home? More

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      Second Home’s Rohan Silva on the Lisbon tech boom – and his plans for expansion

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      Second Home co-founder Rohan Silva. Courtesy of Second HomeWorkspace innovator Second Home has announced it will invest an eight-figure sum in a second Lisbon base, a 6,000sq m space spread over three buildings due to open in 2019.
      The second hub will be five times larger than company’s existing Lisbon venue and will cater for both global companies looking for a Portuguese base and to local firms, with spaces ranging from communal shared desks to large private studios.
      Second Home Lisboa opened inside the 19th-century Mercado da Ribeira earlier this year. Photography: Iwan Baan
      ‘Lisbon is moving from a start-up phase to a scale-up economy,’ says Second Home co-founder Rohan Silva. ‘To date the focus in the city has been on providing infrastructure, training and funding to startups but now it’s time to build an ecosystem that supports growth. Our second space is part of that next step for the city.’
      Portugal’s economy expanded 3% in the second quarter of 2017, compared with the same period in 2016 and unemployment is now 8.5%, below the EU average. The city’s start-up kudos also continues to grow. This month’s WebSummit tech conference, which brought the equivalent of €200 million in revenue to Lisbon in 2015, attracted more than 62,000 attendees and is helping to drive Lisbon onto the international corporate radar. Mercedes Benz, VICE and Volkswagen are just some of the companies now based at Second Home in Lisbon and the company has already secured interest from ‘one of the world’s biggest high street retailers’ for its next Lisbon office, says Silva.
      Second Home Lisboa designed by SelgasCano. The group’s second Lisbon outpost will also be designed by the Spanish firm. Photography: Iwan Baan
      The firm will work with its regular architect, Spanish firm SelgasCano, on the project, which will also include a restaurant, a 200-seat venue for talks and events and a Portuguese and English language bookshop, all open to the public.
      ‘There are outdoor spaces and courtyards and we are planting trees. We want to keep the same design ethos of biophilia and lots of natural light. It’s going to be a campus that feels like real oasis.’

      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Photography: Iwan Baan

      Rising property prices in Lisbon are helping to drive companies towards shared spaces: since the nadir of 2012, the price of property in the city has increased by 35%. In upmarket suburb of Chiado, you can now expect to pay around €10,000 per sq metre, though the average in the city is closer to €2,500 per sq metre.
      ‘In five years’ time Lisbon won’t be the fashionable city that it is today but I think it will continue to be a city where companies and people can be successful and innovative,’ says Silva. ‘We need to use this moment of attention to focus on making the city structurally better, a place where global companies can land and grow but also where there is fair, equal access to opportunity for the people who live here.’
      The new Lisbon space will be the company’s seventh: a fourth London office opens next year and a Los Angeles venue launches in the first quarter of 2019.
      Read next: 5 Lisbon properties for sale with commercial potential More

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      Selgascano designs the ‘no-phone’ Libreria bookstore in London for Second Home

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      A new east London bookstore designed by Selgascano is looking to beat the age of Kindle by banning mobile phones and tablets.
      Libreria – the latest venture by Rohan Silva and Sam Aldenton, founders of co-working space Second Home – draws inspiration from Argentinian author Jorge Luis Borges’ ‘The Library of Babel’, a short story that imagines the universe as a library.
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Selgascano wanted to recapture the tale’s fantastical world by installing irregular-shaped, floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, made seemingly endless thanks to mirrored ceilings.
      ‘Libreria has been years in the making – we believe in the value of books and literature and have wanted to do this for a long time,’ said Silva. ‘Across industries we are seeing a return to physical, material things and a fresh appreciation of craftsmanship. These things are not being killed by the digital; they are being given new life.’
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      The bookshelves have been hand-built by students from the Slade School of Fine Art using recycled wood. Artist Dr Cato created bespoke lamps for the project while Selgascano cherry-picked a selection of mismatching chairs.
      Conceived as an analogue sanctuary, Libreria has a printing press to publish limited editions of titles and bring authors on board to curate some of its book selections. The store will also put on a programme of seminars and performances in conjunction with Second Home, just next door on Hanbury Street.
      Photography: Iwan Baan
      Libreria’s director Sally Davies told Dezeen: ‘We’ve reached a cultural tipping point, I think, where people are becoming aware of the costs of being constantly digitally connected – and instead crave experiences that are tangible, human, immersive.’
      Selgascano, who designed last year’s Serpentine Pavilion, also worked with Second Home on its Hanbury Street co-working space. More

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      in Resort & Second Home

      Second Home is buying the 2015 Serpentine Pavilion

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      Co-working pioneer Second Home is set to snap up this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, designed by Spanish practice Selgascano.
      Rohan Silva – Second Home’s co-founder and a former government technology advisor – told Business Insider UK that he is paying a six-figure sum for the candy-coloured pavilion, which opened in Hyde Park this week.
      The co-working group – whose Shoreditch space is also designed by Selgascano – revealed what it has in store for its acquisition. ‘We’re taking it to LA next year, and hosting a brilliant new programme of visual arts and live performances,’ it said via its Instagram.

      Silva will work with LA-based arts advocate Bettina Korek to put on cultural events inside the venue.
      ‘We really hope this will make cities more liveable and creative,’ Silva told Business Insider UK. ‘The idea over the years is to take it to other cities as well.’
      The 2015 Serpentine Pavilion, open to the public until mid-October, will be shipped to LA in 2016.
      Selgascano’s design is not the only pavilion to get a second home. Last year’s edition, designed by Smiljan Radic, is now a fixture at Hauser & Wirth’s Somerset gallery, while the 2012 pavilion by Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei has taken up residence in Surrey’s Alderbrook Park. Some have travelled to sunnier climes, including Toyo Ito’s 2002 creation, which now sits in the grounds of a beachside hotel in Nice, France. More