First Place Winner
Gathering Matter
Design by
Tom Chauvet & Matéo Marquette
A compelling proposal that transforms the pavilion into a participatory urban process, where construction itself becomes a social ritual, strongly rooted in local culture and public life.
Tom Chauvet & Matéo Marquette
Matéo Marquette and Tom Chauvet are two French fourth-year architecture students. Matéo, 22, studies at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Montpellier (ENSAM), while Tom, 21, studies at the École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture de Grenoble (ENSAG).
They met during an academic exchange in Montevideo, Uruguay, and have been collaborating for about a year. Studying at different schools and within different territorial contexts gives them complementary perspectives on architecture. Tom mainly focuses on 3D modelling, while Matéo works more extensively on visual representation and architectural renderings. Their collaboration is driven by continuous dialogue and the productive exchange of different viewpoints.
They advocate for a social, accessible and non-elitist architecture that brings people together and creates opportunities for encounter, exchange and collective use. Context, landscape, local resources, materials and everyday practices play a central role in their design approach.
With Gathering Matter, they propose a temporary, evolving and participatory pavilion on Montevideo’s Rambla. Its structure is designed to be gradually transformed by local residents through collective workshops using spent yerba mate as a local, bio-based resource. The project explores how architecture can become a collective process rather than simply a finished object.
They intend to continue their collaboration through future competitions and shared projects.
Celebrating Creativity & Vision
Winner’s Spotlight: An Exclusive Interview
Discover the story behind the victory — from concept to creation.
Concept & Interpretation
The Temporary Urban Pavilion 2026 Competition challenged participants to reimagine temporary architecture as a catalyst for urban activation and experimentation. What was the central idea behind your proposal, and how did you interpret the competition theme within your architectural vision?
The central idea of Gathering Matter was to shift the pavilion from a finished architectural object to a collective urban process. We chose the Rambla because it is the living heart of Montevideo: a long coastal public space where people walk, meet, pause and share maté. Our field observations and survey also revealed a need for more places that allow people to stay, find shade, take shelter and meet informally.
Rather than imposing a complete object on this landscape, we imagined a light, open and initially empty structure that could be transformed over time by its users. Inhabitants would collect and transform spent yerba maté, then use this familiar local resource to produce elements for walls and furniture through participatory workshops. The act of building therefore becomes the pavilion's programme.
We interpreted temporary architecture not simply as architecture with a short lifespan, but as architecture that can remain open to change, movement and collective authorship. Our guiding idea was: “We do not propose to equip the Rambla. We propose that the Rambla equips itself.”
Activating Public Space
At the heart of this competition was the idea of transforming everyday urban environments through temporary interventions. How does your pavilion engage with its surroundings, encourage public interaction, and create meaningful experiences within the city?
The pavilion is designed as a quiet extension of the Rambla rather than a landmark that interrupts it. Its lightweight frame remains open to the sea, the horizon, the wind and the everyday flows of pedestrians. It preserves the visual continuity of the waterfront while introducing places to pause, work, sit and gather.
Public interaction is encouraged through gradual participation rather than through a fixed event programme. The pavilion can first exist as an empty frame, then become a workshop where people collect, mix, mould and assemble material, and finally become an inhabited place made of walls and furniture produced by the community. A person may take part by building, but may also simply observe, rest, talk or share maté.
This sequence gives meaning to the intervention because the experience is not limited to occupying a completed space. The relationships created while making it are equally important. The pavilion becomes a record of successive gestures, and an everyday residue becomes both a building resource and a form of collective memory.
Temporary Architecture & Adaptability
Temporary structures must be flexible, efficient, and responsive. How did you approach the pavilion's adaptability, ease of construction, materiality, and potential for relocation or reuse while maintaining a strong architectural identity?
Adaptability begins with a clear separation between a reusable supporting structure and elements that can evolve. The main frame is conceived in lightweight, demountable aluminium so that it can be assembled efficiently, taken apart and moved to different points along the Rambla. Its open framework can receive different quantities and configurations of walls, filters, furniture and workshop equipment according to the site and moment.
The architecture therefore does not depend on one final composition. Its identity comes from the contrast between a precise, repeatable structural frame and the variable matter gradually added by inhabitants. Even when relocated or reconfigured, this relationship remains recognisable.
Dry assembly and modular components reduce the need for a permanent intervention and make repair, replacement and reuse possible. The project also accepts transformation as part of its identity: weathering, new contributions and changing uses are not treated as failures, but as visible stages in the life of a temporary urban structure.
Human Experience & Social Interaction
Public pavilions are ultimately designed for people. How did you consider user experience, accessibility, inclusivity, and opportunities for gathering, interaction, or cultural exchange within your proposal?
We approached human experience through different degrees of participation. The pavilion does not demand that everyone use it in the same way. Someone can cross it, sit in the shade, watch a workshop, share a maté, have a conversation or directly contribute to making a wall or a piece of furniture. This progression allows interaction to emerge without forcing it.
The structure is conceived as open, legible and connected to the continuous public ground of the Rambla, without a single controlled entrance or a predetermined type of user. The construction activities rely on simple, understandable gestures so that knowledge can be shared rather than reserved for specialists. Participation can also be collective and intergenerational, linking inhabitants, students, craftspeople and visitors.
Inclusivity, for us, also means recognising that meaningful public life includes both active exchange and quiet presence. The pavilion supports gathering, but it also leaves room for observation, rest and individual appropriation within a shared setting.
Innovation & Architectural Expression
The competition encouraged experimental thinking and bold architectural ideas. What aspects of your design do you consider the most innovative, and how do they challenge conventional approaches to temporary architecture?
The most innovative aspect of Gathering Matter is not a spectacular form, but a reversal of the conventional relationship between architecture and its users. A temporary pavilion is usually designed, completed and delivered to the public. In our proposal, it arrives unfinished, and this incompleteness is its main quality. Users become contributors and the construction process becomes the cultural and social programme.
The project also connects two meanings of gathering: gathering people and gathering matter. Spent yerba maté, an abundant residue of a daily Uruguayan ritual, is collected and explored as a local bio-based construction resource. The same gesture that normally creates a social circle around maté is extended into a collective act of building.
This approach challenges the idea that architectural identity must come from a fixed image. Here, identity emerges from a stable framework, a culturally meaningful material and the traces of those who participate. The pavilion is less an isolated object than an evolving agreement between structure, place, matter and community.
Sustainability & Material Strategy
Temporary architecture can also be environmentally responsible. How did you incorporate sustainability into your proposal through material selection, construction methods, environmental performance, circular design principles, or resource efficiency?
Our sustainability strategy combines reuse, locality, reversibility and material experimentation. The aluminium frame is designed to be dismantled, transported, repaired and reused rather than discarded after a single installation. Its lightness limits the amount of permanent construction required on the Rambla and allows the pavilion to respond to different sites over time.
The infill and furniture explore spent yerba maté as a bio-based resource. This residue is produced every day in large quantities and carries a strong relationship to Uruguayan culture. Through local collection and participatory transformation workshops, the proposal imagines a short cycle in which waste becomes matter, matter becomes architecture and construction becomes social exchange.
We present this material strategy as a field of research rather than as an already certified building system. Further prototypes and tests would be necessary to establish its mechanical behaviour, durability, reaction to humidity and fire performance, particularly in a coastal environment. The temporary pavilion is precisely an opportunity to test these questions at a controlled scale while avoiding the disposable logic often associated with temporary construction.
Designing for the Contemporary City
Cities are constantly evolving, requiring spaces that can respond to changing social and cultural needs. How does your pavilion reflect the dynamic nature of urban environments, and what role do you believe temporary interventions play in shaping more vibrant and resilient cities?
Contemporary cities change faster than many permanent spaces can respond. Gathering Matter reflects this condition by remaining moveable, reconfigurable and deliberately unfinished. It can occupy different points of the Rambla, adapt its degree of enclosure, receive new uses and evolve through the contributions of different groups. Its programme is therefore not fixed once and for all.
We believe temporary interventions can act as reversible urban tests. Before investing in a permanent solution, a city can observe where people stop, what forms of shelter are useful, which activities attract participation and how a space is appropriated over time. Temporary architecture can make these needs visible while keeping the possibility of correction.
Resilience is not only technical; it is also the capacity of a city to learn from its inhabitants and mobilise local knowledge and resources. By combining a reusable structure, a local residue and collective making, the pavilion proposes a small but adaptable framework through which the city can test new relationships between public space, material cycles and civic participation.
The Future of Temporary Urban Architecture
Looking ahead, how do you see temporary architecture influencing the future of cities? What opportunities do you believe experimental pavilions offer architects, communities, and urban planners in testing new ideas and reimagining public space?
We see the future of temporary urban architecture in its ability to operate as a full-scale laboratory between research and everyday public life. Because these interventions are limited, reversible and adaptable, they can test materials, construction methods, programmes and forms of participation without pretending to provide an immediate universal solution.
For architects, experimental pavilions offer the possibility of observing how an idea changes when it encounters climate, use and time. For communities, they can create a direct role in shaping public space rather than limiting inhabitants to consultation or passive use. For urban planners, they can reveal needs and behaviours before longer-term decisions are made.
However, temporary architecture should not become disposable architecture. Its value lies in what can be reused, transmitted and learned: components, skills, data, relationships and new habits of cooperation. In this sense, a pavilion can disappear physically while continuing to influence future projects. Gathering Matter proposes that the most lasting part of temporary architecture may be the collective capacity it helps to build.
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