Counterspace's Transdisciplinary Architecture: Sumayya Vally's Serpentine Pavilion

Sumayya Vally, at 29 the youngest architect ever to design the Serpentine Pavilion, completed the 20th edition in 2021 after a pandemic delay. Her studio Counterspace, founded in Johannesburg, blends architecture with artistic research, installations, film, and performance. Growing up between Laudium township and her grandfather's shop in Johannesburg, Vally explored the city's margins, testing scales and media to connect territories and people. Her thesis on mining dumps became a Chicago Architecture Biennial exhibition, a mirror installation, and a mixed-use building at Crown Mines. Conversation Rooms evolved from a kit for meeting spaces to the Brixton mosque, mixing geometries from different eras and cultures. For the Serpentine Pavilion, Vally researched London archives to find significant migrant community sites, translating markets, places of worship, shops, and libraries into a composition of niches and seating under a 10-meter-diameter, 7-meter-high circular canopy. The pavilion encourages diverse modes of encounter and extends into the city with four fragments installed in Notting Hill, Barking, Finsbury Park, and Deptford, featuring seating, lecterns, and shelves. Vally was named by Time as one of the 100 future leaders.