A low-lying acrylic box glows in the woods outside Madrid like a futuristic polytunnel. Half submerged in the forest floor, it is an unlikely container in which to find an architecture office – particularly one that’s working on projects from Stockholm to Los Angeles. But then Selgas Cano, the Spanish firm chosen to design next year’s Serpentine Gallery summer pavilion, are no ordinary architects.
“We think nature should take precedence over architecture,” says José Selgas, who founded the practice with his wife, Lucía Cano, in 1998. “We try to hide the presence of our architecture as much as possible. In fact, people are sometimes upset when we finish a project because they are expecting something more visible.”
