Picnic Under A Plastic Pillow

This fascinating outdoor pavilion was created by the designers of Overtreders W, an office based in Zaandam (a suburb of Amsterdam). Entitled ‘Het dak dat opgaat in rook’, or ‘The Roof That Goes Up In Smoke’, their piece of landscape art can house up to 40 picnicking people.

Overtreders W built the pavilion for this year’s Allerzielen.nu, an annual art festival to celebrate All Soul’s Day in the Dutch region of Noord-Brabant. The mobile building, which is meant to be a meeting place for sharing food and stories, consists of two large picnic tables, a floating pillow-like roof that provides shelter for the tables, and a wood stove. It was installed in three different locations in the south of Holland: at a graveyard in Roosendaal, at an institution for mental health in Biezenmortel and at a graveyard in Breda.

“The roof is blown up and lifted with hot air. The wood stove heating up the air is also the centre piece of the pavilion, to be used for making hot chocolate, roast chestnuts, pumpkin soup or jacket potatoes. The pavilion sits up to 40 people, and lights their picnic in the dark autumn night.”

While you are visiting the website of the designers anyway, please click through to the wicked plastic tree house that they built in 2007!