Bamboo Pagoda, a temporary scaffolding pavilion on Macau's Sai Van Lake

Anyone who has walked past a Macau building site will know the sight of bamboo poles lashed into towering scaffolds. That craft was added to the city's Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2017, and local practice Impromptu Projects, led by Rita Machado and João Ó, has borrowed it for something gentler: a 13-metre temporary pavilion on the shore of Sai Van Lake, meant as a place to pause and look.

The form nods to classical pagodas and Taoist ideas of balance, rising from an octagonal footprint that narrows as it climbs. Slender bamboo culms make up the visible structure, tied using traditional scaffolding lashing by Seng Kei Pang Chong. Around them hangs a semi-translucent bamboo fabric that softens the daylight and blurs the outline. Underfoot, the floor panels come from Macau firm CHAZENCE and are made from recycled tea waste and discarded wood chips, while solar panels run the spotlights without drawing on the city grid.

The project reached designboom through its reader submissions, so this is essentially the studio's own account. It's a temporary piece of only 25 square metres and no dates are given, so check it's still standing before you head to the lakefront. Worth a detour for anyone curious about how everyday craft can become architecture.

Our summary of a story from designboom, published 1 November 2026. Read the original