A striking pavilion made entirely from weathered wood salvaged from abandoned Norwegian farm buildings has opened at the Copenhagen Architecture Biennial, showcasing the untapped potential of reclaimed materials in modern architecture. The installation, called "Barn Again," was designed and constructed by British practice THISS Studio in collaboration with architectural designer Tom Svilans, using materials that would otherwise have been destined for burning or landfill sites.

Located at Gammel Strand in the Danish capital, the pavilion serves a dual purpose as both a meditative retreat for the public and a powerful demonstration of sustainable building practices. The structure is one of two installations selected through the biennial's Slow Pavilions open call, which specifically sought designs responding to the event's central theme of "Slow Down." The companion pavilion, "Inside Out, Downside Up" by architecture studio Slaatto Morsbøl, similarly employs reclaimed materials including perforated bricks.

The reclaimed wood boards that form Barn Again's structure each tell their own story through heavy texturing and markings accumulated over decades of use. "You'll see markings from when they were originally made with what they call the carpenter's marks, and all sorts of little details that tell their story from who knows what past they've had," explained Svilans. These weathered boards showcase both natural weathering and evidence of human activity from their previous agricultural lives.

The pavilion's distinctive form directly references the way the materials arrived from Norway, stacked and layered on pallets. The boards are arranged in a stepped, overlapping pattern that rises to create a tunneling roof structure, designed to feel like a cocooning environment where city visitors can find respite from urban bustle. This spatial arrangement enhances the natural texture of the aged wood while creating an intimate, sheltering atmosphere.

"The building materials that we need to build now already exist, and we need to find them and work with them," said THISS Studio co-founder Tamsin Hanke. "For me, this has been the prevailing message." This philosophy drives the project's mission to highlight the abundance of existing materials available worldwide and demonstrate their structural and aesthetic potential in contemporary architecture.

THISS Studio co-founder Sash Scott emphasized the pavilion's role as an urban sanctuary. "Spatially, it will feel like a real moment of pause to the city, because you're surrounded by all this timber, all this history," Scott explained. "It's going to be a very, very calming space. It's going to smell great, it's going to feel great. I really hope that the public will come and they will meditate on the lifespan of those individual pieces of timber."

The pavilion's lifecycle continues the sustainable ethos that inspired its creation. After the biennial concludes, Barn Again will be carefully dismantled and repurposed elsewhere, though the exact future site remains to be determined. THISS Studio describes this approach as "a temporary interruption in the supply chain," with Hanke noting that "this is just a storage until it goes through to its next site."

The Copenhagen Architecture Biennial, running from September 18 to October 19, 2025, represents the inaugural event organized by the Copenhagen Architecture Foundation (CAFx) under the direction of Josephine Michau. Michau has positioned the biennial as a platform for addressing global challenges exacerbated by the built environment, stating "It's time for activism. I see ourselves as maybe more 'soft activists', but we really want to push for change." The event aims to offer practical solutions and inspire sustainable practices within the architecture and design community.