Wong-Wai Pui with Arup

The Lift ‘Global’ Parliament
a new mobile meeting and performance space

Like a Chinese Dragon dance, and to the thumping beat of drums, a team of dancers carry between them a ‘Serpent’ of large linked triangular plates. They
thread through the streets of Stratford to the cheers of onlookers; Lift ‘Global’ Parliament has arrived.

With children running between their legs, the dancers make their way along The Greenway to the new Olympic Park, where to the beat of a different rhythm the serpent begins to coil into itself. Hinged, the plates rise upwards into the air, and systematically begins to form a large dome to the excitement of all. This is what
they have imagined. From disparate pieces a magical place is given to them. For the next two weeks it will be their community hall, court-room, soap box, stage; a place to discuss, debate, learn, and play.

This is just one possible scenario, it should not be a mere shell, it should be alive, it should be a performance in its own right. It should be symbolic and offer status in its confines, yet it should also be democratic in how it functions and performs as a building. The name Lift ‘Global’ refers to not only its odd spherical form but also to its ambition to communicate, reach out, and be part of the context of its host country; the self-supporting triangulated skin allows this flexibility.

Public participation will test all possible scenarios. In concept it is uniquely flexible, but it will not be everything to everyone. Through consultation with end
users, we will aim for a set of layouts which will ensure its popularity by community users and professional performers alike.

Crucially, consultation will be more than just identifying individual user groups to serve. Lift Global Parliament is seen as a facility that will travel the world, and as
such we are interested in what messages Lift Global can take with it.

We propose a children’s poetry workshop, to create messages of goodwill, perhaps in the various languages that make up today‘s Britain. The best will be chosen, for etching onto one side of the triangular skin.

In its other guise of the Serpent stretched out along the ground, our hosts will be invited to read and touch these messages, whilst their own work and
performances will be displayed on the other side.

Its ability to unravel and stand partially constructed, offers exciting opportunities to writers and users. This innovation allows the building to become part of a
narrative, or perhaps in a slow unravelling, the set could expand to encompass and appropriate the immediate context of its site. In our ambition the world is indeed a stage.