Serpentine's spinning top design

The pavilion will host films, talks and performances

A pavilion resembling a giant spinning top has been designed to stand beside the Serpentine Gallery in London.

Creator Olafur Eliasson was behind the hugely popular life-like foggy sunset at the Tate Modern art gallery.

The Danish-born artist and Norwegian architect Kjetil Thorsen, unveiled their joint design in Kensington Gardens, central London, on Wednesday.

Work on the temporary structure, which will host performances, talks and films, is due to begin next month.

Every year since 2000 an architect has been commissioned to create a temporary pavilion which plays host to a summer programme of events.

Spatial experimentation

Previous designers have included British architect Zaha Hadid, Daniel Libeskind and the balloon-like structure last year by designers Rem Koolhaas and Cecil Balmond.

Visitors to the new pavilion will be able to climb a wide, spiralling ramp to a viewing floor between July and October or sample the events programme.

Mr Eliasson and Mr Thorsen said: "Our collaboration on the Serpentine Pavilion 2007 is defined by our mutual focus on the experience of space and on temporality as a constitutive element of spaces, private or public.

"We both work within a field of spatial experimentation that renders conceptual differences between art and architecture superfluous."