Megafon Pavilion at Sochi Olympics wins award at Media Architecture Biennale

The pavilion welcoming guests to the Sochi Winter Olympics in February is one of the five projects to be awarded with a prize at the Media Architecture Biennale this year. Megafaces, a joint project between London-based design company Asif Khan and Russian communications company Axis Moscow, walked away with the prize for “Trends and Prototypes” for its innovative pinscreen displaying selfies of visitors to the winter games.

Made up of 11,000 metal cylinders equipped with full colour LEDs, the screen displayed 3D faces of selfies taken during the Games. The selfies were either taken at one of the seven photo booths stationed near the pavilion or at booths that toured 30 Russian cities for those who couldn’t make it to Sochi.

Sponsored by Russian phone operator MegaFon, the eight-metre tall project was awarded with the innovation prize at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in June. Described by Tom Bedecarre, head of the panel of judges of the festival, as “a very dramatic piece of work”, the work was intended to be a prejudice-free monument, depicting a variety of faces regardless of age, nationality, sexuality or gender.