At first glance, this structure in Goa looks like something shaped by the earth itself. Soft curves rise gently against the coastline, forming a pavilion that blends into the landscape rather than standing apart from it. Visitors often slow down when they spot it, drawn by its unusual texture and warm terracotta colour. But what looks like a sculpted form from a distance reveals a surprising story when you move closer.

Walk toward the pavilion and its surface begins to reveal a familiar pattern. The walls are made from thousands of small terracotta cups stacked together. These arekulhads — the humble clay cups used across India to serve chai and buttermilk. For many people, they carry memories of railway platforms, roadside tea stalls, and quick chai breaks during travel.

Kulhads usually have a short life. After a cup of tea is finished, the clay vessel is often discarded. Made from natural earth, it slowly returns to the soil. Yet here in Goa, thousands of these everyday cups have found an unexpected second life, forming the very surface of a public pavilion.

The installation is called the Kulhad Pavilion, created by architecture studio Wallmakers. Known for working with natural materials and experimental forms, the team imagined how a simple object used across the country could become the building block of an architectural space.

The pavilion was designed for the Serendipity Arts Festival in Panjim, an annual celebration that transforms the city’s streets, riverfronts, and heritage spaces into open-air galleries for art, music, and performance.

For this installation, the architects gathered 18,000 terracotta kulhads. Each cup was carefully stacked and bonded together, slowly forming a textured outer layer that wraps around the structure.

Instead of creating solid walls, the stacked cups leave small openings throughout the surface. These tiny gaps allow light and breeze to pass through, giving the pavilion a breathable quality that feels especially welcome along Goa’s warm coastline.

The structure itself is shaped through three compressive catenary vaults, a form that allows the pavilion to hold its weight naturally. The flowing curves create a sense of movement, as though the structure is gently unfolding along the edge of the beach.

Inside, the pavilion opens into shaded pockets where visitors can sit, pause, and take in the surrounding view. Some people pass through while walking along the waterfront. Others stop for longer, using the space as a quiet resting point.

What makes the installation especially striking is the material itself. Terracotta is fragile, familiar, and deeply rooted in everyday Indian life. It is rarely associated with large architectural structures.

Yet when thousands of these cups come together, they create something unexpectedly strong. The kulhads, once used for a few minutes of chai, now form the very surface that gives the pavilion its identity.

The pavilion was also imagined as a place that belongs to more than just human visitors. Its open design allows animals to wander through, turning it into a small shared shelter within the coastal landscape.

Standing beneath its curved vaults, it becomes easy to notice how memory and material meet here. The same clay cups that once passed from tea stall vendors to travellers’ hands now shape a shared public space.

In a week full of fast images and faster scrolls, this one asks you to stop. To notice how beauty can emerge from what was once thrown away. And to see how design, in the right hands, can turn waste into wonder.

All images: Instagram / @architecturelab and @ar.vinudaniel

© The Better India