Seven kilometres of bamboo has been shipped to Melbourne’s Queen Victoria Gardens for this year’s MPavilion by Studio Mumbai.

Now in its third year, the annual commission is described as Australia’s answer to London’s Serpentine Pavilion.

Studio Mumbai’s 12-metre-tall edition sits atop a stone floor and is supported by canes imported from India. Thousands of wooden pegs and some 26km of rope hold the canopy – a woven roof made in collaboration with Indian craftsmen – together.

‘The structure’s quite ethereal… there’s a certain lightness to the building where it becomes luminescent,’ says the practice’s founder Bijoy Jain.

Studio Mumbai also constructed a ceremonial tower near the pavilion’s entrance that echoes forms found in traditional Indian architecture.

The Naomi Milgrom Foundation, which supports public design and architecture, oversees the commission, which is set to conclude next year.

Last year’s pavilion – a canopy of translucent petals supported by slender columns – was created by Amanda Levete Architects, the same practice behind Lisbon’s newly opened Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology.

Studio Mumbai’s pavilion will host a programme of talks, workshops and performances from October to February 2017.

‘MPavilion is a space for the people of Melbourne to gather, talk, think and to reflect,’ adds Jain.

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