New, circular roof shelter: LILY creates meeting places

In collaboration with MASU Planning, we have now developed LILY, a new roof shelter which, with its elegant silhouette and organic design, creates light and airy spaces under cover, even in the city’s smallest squares.

LILY provides shelter with a circular roof that is angled in relation to the supporting column. The column is positioned at the rear of the canopy, thereby creating space for people to gather without having to stand around a post.

Landscape architect Sune Oslev explains that LILY was originally created for one of MASU Planning’s own projects.

“The aim was to create a shelter that would encourage informal stays in urban and park spaces, providing shelter and a sense of intimacy, much like sitting under a tree. Traditional shelters can be quite formal, with four corners and a large, square roof, and for this project we needed something lighter, smaller and more unobtrusive. LILY is on a scale that allows it to be used even in quite small urban spaces,” he says.

The round roof canopy is available in two sizes – Ø2000 mm and Ø3000 mm. This makes it ideal to use several LILY shelters in groups.

“LILY creates space and encourages people to linger. The column’s positioning means it can be placed behind a seating area or along the side of a space. It is designed not to take up too much space, which, for us, makes LILY a highly versatile canopy. The structure is optimised for maximum strength using the minimum amount of material,” explains Sune.

MASU Planning undertakes projects throughout Scandinavia, which is why LILY has also been developed in a ‘Nordic’ version, where the column is positioned closer to the centre so that the canopy can withstand winter weather and snow loads.

The four tubes of the column radiate out from beneath the roof like the veins of a giant leaf. This gives the shelter its delicate, organic appearance and also its name. LILY is named after the water lily.