Towers, walkways, decks, cabins and tree houses. Since 2010, the Hello Wood Festival has erected dozens of temporary constructions, with one common denominator: wood. The initiative aims to make knowledge about this material more accessible to everyone, as it has immense potential for the future. However, despite its potential, wood still faces various prejudices within the construction industry. Through the connection between designers and artists from different cultural, academic and professional backgrounds, the event uses construction as a platform for innovation, discussion and knowledge. It offers participants the unique opportunity to experiment with sustainable design and construction methods, encouraging learning through experience, held in a forested area near Budapest, Hungary.
After a three-year break, the event returns in July 2023 curated and lectured by renowned professionals, including Karim Rashid and Burning Man designer Arthur Mamou-Mani. The festival will also include workshops, lectures, and cultural events that aim to encourage the exploration of new ideas, with a commitment to sustainability and conscious building.
This year, the event explores the relationship between intervention and naturalness, demolition and construction, with a focus on the ecological circumstances of the region –an abandoned quarry in the Haláp Mountains. The organizers intend to reflect on the contradiction that the production of building materials requires demolition, which is especially relevant in the current context of pandemics, wars, economic crises, and global warming. The topic is not only relevant from an architectural point of view, but also from a social perspective. Below, we present a retrospective of projects that sum up the festival's mission well:
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Team leaders: Juhász Ákos, Eke Dániel (HU)
Team: Kata Bóta, Milán Bokor, Lucas Facer, Katalin Gencsi, Kylén Eeva, Guilherme Leick, Anna Petrovicz, Róbert Tóth
This time around, the challenge from the organizers was to "play with balance", which generated ideas that investigated the balance between opposing concepts. Set in the bucolic fields of Csórompuszta in the Hungarian countryside, this site-specific installation soared over the cornfield facing the sunset. The work was created from ordinary repeating A-frames of gradually changing length. It created a prominent feature on the sloped site until it completely merged in with the tall crops.
Inventory (2016, Project Village)
Team leaders: András Cseh, Endre Ványolós, Áron Vass-Eysen
Team: Florian Gabriel, Maelys Garreau, Panna Petró, Emese Burista, Máté Jambrik, Bianka Bíró, Mercedes Palacio
2016 was the second year of Project Village, a three-year-long quest challenging participants to build their very own settlement, the rural campus for the summer school of Hello Wood. The ‘Inventory’ project marked the event of arrival through mundane yet iconic material proofs. Placed by the entrance on the edge of the campus, it awaited the campers to pass through both ways, leaving one world behind and gearing up for the adventures to come.
Project Villa (2016, Project Village 2)
Team leaders: Áron Baki, Csongor Egyed, Máté Gadolla, Márton Kőműves, Ákos Szabó, Ákos Takács (BuildunBuilt)
Team: Pablo González Serna, Marta Zabik, Sylvia Winter, Angela Recasens Estrada, Yushi Zhang, Aleksandra Sudnikovich, Anna Raczynska, Makai Luca
The Buildunbuilt team’s interests lay in the question of contemporary housing and the relevance and future of prototyping. They pursued extensive research on the local history of prototyping as a technology for facilitating and defining social and aesthetic change. Project Villa was the first prototype house in the history of the camp and it also functioned as a lookout spot. Those who climbed to the top were able to take in a stunning panoramic view of the surrounding countryside.
I am a monument (2017, Project Village 3)
Team leaders: Josep Garriga Tarres, Patxi Martin, Natalia Vera Vigaray (OfficeShophouse)
Team: Aloutsanidis Vasilis, Lance Macadangdang, Rogier Tamminga, Hena Wang, Darya Moatazed-Keivani, Berta Ballestin, Lara Gonzalez, Pyeori Jung, Charlotte Cocking, Zhao Zhou, Fábián Villányi, Ruairidh Murdock, Gabrielle Sanchez, Trevor McClelland
‘I am a monument’ was a new take on the Project Villa from the previous Hello Wood camp. A roof and an upper floor with side walls have been built onto the existing stilts providing shade and refuge. The builders used their own ideas to improve the existing structure while they also respected its original features. This approach is in line with the architectural principle which states that a building is never finished –over time it is always transformed according to the needs of those using and renovating it. The name honors the previous builders’ efforts.
The Tower (2017, Project Village 3)
Team leaders: Bence Pásztor, Dávid Tarcali, Soma Pongor (Studio Nomad)
Team: Claudio Parada Nunes, Paula Prkacin, Sandra Przepiórkowska, Botond Gazda, Josef Vild, Josine Vos, Sabrah Islam, Riccardo Gialloreto, Ádám Tóth, Anna Smołko
This archetypical work was a symbol of continuity in time and space connecting the past and the present. When climbing the viewing tower, one could not only see the Hello Wood campsite with its new structures from that year but also glance back at Csórompuszta, the former site of the Project Village. It also preserved the past: the shape of the top of the tower was reminiscent of chimneys in the village, and wood from earlier projects was also built in it.
Hello Wool (2018, Cabinfever)
Team leaders: Lukács Szederkényi and Dénes Emil Ghyczy (AU Workshop), Marton Low
Team: Dóra Riederauer, Márk Winkler, Alžběta Brůhová, Harriet Dyke, Lenneke Slangen, Tina Peirlinck
Cabinfever was one of the most memorable Hello Wood festivals, also launching the tiny house craze in Hungary. ‘Hello Wool’ was a metal-clad, wool-insulated cabin specially designed for use by one person –a space for getting away from it all and getting lost in your thoughts. Two layers of wool covered the retreat, so that the inner layer always stayed dry and free of insects. Wool is an excellent insulating material for keeping out both the heat and cold. The tin-roofed building has been designed so that the warm air of the rooftop area escapes via a chimney-like vent and the tiny holes in the wood panels around it.
Treehouse (2018, Cabinfever)
Team leaders: Pascal Deschenaux, Aziz Temel, Francesco Borghini (Frundgallina)
Team: Maria Victoria Gracia, Miranda Rigby, Kam Lai Man, Nguyen Hoang Minh, Jack Bowen, Igor Nesterov, Katarina Martonakova, Hugh Gibbs, Evgeny Makarenko, Nanu Youttananukorn, Anna Varga-Kardos, Karolina Krzyzanowska, Alice Kim, Laia Bramona Collet, Fruzsina Karig
An iconic feature in Csóromfölde that still watches over the area, the Treehouse is a haven and functions as a lighthouse for lost travelers. It is the small details –such as the closed and tilted angles of the sides– that define the final look. The inward-leaning triangular walls significantly reduce the interior space in the cabin, so the only way of expanding the living space was to increase the height of the building. Although the building is open on the ground floor, the upper sections are accessible only by a ladder, completely closing it off so weary travelers can find solitude and escape the weather outside.
Tűzvíznéző (2018, Hungarian Gathering)
Team leaders: Tamás Bene, Áron Vass-Eysen
Team: Bence Dobos, Veronika Róza Háló, Fanni Hegyi, Lehel Heim, Kitti Krusinszky, Evelin Murczin, Kíra Eszter Szabolcs, Dávid Székely, ImreSzűcs
Hello Wood held the Hungarian Gathering of 2018 in the Tokaj wine region. The program, which brought together 10 educational institutions from Hungary, saw universities build wooden installations in 8 towns in the region over the course of a week.
The MOME project was completed in Bodrogkisfalu, where many former inhabitants used to collect wood for their livelihoods. Today, a dam separates the village from the river Bodrog and the rainwater harvesting pond has been abandoned. The students built a resting spot on this pond: they placed floating wooden structures in the mud that hold an elliptical deck with a fireplace made of chamotte bricks. The installation, made of traditional local materials, reconnects the river and the small lake to the fabric of the village.
We Mask (2019, Carnival)
Team leaders: Natalia Vera Vigaray, Patxi Martin, Josep Garriga Tarres (Office Shophouse), Alžběta Brůhová, Tina Peirlinck
Team: Leva Davulyte, Lucie Blanchot, Charnjeev Kang, Daniel Menšík
WeMask was a performative structure that relies on its participants –who hold up the straw roof– to achieve its vision of collectiveness. Only then the cone becomes a structure, a representation of how a community must work together to achieve its goals. In addition to this message, the team behind the project was also devoted to sustainable construction, with the roof constructed solely of materials gathered on-site and without the use of any electrical tools.
Ginga (2020, Superposición - Argentina)
Workshop leaders: Giovanna Taques, Guilherme Schmitt, Victor Escorsin, João Vitor Sarturi
Hello Wood also expanded across borders, and in 2017 Argentina organized its first Hello Wood camp, following the Hungarian model. The Ginga project sought to bring meaning to the Superposition concept of the 2020 edition of Hello Wood Argentina. Ginga is a stage that invites Hello Wood participants from rich cultural and professional backgrounds to exchange ideas. It was intended to promote multiple encounters and provided an experience as a space for leisure, conference and permanence. During the night, the central lamp illuminates and dyes the space in red, generating shadows and different perceptions thus drawing curiosity. ‘Gingar’ is the basic movement of capoeira, a Brazilian martial art, and it is deeply related to the idea of moving harmoniously.
For further information, follow the Facebook event of the festival and take a look at the Hello Wood website as well.
