Venice Biennale 2012: U.S. Pavilion Announces Designers and Participants
Organized by the Institute for Urban Design, the American Pavilion for the 13th International Venice Architecture Biennale is devoted to the theme Spontaneous Interventions: Design Actions for the Common Good. The installation will feature 124 urban interventions initiated by architects, designers, planners, artists, and everyday citizens that bring positive change to their neighborhoods and cities. The selection was narrowed down after a nationwide open call for projects, which yielded over 450 submissions.
Designed by the Brooklyn creative studio Freecell, the space will feature a lively system of banners that will frame an archive of the urban interventions. Collaborating with Sausalito-based communication design studio M-A-D, the installation will also feature a supergraphic that serves as a bold counterpoint to the banners and act as an installation in and of itself. This will all be presented in an enveloping environment to put Spontaneous Interventions into a broader historical and cultural context. Continuing into the courtyard, a NYC-based studio Interboro (winner of the 2011 MoMA/PS1 Young Architects Program) designed “outdoor living room” will serve as the pavilion’s hang-out and workshop space during the three months of the Biennale.
Continue after the break to review the selected projects and participants.
LightHearted / Freecell and Peter Dorsey
LightHearted is the winning design for this years Times Square Valentine, an annual competition to deign and build a heart for Times Square. Designed by Freecell, a 2010 P.S.1 contestant, in collaboration with Peter Dorsey, the ten-foot diameter heart is a light weight construction, with five pairs of aluminum elliptical loops radially arranged with rotating connections. The structure is covered with an open weave red fabric that both captures and reflects light while letting wind pass through.
LightHearted is an interactive installation, six people will hold the heart up for fifteen minute intervals. The ten-day event, February 10 to February 20, will need over 2,600 volunteers to share in this collective experience.
Head to the LightHearted website and sign up for your fifteen minutes on their volunteer calendar!
Architects: Freecell, and Peter Dorsey
Location: 46th Street and Broadway, New York City, New York, USA
Web Design: Deelux
Sponsor: Times Square Alliance Public Art Program
Photographs: Courtesy of Freecell
P.S.1 2010 entry: Cumulus by Freecell
Last friday we presented you the results of P.S.1 summer installation competition, held by the MoMA and the P.S.1. As the idea of the competition is to identify and showcase young practices, here at ArchDaily we’d like to introduce you not only the winner as we did last Friday with SO-IL’s Pole Dance, but also the other contestants, as their proposals are good examples of what young architects are thinking these days. So in the following articles we are going to feature the entries by Freecell, William O’Brien Jr, Easton + Combs and BIG.
We start with Freecell, a design and fabrication practice based in Brooklyn, NY, directed by partners Lauren Crahan and John Hartmann. The firm specializes on small scale commissions, as you can see on the many projects featured at their website.
Their proposal “Cumulus” explores pneumatic structures, which respond to the weather changing its configuration between sunny and cloudy days:
