Browsing: Installation

© Bai Xiaoci

A new installation by Ball Nogues Studio for the 2009 Shenzhen Hong Kong Biennale of Urbanism, in collaboration with American Apparel.

Curator: Beatrice Galilee

Temporary spatial installations within urban cultures are a rapidly evolving phenomenon. Unlike “permanent” buildings, these structures nimbly respond to the accelerated temporality of cities on the move like Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Increasingly they provide the urban spectacles that “signature” buildings aim to deliver. Like never before, cities are adorned with provisional environments and architecturally scaled events. This situation has been further emboldened by the financial meltdown in 2008 as investors look to spend money on big urban spectacles without the financial commitment of making buildings. Within this economic outlook, the disposable plates of architecture are better investments than a collection of fine tableware. However, an important question looms when cleaning up after the meal: can the plate be composted or should it be colored with crayon and reused as a party decoration?

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The Bamboo Lantern designed for the Gwamgju Design Biennale in Korea  by Atelier FCJZ (a prominent chinese firm who is also designing the Shanghai Corporate pavilion for the Expo 2010) appears to be a solid heavy mass.  Yet, as visitors separate its two halves and occupy its interior, the mere cubic form turns into something else completely.  The lantern is a “ dialogue between opposites” , as its plan is comprised of a circle nested within a square.  The circle and square illustrate strong symbolism from the Ancient Chinese tradition, with the former representing the heavens, and the later, the earth.  These two shapes are inherently different and yet, when combined, they work together to organize the exterior space and provide a new sense for the interior.  “The directionality in the square is used to organize the surrounding exterior viewing space while the stillness of the circular shape that defines the interior intimately collects the rest space,” explained the architects.

More about the lantern after the break. read more »

Children curiosity is the tool for a wider reflexion about different ways and velocities of interact and percept daily spaces, depending on our age, using one Portuguese traditional materiality applied to exterior doors to protect from sun and insects, usually rejected and depreciated by contemporary architecture.

In the context of the Festival des Architectures Vives at Montpellier (18th-21st June), on the theme “Ephémères Curiosités”, ateliermob purposed to reinvent children’s universe on one antique mansion’s courtyard of Montpellier.

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We just got the news that MOS Architects won the competition to build a temporary installation at MoMA´s P.S.1 during this summer.

For this competition the P.S.1 invites each year a group of emerging architects to experiment with new shapes and materials, as Work AC did last year with their PF1 project.

MOS project is entitled Afterparty, a design that Micheal Meredith and Hilary Sample (MOS partners) say is meant  to honor and reflect current economic realities, by using basic materials. The main structure is a lightweight aluminum frame using recyclable parts which require minimal assembly, which will become a landmark for the neigborhood – all this on a USD$70,000 budget.

I spoke with Michael a few minutes ago and he refered to the name of the project: One thing about the “Afterparty,” as we’re calling it, is the need to look for new promiscuities after the party of a sort of high-formalism which has dominated academic discourse, and in our case it’s with the basic structural arch geometries, rough almost singular materiality and the production and interaction of “environment,” (literally cooling down the courtyard through stack effect) looking towards a more primitive state of architecture. – (See afterparty definition on Wikipedia).

The project is still under development, and we´ll keep you posted on further updates. We´ll try to do a good coverage on this as we did last year.

You can see other works from MOS previously featured on AD: Floating House and their ORDOS 100 villa.

More images of Afterparty after the break.

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Architects: LAVA – Chris Bosse, Tobias Wallisser and Alexander Rieck
Location: Sydney, Australia
Project year: 2008
Project Team: Chris Bosse, Tobias Wallisser, Alexander Rieck
Collaborators: Jarrod Lamshed, Esan Rahmani, Kim Ngoc Nguyen, Anh Dao Trinh, Erik Escalante Mendoza, Pascal Tures, Mi Jin Chun, Andrea Dorici
Materials: Specially treated high-tech Nylon and light
Area: 300 sqm
Volume: 3,000 sqm
Fabrication and installation: Mak Max
Photographs: LAVA

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The “Oca” was developed as a temporary pavilion for the event “Resistance and Tradition”, which was part of the World Cultural Forum that took place in São Paulo in 2004. As a center of discussion about Brazil’s indigenous culture, it sheltered many ceremonies and meetings of representatives from the country’s various native communities.

Architect: Königsberger Vannucchi - Jorge Königsberger and Gianfranco Vannucchi
Location: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Project Year: 2004
Client: SESC / World Cultural Forum
Photographs: Gal Oppido

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Architect: Felipe Assadi / Assadi + Pulido
Location: Santiago, Chile
Collaborators: Pablo Casals, Francisco Duarte
Project year: 2008
Constructed Area: 400 sqm
Material: Scaffolding, Hunter Douglas aluzinc stripes, Wood
Photos: Felipe Assadi & Nicolás Saieh

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In 2006, Foundation Greenland Street invited Office for Subversive Architecture to develop the first of their annual architecture commissions which will inhabit the roof of The Blade Factory.

More pictures by Johannes Marburg and text form the architects after the break.

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ROSO has launched a major art installation at Clark Shoes Headquarters in Street Somerset, South England. This was commissioned by Mr Lance Clark and is the first phase of two, of the art work situated in the communal court yard in the heart of Clarks office buildings.

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The 11th Venice Biennale is just around the corner, starting on Sept 14th with a preview on Sept 11th-13th. I´m eager to see the pavillions and installations on the Biennale, specially because the title for this version is “Out There: Architecture Beyond Building” on which Aaron Betsky, the curator, says ” “will point the  way towards an architecture liberated from buildings to engage the central issues of our society; instead of the tombs of architecture, which is to say buildings, it will present site specific installations, visions and experiments that help us figure out, make sense of and feel at home in our modern world”.

One of this installations is “AirXY: From Inmaterial to Rematerial” by M-A-D, an interdisciplinary design firm with primary expertise in branding and visual communications.  From their authors: he airXY screen is folded to seem as if it had burst out of the wall behind. as visitors approach they notice what appears to be a giant checkerboard with a vertical line scanning from left to right. suggesting the surface of an interface, a desktop and a machine simultaneously, on further observation, the visitors see that the composition is, in fact, charting the passing of time along an XY axis divided into 24×60 units. in addition to the vertical line and rectangular XY units, tiny green abstract icons are floating across the screen, looking like runes, contemporary urban signs or the graphic language of circuit diagrams”.

More pictures after the jump.

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