The Guardian's Oliver Wainwright documents the current trend of micro-scale installations spurring new life into the historic hutongs of Beijing and gaining support from the local communities, eager to reject the economic pressures of destroying/rebuilding. The local government’s endorsement, however, comes as a surprise - especially considering its fervent impetus to raze these areas just a few years ago. Read the full article here: Designers Use 'Urban Acupuncture' to Revive Beijing's Historic Hutongs.
https://www.archdaily.com/435775/reviving-beijing-s-hutongs-with-micro-installationsJose Luis Gabriel Cruz
Courtesy of Stewart Dodd and the Architectural Association
Marking the Forest, now in its second year, is a ten-day summer course by the Architectural Association. Set in a managed forest in central Oregon, it aims to engage students with the forest through thoughtful architectural intervention.
https://www.archdaily.com/435108/aa-students-amplify-the-forestKatherine Allen
Amsterdam's famous canal district celebrated its 400th birthday this year. And though the district has grown and evolved throughout the centuries, now, more than ever before, this UNESCO World Heritage site is struggling with how to ensure the past doesn't hold a vice-like grip on its future.
For Jarrik Ouburg, an Amsterdam architect, the problem was more specific: in such a historic district, how do you keep urban transformations from slowing to a stop? This question eventually led him to his ongoing project, “Tussen-ruimte.” Tussen-ruimte (Dutch for ‘between space’) installs pieces of contemporary art and architecture in the hidden alleys and courtyards that have formed over years of building in the canal district.
https://www.archdaily.com/431720/between-the-buildings-of-historic-amsterdam-an-urban-interventionKatherine Allen
"Open House" is artist Matthew Mazzotta's latest invention: a compact, faded pink house that unfolds into a ten-piece outdoor theater that seats nearly 100 people. Facing a raised earthen stage, it's a public space made from the remnants of a privately owned blighted property. Reversing the loss of public space that the city of York, Alabama has experienced, Open House has transformed a wasted ruin of a house into an outdoor theatre open to various community events.
London-based United Visual Artists (UVA) has brought Sou Fujimoto’s “cloud-like” Serpentine Pavilion to life with an “electrical storm” of LEDs. With the intention of making the architecture “breathe” from within, UVA seamlessly integrated a network of LED lights into the latticed, 20mm steel pole structure that mimics the natural forms of an electric storm. In addition, carefully conducted auditory effects further enhance the experience, transforming Fujimoto’s “radical pavilion” into an electrified geometric cloud.
Text description provided by the architects. MIT’s Self-Assembly Lab has exhibited the Fluid Crystallization project as part of the 2013 Architectural League Prize Exhibition at the Parson’s Gallery in New York. The Fluid Crystallization installation - a collaboration between MIT Self-Assembly Lab director Skylar Tibbits and The Molecular Graphics Lab director Arthur Olson - investigates hierarchical and non-deterministic self-assembly with large numbers of parts in a fluid medium.
The Museum of Modern Art has kicked off the popular Warm Up Summer Music series in the courtyard of MoMA PS1 with the grand opening of Party Wall. The towering installation, designed by Ithaca-based studio CODA, was the winning proposal of the 14th annual Young Architects Program in which provides emerging architects a chance to construct an innovative project as long as shades, cools and seats visitors.
With a porous skin made of woven skateboard scraps, the experimental structure has successfully met the challenge by providing a shaded refuge for the crowds with refreshing cooling stations and detachable wooden seats.
Thanks to Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura, Portugal's two Pritzker Laureates, Sao Paulo will soon have its own temporary summer pavilion - a la the Serpentine Gallery - in the city's most important green space: Ibirapuera Park.
Built and exhibited at “Data Curation” in the Museum of Art at Seoul National University, ‘Mood Map’ visualizes the moods of Korean people in color and light through textual analysis of their Tweets on Twitter. Designed by E/B Office, they created a custom software program in Processing that will search and analyze Tweets in Korean language through the Twitter API. More images and architects’ description after the break.
Dorell.Ghotmeh.Tane / Architects recently completed their 'Frozen Time' Installation for a Japanese watch brand CITIZEN in Baselworld which is the largest watch and jewel industry exhibition in the world. This year, the main exhibition hall was fully renewed, therefore all the brands are intended to express their next 4 year’s vision. Instead of just renewing entire booth for next 4 years, CITIZEN reserved a large reception space to be opened and to present an installation every year as space to evolve and to express their fundamental identity of ‘Challenging spirits’. More images and architects' description after the break.
For this architect, there is an indiscernible line between art installation and building. Alexander Brodsky studied architecture in Moscow, while working on art installations and drawings both independently and in collaborations with other artists. Brodsky admits that his career path was unconventional, that he felt unready to take on the responsibility of building. Instead, Brodsky's approach to architecture is through the lens of art: occupiable, room-sized installations that test spatial and sensory boundaries.
Taking place at the Seoul Museum of Art, the 'Total Theatre: Interspace Dialogue' exhibition is featuring the Plushscape installation by Max Kuo of ALLTHATISSOLID. Curated by Regina Shin, the exhibition, which is also a film festival, borrows Gropius and Piscator’s concept of a new kind of theatre to realize a cinema inside of the white cube of a museum. In response to the curatorial agendas of Interspace Dialogue, Plushscape seeks to agitate and amplify the somatic conditions of the viewers’ bodies providing more spatial possibilities in their haptic response to the screening films. More images and architects' description after the break.
Videos
Courtesy of University of Houston CoA + Judd Foundation
Vitreous is a collaborative academic initiative by the University of Houston's Gerald D. Hines College of Architecture and the Judd Foundation that incorporates the vantage points of the natural landscape, and the technological advancement of digital fabrication and media technologies. The faceted panels disguise and blend the unbounded Marfa landscape with reflective images causing a perceptual distortion between the viewer and the surroundings and between the real and the virtual. More images and the team's description after the break.
'MonsterScape', an exhibition display design for Monster Exhibition 2013 organized by Recover & Rebuild Japanese art & design, was a concept created by Hannat Architects to exhibit monsters as a metaphor of disaster and to prevent people’s consciousness of disaster from diminishing. On display this past February, the organizer of the event wanted this exhibition to be something not to tell the misery of disaster but to recall “important things" that tend to be forgotten in everyday life, and visitors to enjoy art and design. More images and architects' description after the break.
Under the guidance of Toyo Ito, Japanese architect Akihisa Hirata envisioned an futuristic, experienced-based installation which sought to express “manifestations of flow as they relate to people and nature” to the spectators of the 2013 Milan Design Week. Titled “Amazing Flow”, the installation offered a “vision of the city of tomorrow” with a multi-sensory experience that embodied the “Lexus’ world vision” and a glimpse into how cars flow throughout built environment The display consisted of a continuous, wooden structure that represented a moment in which “roads, humans, wind and water flow as a single entity.”
Compare the installation to the Lexus “Create Amazing” promotional video for the 2014 LF-LC Concept car and watch an interview with Hirata after the break...
Designed and directed by Iceland based architect Marcos Zotes and his studio UNSTABLE, their Pixel Cloud installation is the winning competition entry for the Reykjavik Winter Lights Festival 2013, organized by Höfuðborgarstofa, Orkusalan and the Iceland Design Center. The installation creates an opportunity for Icelanders to reconsider the use and management of their urban public spaces. With the current financial situation leaving a permanent landscape of obsolete scaffolding structures scattered across the city, this has resulted in urban scars that remind us of the fragility of their current society. This installation takes advantage of this condition by transforming an ordinary scaffolding structure into a fully immersive environment of light and sound in the heart of Reykjavík. More images and architects' description after the break.
Envision a future where undulating “solar plants” transform the rectangular masses of our cities into a vibrant metropolis where technology aids in the coexistence of humans and nature. Represented in the conceptual installation “Energetic Energies” at the Milan Design Week 2013, this notion of redefining our relationship with the sky through photovoltaics is based on years of technological research and development by the Panasonic Corporation, who commissioned Japanese architect Akihisa Hirata to imagine the possibilities.
The exhibition features a 30 meter-long makeshift city, whose “hills” of photovoltaics overtake clusters of white, translucent buildings while shadows of clouds move in and out of the space.
A video interview with Akihisa Hirata and more images after the break...
Up-Downtown, the prize-winning installation in DawnTown's competition for the creation of a temporary installation on the theme of the “Evolution of Miami", is taken literally to present an interactive story of Miami’s rise. “A city is a complex machine, where everything is interconnected and any movement affects the other,” said Manuel Clavel-Rojo, co-creator of the Up-Downtown team. The installation, exhibited at HistoryMiami, features a 10’ x 10’ x 10’ box structure using steel for supports. A mirror sits at its base, with blue and pink neon lights representing the water’s edge and roadways, creating a perimeter of the downtown area. More images and information after the break.
