This year, undergraduate students from the Aarhus School of Architecture [check out previously featured student works from Aarhus] will be collaborating with Northern Europe’s largest cultural and music festival, the Roskilde. 125 students were involved in this two-month long project which ultimately resulted in a experimentation of light, materiality and space. Entitled Vintergatan , the installation is a modular exercise as different sized triangles are combined to create varied spaces. The name refers to the installation’s main motif: a ribbon of light that surrounds the square in front of the Pavilion’s stage, where a series of upcoming bands will perform during the festival.
More images and more about the project after the break.
Designed around the ‘Cradle to Cradle principles, the installation is constructed using environmentally friendly and recyclable materials. After the festival, the modules can be separated and reused in another urban context. The installation features three different structures and will serve as a place for concert –goers to rest and relax, in addition to serving as a landmark within the festival’s arena.
For their Nature Box piece, three large cubes can be unfolded to create a series of dynamic spaces where one can eat, rest, sit, celebrate and observe. Space and seating situations change depending on how the cube is unfolded. The other structures will offer a dynamic geometric aesthetic in the morning, and an interesting light installation after nightfall. “It has been a great challenge for us as students to get interesting effects out of the very common and familiar materials. Most can have good ideas, but the challenge is to realize them – especially with such a tight budget,” explained Anja Nørgaard.
Conceptually, the installation acts as a platform for ‘up and coming’ musicians and is regarded as a base for creative growth. In addition, the structure acts as a social magnet for festival-goers. “There was a desire that the installation provide for meetings between people – in both larger and smaller communities. We would like to install stimulate community formation and invite them to different ways of being together than those seen in traditional street furniture. The installation thus becomes a social experiment where we test whether some of the ideas we make about human social behavior, hold true,” explained the students.
“One of the intentions of Roskilde collaboration has been to bridge the gap between theory and practice by letting education be based entirely reality-based problems and give students some practical experience to realize their projects,” explained Boris Brorman Jensen, Associate Professor Aarhus School of Architecture.
The students will build the installation before the festival begins on the 26th on June.
