Exhibition pavillion

Objective:  How can we encourage people to rediscover the dark forgotten spaces in their cities?

The project brief for this competition asked for an exhibition space to be created in a dark unused space underneath Manhattan's famous high line bridge, where the 12 winning designs of this competition can be showcased. Situated between two art galleries, the space enjoys a high traffic of people. However, this "useless" piece of land is totaly ignored. How can we design an exhibition that encourages visitors to actively rediscover this forgotten space and to participate in spreading the word about the ideas gathered by this competition?

We propose an exhibition modules of 15x15x15 inches. by printing the winning designs on a series of translucent boxes.
The site will be filled with these boxes, forming a  front along the street line of the site "hiding" the forgotten space.
Standing like a supermarket tower of cans, passers-by are encouraged to take home a box.

Each winning proposal receives a unique box design, fitted with a QR-tag which links people to the anonymous.d website for more information about the competition and allows them to register the new location of the box.

The wall of boxes will slowly being deconstructed by the visitors, constantly changing the configuration of the space and allowing people to actively rediscover the space it once concealed.
The exposition does not stop when every box is taken from the site; in fact this is the real starting point. The boxes become home-expositions which can attract unexpected visitors long after the official exhibition has ended.

About the team:

We are a group of recently graduated architects, with a diverse background in architecture, urban design and engineering. This diversity allowed us to form a creative team with a fertile mix of skill sets and design approaches. The ‘Under the Railroad’ competition formed a starting point for our creative endeavors, and a testing lab where we could refine our creative process.

During the conceptual stage of the design process, our different backgrounds allowed us to explore design solutions from a variety of viewpoints, resulting in a concept inspired by many different fields such as graphic design, photography, social media and sociology.

Bart Logist - ir. Architect - Urban designer
Dries Molemans - ir. Architect - technical advisor
Heidi Stroobants - ir. Architect - designer
Thomas Vanbouwel - ir. Architect - designer
Erik Vandenpoel - ir. Architect - designer
Thomas Willemse - ir. Architect- Urban designer
 

Exhibition pavillion

The pavilion is made up essentially of two structures that seem to dance around one another. A louvered more longitudinal space, partially embraced by a twisting translucent structure. The spatial qualities and fusion between pavilion space and open space provides spaces for various types of activities including performances, park-like spaces, exhibitions, and more.

There is an initial feeling of denial of access on both structures. This is achieved by providing no direct or visible access point to get inside from the street. That, combined with the semi-transparency between “inside” the structure and outside, creates a continuous sense of curiosity and aims to spark further exploration all around the site and throughout the structure.

The pavilion then becomes a beacon of light at night; the twisted structure lights up diffusing light under the bridge, and the other louvered structure’s lines and site landscape are accentuated by the use of LEDs strips that further define the sculptural qualities of the pavilion in the dark.

Structurally, the pavilion is made up of a wooden base frame that wraps around the Highline’s columns without touching it. Horizontal and vertical supports create the skeleton of the pavilion. Off-site prefabricated louvered wooden panels and plexiglass panels are then finally added to their respective regions to complete the structure.

Adham ElGhatit is an Egyptian architect who holds a Masters Degree in Advanced Architectural Design from Columbia University, and a Bachelors in Architectural Engineering and RIBA I from AAST, Egypt, where he graduated with honors. He assisted in advanced design studio and visual studies at Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture Planning and Preservation. He currently resides in New York city and works for SHoP.

Light Haven

Bérenger Marinot - France
Bérenger Marinot was born in 1981 in l’ Isle- Adam, France. He studied Art at the Ecole Boulle, and then architecture at the Ecole d’Architecture de Paris Val-de- Seine (EAPVS) in Paris . He also spent a year at the Escuela Tecnica Superior Arquitectura (ETSA) in Sevilla in 2003. After graduation in 2006 he joined Elizabeth Naud & Luc Poux Architectes Agency in Paris for almost two years. He worked on housing and offices projects. After, from 2008 since 2011 he joined Joly&Loiret ,Agence d’Architecture studio in Paris. He worked on various competitions and as a project leader on a school project in Bordeaux (France).
He is now working on various competitions and project as an independent architect in Paris.
Daniela Trolio - Italy
Daniela Trolio was born in 1981 in Pescara, Italy. She studied architecture at the University G. D’annucio di Pescara in Italy. She spent six months at the Ecole d’Architecture de Paris Belleville (EAPB) in Paris in 2005. After graduation in early 2007, she worked for a short period in Italy. Then she moved in Paris and she joined LAN Architecture Agency in December 2007. She was project leader of a social housing project in Paris. After she has worked in several agencies on various competitions and study phases.
She is now working on competitions and project as an independent architect in Paris.
Matthieu Brullon - France
Matthieu Brullon worked for 2 years in several french architectural studios in Paris. Then, he gone in 2007 in caucasus, Russia, motivated by challenges and the wish to live the architect profession in a different way, he had opportunity to design a project of an important winery and to build it.
Now, between architectural competitions, architectural collaborations and a recent new private order in Russia, Matthieu Brullon is trying to give intelligent and sensitive architectural projects accordings to the current problems in our society.

Untitled from light haven on Vimeo.

Our work is guided by the choice of simples and intuitives solutions, adapted to the context and
inspired by that. We tend to privilege economic construction materials and methods and do not
hesitate to use low-tech and craftsmanship in their designs.
We nurture ideas by fleeing as much as possible preconceived solutions and we not believe in a way of
thinking that leads to an architecture of prescriber. The development of an artistic thought
background is a safety net. It avoids falling into an unjustified architectural gesture.
This way of conceiving architecture favors the use of unexpected building materials and in doing so they find a new identity and a new role far from preconceived ideas related to theirs initial functions.

Amaizeing

TOAST Group is a young atelier led by designers Joshua Jow and Daniel Morrison. Joshua and Daniel met while studying at the University of Texas School of Architecture in Austin, Texas. Both eventually moved to New York and began working together on independent projects and competitions. The two decided to found TOAST Group with a shared propensity for minimalist design applied to maximalist environments. Josh and Daniel plan to continue to grow TOAST Group in an alacritous pursuit of all that is inane, arcane, and profane.

'Amaizeing' supplants the typical notion of a temporary exhibition space by offering gallery crawlers a chance to participate in an activity typically reserved for regions of much lower density. While considerably smaller than most corn maizes, 'Amaizeing' affords a brief but transcendent encounter with the sights, smells, and sounds of the real thing.
Upon installation, 'Amaizeing' will serve as part gallery-space and part interactive installation. From 24th Street, individuals will see an alluring entrance in the form of a slit within the wall of corn. As people enter and wind their way through the maize itself, a series of gathering and exhibition spaces engender a sense of mystery, discovery, and wonder. A large exhibition space in the middle of the maize can accommodate larger sculptures or events while a small coffee bar marks the terminus of the maize.

Among the corn stalks are 'planted' interactive display monitors that maize-goers can access by peeking through the corn; each of these 'media stalks' will feature the work of a different artist or designer. These 'media stalks' activate dead-ends in the maize, allowing them to serve as opportunistic gathering and exhibition spaces; patrons are rewarded for their lack of direction.

Not unlike the High Line, the corn maize is a mediation of the 'natural' landscape by means of artificial construction. Paths are carved into the physical mass of the corn to create varied and intimate experiences. Whereas the High Line delineates a linear path above, Amaizeing conversely creates a winding one below. In contrast with the High Line’s strong directionality, 'Amaizeing' instead promotes enclosed moments of pause and reflection.
As a public amenity, the High Line has assuredly transcended its own typology through its inventive re-appropriation of space. But while the allure of the High Line lies above the street, 'Amaizeing' engages the public with a singular engrossing jaunt. By juxtaposing these two seemingly discordant experiences, new parallels can be discovered by urbanites and ruralites alike.

 

Hairy Haze

The point of departure for the parametrically designed Hairy Haze: Investigating robustness at the level of the whole rather than the part & instigating an atmospheric element of hair and permeating-light. The constraint was to create a robust monolithic structure by the assembly of unique components. The Highly complex assembly led to basic geometry controlled by a grasshopper script & organized in five crosscut toruses. These parameters might seem simple & cannot drive a project alone, but as soon as you start com¬bining these simple parameters with programmatic constraints & atmospheric ambitions of the non-controlled hair, the complexity increases & the interior becomes more & more arbitrary with emerging whimsical apertures.

Hairy Haze is structured around two main torses & three minor torses that create the arches. The cross section cuts of the main torses create the voids (entrance).

Light permeates through the crevices of each element. The hair acts as an organic machine, where energy is “derived” trough kinetic energy producing light. The hair is both responding to underlying formal features, & underlining the character of the pavilion seen from a distance.

For more information about these cool guys check out their website.

Jealous

The "jealous" is the first result of anonymous.d collaborative workshop. The proposed work was designed under the same rules and terms of the a.d01 contest and is a common effort between Hao La and Harel Edery at anonymous.d.The goal of this type of collaborations is to try and take the designer involved to a level where the work produced can actually be manufactured and distributed. At the moment we are planning a collaboration with previous winner Yasuhito Hirose for the a.d02 lighting contest.

Hao La is a recent graduated designer and a visual artist working in graphic design and architecture.

"As a young designer, I find myself in different situations facing different types of demand. Today's fast changing environment and society puts the designer infront of extreme challenges where a great design doesn't only need to look good but also need to deliver the right message or functionality in a very dynamic, constantly and rapidlly evolving everyday life. I am fortunate to live in a world where inspiration is everywhere and sourcesof knowledge are  limitless. I can find inspiration in a sophisticated piece of architecture or in the simplest of objects and colors. Being educated in a design school, I was taught and followed a set of rules, however most often I tend to wonder outside of those rules. A table doesn’t need to be square, flat or perfectly round; a chair doesn’t need to be in regular shapes or have the same caracteristics of aother chairs."

That is how the "Jealous"  was born; The initial visual thought was to create a shape that is imperfect to express the idea of freedom and flexibility behind a multifunctional object that has more than just one purpose of use. The multi functionality is represented by the ability of the ottoman to transform it self into a sitting system where parts of the whole are being detached from its base forming a new composition and use. Our design provide the user with the flexibility to use it for whatever they need at a certain moment. The "Jealous" is an ottoman but also a sitting system consisted of 3 stools and a table. The Hard base stools are upholstered with a silicon layer at the base and a silicon cusion wraping around a plastic based table.

The purpose of this object is to offer the flexibility requiered in small office spaces such as the sunshine shared office space designed by studio mosza. The challenge in designing an architecturally felxible environment is bakced up by the use of the right type of furniture. We designed the jealous so that people can use it for simple sitting while waiting but at the same time for the purpose of quick casual meetings in a space where closed conferences rooms are not always available due to a large amount of users.

VIICB

Born in 1979 in Sofia, Bulgaria where Petar is still living and working focusing on product design for PRAKTIK which is a brand he established with a friend about a year ago . The furniture he designs contain some “practical trick”. They are inspired mainly by so called
interlocking burr puzzles.most of his designs requier no fixtures, they can be made of traditional materials and they are relatively simple to manufacture with no hi-tech technics invloved. These qualities represent his vision about design and architecture in general.Petar believes that shape
and material are critical for the influence of a particular object on human's physical and psychological attitude. This is the reason he uses materials that have been proven to be harmless and symmetry as morphology principle. Petar's approach to design is a moment of calm and practical exelence in a hectic modern world that usually celebrates extreme asymmetry and synthetics prevail.

The VI-ICB involves no gluing nor fixtures, no metal parts and requier no tools at all to assemble. It requires just a little bit of imagination in order to be put together.
The assembling elements of this chair/bench are contained whithing the system's parts and all together create the aesthetics of it. Both visual and functional

White Relief

Gabriel Guy is undergoing thesis work toward a Masters degree in Architecture at the University of Waterloo’s School of Architecture in Canada. He has worked and lived in New York, Rome, and across Canada, gaining experience in a variety of architecture and construction firms. His work has been internationally recognized in several competitions across the US, Canada, and Japan, and he continues to investigate the medium of the competition as a fertile ground for creative experimentation within the architecture and design field. His interests reside in embodied knowledge obtained through the processes of making.

WHITE RELIEF CHAIR from G. Guy on Vimeo.

The following three concepts are used as a point of departure for the White Relief ‘chair’:

1. to question the distinction between aesthetic artifact and object of use.

2. to undertake a creative reorganization of pre-existing compositional elements.

3. to undertake a creative ripping out of context and re-inscribing of aesthetic product.

With these concepts in mind White Relief begins as a modern relief by the artist Ben Nicholson (white relief, untitled, 1934), and exists as aesthetic artifact. With the active participation of the viewer, the relief is disassembled and reorganized according to its inherent compositional rules. The transition between aesthetic artifact and object of use is evident with the participation of the ‘viewer’, who subsequently becomes the ‘user’. White Relief playfully chides at the distinction between aesthetic artifact and object of use, or the ‘sacred’ and the ‘profane’. Whether hung on the wall or being sat upon, White Relief seeks to invoke participation, conversation, and a bit of laughter. White Relief is constructed from 5/8” birch plywood, countersunk neodymium magnets, and white paint. The extremely strong magnets are placed accordingly so the project can assume either an aesthetic artifact mode (relief) or an object of use mode (toilet/chair).

THE VOVA LAMP

The concept for H+D Studio's Vova lamp was driven and developed using a minimal surface tiling algorithm optimizing form and function. Once a module was created, the geometry was tiled radially 10 times and resulted in this final formation. The material we use to print your lamp is polyamide: white, strong, somewhat flexible and ideal for lamps because of its high mechanical and thermal resistance. Almost every design is printable in polyamide, which offers you 'freedom of design'. You can make very complex designs, both large and small, with printable details starting from 1 mm.

H+D Studio strives to over the optimal tailored solution, a wide range of unique services are available to ensure that your exact project requirements are met. Depending on the surface requirements of the final design, the part will be finished smooth and then undergo the correct finishing process. Typically the Vova lamp is primed, appearance surfaces are sanded smooth, and color coats applied based on customer specification. Metal plating is also a process that can be performed on the design with advanced notice.

EOLIS

Born in Paris in 1983, Victor graduated from the very prestigious design school Les Atelier/l'ENSCI before becoming an independent designer. While designing his own independant projects, Victor is also designing for well established design studios who hire his services for their own projects. Victor is passionate about programming and new fabrication methods and technologies.

About  EOLIS (FAN)

Eolis is a project conceived for a design contest launched by MGX who's goal was to promote new technologies for a rapid prototyping  of an object. The idea was to showcase the formal freedom  allowed by using this new type of technology and fabrication methods. I chose to treat the form of the object through direct relation with its functionality. The function generates the object's form which is  meant to simulate a stream of air as well as crystallized smoke.

LOW RESOLUTION CHAIR

Low Resolution Chair abstracts the traditional image of “chair” by disassembling each of its individual components and reconstructing them in a repetitive, modular state. Inspired by pixilation, Low Resolution Chair is based on a modular system which layers details throughout the piece. The frame of the chair derives its shape from a fragmented quarter circle. The frame’s simple cross configuration minimizes material use and reduces the frame’s physical presence in the overall piece. The austerity and thinness of the welded steel frame communicates fragility, while its materiality ensures structural integrity. Heat formed transparent acrylic modules interwoven with galvanized steel form the seat and backrest of the chair, which are slung between the ends of the cross brace at four fixed connections. A single transparent red module disrupts the otherwise calculated order of the piece, and introduces an elements of tension. The luxurious materiality and craftsmanship of the piece juxtaposed against the simplicity of form enhances its overall elegance.

John Wieser is currently pursuing a master’s degree in architecture (M.Arch I) from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. John is also a teaching assistant in the Design curriculum of the School of Architecture, and is a studio instructor for second year architecture students. He was a member of a finalist team in the 2010 Walt Disney Imagineering ImagiNations Competition, and has interned for Walt Disney Imagineering in Anaheim, CA, and Aumiller