Wednesday, November 28, 2012

Wrapper, Edgware Road tube station



Wrapper is a permanent work of art by Jacqueline Poncelet, made especially to clad the new building and perimeter wall next to Edgware Road (Circle line) Tube station. The work, created in vitreous enamel, dresses the building in a grid of patterns developed by the artist. Each pattern relates to a different part of the local area and was made in response to the images and ideas that she has developed through her research there over the past three years. Like an enormous patchwork, Wrapper tells the story of the place in which it sits, weaving together elements from local history and the natural environment, the area’s architecture and its people.
Set in the urban environment of central London, Wrapper joins a diverse landscape of buildings, with a mixture of scales, functions and architectural designs. It stands out as a bright and colourful object whilst simultaneously blending in as a new addition to an area already full of constructions of all kinds and ages, from office blocks and houses to shops and schools. A work on this scale could have dominated the area, but Poncelet’s mix of patterns brings a kind of fragmentation to the building that helps to integrate it with its neighbours. In the busy environment of the Edgware Road area, the design also reflects the way in which the building will be viewed: more often in parts than as a whole.
Depending on where the viewer stands in relation to the artwork, Wrapper reveals a variety of stories. From the platform, for example, the fringe of the station's roof can be recognised in the zig-zag pattern integrated into the work. On the other side of the building, local residents who can view it from their windows, or the people who pass by on foot, will see many more elements from the local area: the detailed tracings of leaves reference the trees in Regents Park, while the delicate water pattern suggests the Tyburn stream that runs underground nearby. Seen from a distance or as a fleeting glimpse from a vehicle on Marylebone Road, Poncelet’s patterns, some of which she made from a drawing of cars, will look quite different again. The colours all reflect those of the Tube map, hinting at the building’s connection to it.
In Wrapper, and throughout Poncelet's artistic practice, patterns and colours play a key role as storytellers. She uses them in carefully considered configurations and each has a very particular place and purpose in the overall composition. Through this visual choreography, the artist aims to generate illusionary spaces or simply to modulate stillness and movement. “A pattern not only speaks of other places, but of changes in our culture and the passage of time”, says Poncelet. With the patterns devised for Wrapper, she has replicated how we choose what we see in a complex and busy environment. By condensing her experience of the area and her understanding of the site through these motifs, she highlights the pleasures large and small that a place can awaken in us. This is the largest work created by Poncelet to date; indeed, it is the largest vitreous enamel artwork in Europe.
Alongside the installation Wrapper, Art on the Underground has commissioned artist Jessie Brennan to work with station staff and local community groups including the St Marylebone Society, residents at 60 Penfold Street and students from City of Westminster College to develop a new drawing titled Everything Meets Here that parallels some of the research methods employed by Poncelet in her work. http://art.tfl.gov.uk/projects/detail/9457/

Sunday, November 25, 2012

God’s Loftstory / LKSVDD

© Vincent van den Hoven
© Vincent van den Hoven

The  former  Dutch  Reformed  Evangelism  Building  in  Haarlo  has  been  transformed  into  a  unique  loft. The starting point for the design were the retained  (mostly with a need for restoration)  qualities of the 1928 dating monument,  the façade,  the bell tower with clock,  the volume,  the iconic location on the outskirts of the village  and nice details like  the wooden roof construction,  the old panel doors  and arch windows  with stained glass.

It was a conscious choice, not to fill the volume of 1100 m3 completely with as many rooms as possible, but to minimize the demands, in order to retain the spaciousness of the building. The only architectural additions are the mezzanine for the relaxation room  ( couch, bed and bath )  and the multifunctional “Stairway to have fun” ( stairs,  room divider,  closet,  build-in-kitchen,  acoustic element and exhibition wall ).

from archdaily.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Ben Morris - ETFE Enclosures Thursday 22nd November, 6.30pm, Room M421


Ben Morris - Vector Foiltec
ETFE Enclosures
Thursday 22nd November, 6.30pm, Room M421
Architecture and the Built Environment 
 
University of Westminster
School of Architecture and the Built Environment
London NW1 5LS
 
ETFE was first patented by DuPont in the 1940s, but went commercial in the 1970s when US manufacturer DuPont and Hoechst in Germany launched ETFE wire and cable insulation. Vector Foiltec, a sailmaking firm set up in 1982, pioneered the architectural use of ETFE. Vector Foiltec, located in London and Bremen, is now the leading fabricator of ETFE cushions.

This talk looks at recent advances in ETFE technology. Ben Morris will discuss variable light transmission, controlling solar gain and ultraviolet rays, speciality coatings and printing, specialist lighting effects, colouring and patterning, full pixelated LED graphic display, enhanced plant growth (including the first grass in enclosed stadia) and cloud (fog) formation in Enric Ruis Geli’s Media-ICT building in Barcelona.
 

Theo Jansen's Strandbeests


Artist Theo Jansen makes self-propelled kinetic sculptures, primarily constructing them out of PVC pipes.




Saturday, November 17, 2012

Akihisa Hirata: 'Tangling' at the Architecture Foundation until until 1 December 2012


For his first ever international solo show, emerging Japanese architect Akihisa Hirata will exhibit an immersive 1:1 scale installation – a contorted loop – to distil his architecture’s essence into a large-scale experiential structure. Over a hundred study models and conceptual sketches will be presented on and within the structure, as well as an interview with the architect and intimate films of his projects, illustrating Hirata’s view of architecture and ecology, form and function, as a complex, interwoven ‘tangle’. 

At The Architecture Foundation, 136-148 Tooley St, London SE1 2TU.

Admission is Free.

Friday, November 9, 2012

HEINER GOEBBELS: STIFTER’S DINGE RETURNS TO AMBIKA P3


Photograph by Nick Cobbing for Artangel
The 2008 Artangel project Stifter’s Dinge, by German composer and director Heiner Goebbels, is inspired by the 19th century poet and painter Adalbery Stifter and uses mechanical objects, music, projections and natural elements to create a composition in the form of an installation, written for five pianos with no pianists.
This year it returns for the final time to its original home at Ambika P3, a vast concrete construction hall on Marylebone Road. As well as reviving the 2008 seated performance, a new site-specific version has been created to renew the composition; Stifter’s Dinge: The Unguided Tour allows visitors to freely explore the environment, experiencing the work as a continuously developing installation.

Stifter’s Dinge is at Ambika P3 4th-18th November 2012. 
text from la scatola gallery.

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

snøhetta: lascaux caves visitor center





norwegian practice snøhetta has recently been awarded the bid to design the new 'lascaux caves visitor center' on the boundary of the vezere valley and the hillside, between a dense forest and man-formed agricultural land in motignac france. the project will display the artwork created by prehistoric artists on the walls of the natural stone vaults, and just like these artists who took cues from the existing textures and irregularities to communicate their ideas, so does the architecture exist within a small fissure following the contours of the landscape to effectively expose the subtle intricacies of the site. the long glass facade faces north towards the city of montignac to receive visitors. varying transparencies define the curtain wall facade that constantly maintains a profile with the immediate environment. the public service spaces are located towards this glass wall, receiving plenty of natural light, while the exhibitions are discovered as the visitor explores further into the earth through a similar path that the ancient inhabitants used in order to reach the same point. the project presents itself through a series of majestic spaces filled with silence, bustling trees, penetrating light in vast dark spaces, hard rock surfaces and lively vegetative components that restore the spirit of the caves and their treasured paintings.

Friday, November 2, 2012

Tomas Saraceno


Artist Tomás Saraceno follows the tradition of those who have looked up to the sky to envision works of uncommon optimism that explore systems of interdependencies, both inside and beyond the natural world. 


Kengo Kuma - 'Power of Place' Lecture. Wednesday 7 November 2012



19:00 Wednesday 7 November 2012
Kengo Kuma - Power of Place
Bartlett School of Architecture International Lecture Series

Lecture: Christopher Ingold Auditorium, UCL Chemistry Building, 20 Gordon Street, London, WC1H 0AJ

The renowned Japanese architect has been featured on this blog  several times: