'Geological Frame' Installation by Huy Bui

For "New York Fashion Week of Fall 2016, Huy Bui was commissioned to re-contextualize Geological Frame, to a series of suspending landscapes at the Glass House in New York City. The presentation featured a new jewelry collection, JR x DD (Julia Roitfield for Didier Dubot)"

More about Bui's practice and his idea of 'pocket parks' here. 

Full scale section by 2nd year BAIA students

As part of their site study of the Wilton's Music Hall, last week 2nd year BAIA students 'drew' a part of the section of the building at full scale, using tape on the floor of the studio.

London Design Festival 17-25 September

alison brooks architects' curving 'smile' at london design festival

The London Design Festival is an annual event, held to celebrate and promote London as the design capital of the world and as the gateway to the international creative community. The next Festival will be held 17-25 September 2016.

more information here.

New book: 'This is Temporary: how transient projects are redefining architecture' by Cate St Hill

"Temporary architecture is flourishing in our urban public spaces. Branded ‘pop-ups’ and follies to provide a moment of light entertainment they are in fact borne of a long history of more holistic architecture that is subtly suggesting how we could live, work and play more harmoniously together."

more here.

Aerocene metallic orbs by Tomás Saraceno in Paris' Grand Palais

"By releasing hot air from inside the Aerocene globes, pressure can be regulated and the altitude of the orbs can be controlled. They could also float along natural jet streams, using these as a way of changing direction."

from dezeen.

Ai Weiwei at the Royal Academy until 13 December

"Ai became widely known in Britain after his sunflower seeds installation in Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall in 2010 but this is the first major institutional survey of his work ever held in the UK and it bridges over two decades of his extraordinary career.

Curated in collaboration with Ai Weiwei from his studio in Beijing, we present some of his most important works from the time he returned to China from the US in 1993 right up to present day. Among new works created specifically for our galleries and courtyard are a number of large-scale installations, as well as works showcasing everything from marble and steel to tea and glass. 

With typical boldness, the chosen works explore a multitude of challenging themes, drawing on his own experience to comment on creative freedom, censorship and human rights, as well as examining contemporary Chinese art and society."

It's recommended that you book ahead of time.

Royal Academy

Burlington House

Piccadilly, London W1J 0BD

more here and here.

Installations by Cornelia Parker

"For some years Cornelia Parker’s work has been concerned with formalising things beyond our control, containing the volatile and making it into something that is quiet and contemplative like the ‘eye of the storm’. She is fascinated with processes in the world that mimic cartoon ‘deaths’ – steamrollering, shooting full of holes, falling from cliffs and explosions. Through a combination of visual and verbal allusions her work triggers cultural metaphors and personal associations, which allow the viewer to witness the transformation of the most ordinary objects into something compelling and extraordinary."

not by Parker, but undoubtedly influenced by her:

for more.

Body Building Workshop

For PLAY week, a week of diverse workshops meant to inaugurate the newly renovated studio spaces at University of Westminster, BAIA tutors teamed up with David Scott and Ed Lancaster of the fabLAB to produce 'body agent' figures.  The body agents were conceived, built and installed by groups of Interior Architecture and Architecture students to question, surprise and inspire ideas about occupation and use of the new space.

Sound Installation in Estonia by Birgit Õigus

At Pähni Nature Centre in Estonia... "art academy students have developed and set up huge wooden megaphones to make the never-ceasing but scarcely noticeable calls and movements of forest inhabitants completely audible. The student Birgit Õigus designed the funnel-shaped megaphones for a project in the "Outdoor" auditorium at the academy. Hannes Praks, Head of the Interior Architecture Departments, explains, 'Being three metres in diameter at their widest point, the megaphones create a bandstand for the sounds that the forest produces.' Visitors can settle down comfortably inside the megaphones to enjoy the surreal backdrop of sounds."

more at DETAIL blog.

ABSENT installation at Shoreditch Town Hall

"A young woman enters a hotel. She is magnetic and compelling, yet strangely detached, as if in a dream; she knows everyone, yet is utterly alone; she has many lovers, but loves no one; she is 18 years old 

- or is she 80?" 

—
ABSENT

A dreamlike installation 

Commissioned by
SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL,
LIFT and LEFTCOAST

SHOREDITCH TOWN HALL
Monday 24 August - Sunday 25 October

Mon - Fri from 6pm | Sat & Sun from 12pm

Tickets

and more about 'ambulatory theater-as-installation' here.

Carston Höller: Decision at the Hayward Gallery 10 June – 6 September 2015

"Over the past 20 years Holler has created devices, vehicles and situations that alter visitors’ physical and psychological states."

"Carsten Höller: Decision is the artist’s largest survey show in the UK to date. Immersing visitors in a series of experimental environments, Höller’s interactive exhibition explores perception and decision making."

Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre
Wednesday 10 June – Sunday 6 September 2015

more here.

New books: Rough Interiors and Liquid Spaces

"Rough Interiors presents 55 projects whose designers used the existing historic substance as the basis for their creative processes. The magic of patina and traces of the past are maintained and deliberately integrated into the design concept. "

More here.

"Liquid Spaces features a wide spectrum of unconventional environments ranging from experimental installations to complex productions. Each one of these spaces plays with the boundaries of human perception, triggering sensual encounters that activate the senses in surprising ways."

More here.

University of Westminster BAIA work at Freerange Exhibition, Brick Lane

'Corporeality, objects, and other stuff' at Fold Gallery 5th June-11th July

"FOLD is pleased to present Corporeality, Objects and Other Stuff a group show consisting of painting and sculpture. Each artist in this show approaches the material and physical matter of their work using a combination of sophisticated visual playfulness, and a range of carefully considered responses to modernism and abstraction."

FOLD is within walking distance of the studio:

158 New Cavendish St

London W1W 6YW

Click here for a map

more here.

'Heavenly River' installation by Julien Salaud

"A luminous, panoramic landscape of UV-coated thread enchants a subterranean cellar in Julien Salaud’s newest site-specific installation, Fleuve Céleste (The Heavenly River). 82 feet beneath the ground, in the cellars of the Maison Ackerman, the eccentric artist has spun a “magical bestiary” with approximately 28 miles of cotton thread and 65,000 nails."

from the creators project.

'Potential Architecture' Exhibition at Ambika P3, 11 March- 19 April

Potential Architecture fuses art and architecture in four site-specific commissions for Ambika P3 by international artists/architects Alexander Brodsky, Sean Griffiths, Joar Nango and Apolonija Šušterŝič. Utilising recycling, craft, and low-tech processes as well as performance, video, sculpture and installation, the works explore the social and material aspects of living environments during the unprecedented large-scale transformation of cities and towns globally.

Private View
Tuesday 10 March 18:30 – 20:30

Visitor information:
Ambika P3, University of Westminster,
35 Marylebone Road, London NW1 5LS
Baker Street Station
Daily except Mondays
Tue – Fri, 11am – 7pm
Sat – Sun, 12pm – 6pm
Admission: Free

Prada Window Installations by Martino Gamper

"Italian designer Martino Gamper has created a 'homage to the humble corner' in the shop windows of fashion house Prada. The installations, named Corners, used panels of wood veneer to form enclosed angled spaces in which the mannequins are placed..."

from dezeen.

Lucy McRae Lecture- 26 Nov 2014

"In this lecture, body architect Lucy McRae tiptoes on the edge between imagination and innovation.

Lucy McRae is a body architect exploring the relationship between the body, technology and the grey areas of synthetic and organic materials. She invents playful, imaginary worlds underpinned by the tools of science fiction and technology, to create portals of possibility that provoke the way people embody the future.

Trained in classical ballet and interior design, Lucy staked her claim as the world’s premier body architect during her formative years at Philips Design. Working in the far future design research lab she developed stretchable electronics, an electronic tattoo and a range of emotional sensing dresses awarded Time Magazine's Best Fashion Invention in 2007."

Wednesday 26 Nov 2014
6.30pm – 8pm
No booking required / first come, first seated
Darwin Lecture Theatre, UCL

Bunker 599 by RAAAF and Atelier de Lyon

"...a redundant Second World War bunker in the Netherlands was turned into a sculptural visitor attraction by slicing it down the middle to reveal its insides.... It took 40 days to slice through the solid concrete bunker, which was one of 700 constructed along the New Dutch Waterline, a series of water-based defences used between 1815 and 1940 to protect the cities of Muiden, Utrecht, Vreeswijk and Gorinchem."

from dezeen.

'Shooting Thoughts' by Filipe Vilas-Boas

"This past week, experience designer Filipe Vilas-Boas launched his latest public project, Shooting Thoughts, in the stunning French Gothic church of Saint-Eustache, Paris. Co-commissioned by Art, Culture et Foi and Nuit Blanche Paris, Shooting Thoughts is an interactive installation project that uses projection mapping to create a “constellation of stars.”

Shooting Thoughts  uses "text messaged thoughts" to create catalysts "for laser beams that travel up the pathways defined by the building's architecture. The project description explains,“The pillars are used as launch stations that carry the star to its final destination on the ceiling of the church via the arches and vaults. Like all of us, each star finds its place at its own speed with its individual trajectory.”

from the Creator's project.