Tuesday, November 5, 2013

sophia chang piques suspense through cavernous installation


"...the piece consists of softened fabric geometries that blur the boundaries between its inside and outside. upon entering, both occupant and environment are estranged, creating greater awareness of one’s self, relation to others and surroundings. the expansive, curving walls form an immersive cave-like interior, framing both people and their context that piques the experience of interior and exterior, wall and room – both hiding and revealing places to be explored."

image © anita kan
"the installation is constructed from large pieces of lycra fabric that is suspended between rectangular frames. snatched glimpses of the original context are captured through breaks in the fabric, pulling them into the suspended space, while visitors occupy both sides of the frame, creating a playful interaction between its two sides. the re-captured everyday moments, a glimpse of brick, a stair, or out to the street appear distant and other. conceived as multiple layers of poché, which commonly refers to the space within walls, here it receives a more ambiguous reinterpretation: what could be understood as a wall or space from one vantage point, becomes an inhabitable room from another."

from designboom.

Sunday, November 3, 2013

'Skinned' by KNOL Ontwerp features latex casts of derelict buildings



Shrouds of latex cast from derelict buildings hang in this installation by Amsterdam design studio KNOL Ontwerp, forming ghostly recreations of spaces.


from dezeen.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

Paul Klee - Making Visible at Tate Modern 16 October 2013 – 9 March 2014

Paul Klee is a giant of twentieth-century art and one of the great creative innovators of the time. The heart of the exhibition will focus on the decade Klee spent teaching and working at the Bauhaus, the hotbed of modernist design.
Making Visible

Tate Modern: Exhibition
16 October 2013 – 9 March 2014



Adult £16.50 (without donation £15.00)
Concession £14.50 (without donation £13.10)

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Daniel Silver: 'Dig' 12 September - 3 November 2013


"From a deep hole in a derelict site in central London, yards from the traffic of the Tottenham Court Road, evidence of an apparently ancient and peculiar civilisation has emerged: gods and philosophers, fertility goddesses with 12 breasts, smashed plaster torsos and a giant bearded head with its features almost washed away evidently by millennia of rain or sea water.On the upper level scores of pieces lie cleaned and sorted. Down below all is dank and dripping, and life-sized figures and heads on concrete plinths stand in pools of mud and water. All were made by the sculptor Daniel Silver, for Dig, an installation commissioned by Artangel..." from the Gaurdian

Daniel Silver: Dig
The Odeon Site
24 Grafton Way (off Tottenham Court Road)
London WC1E 6DB

12 September - 3 November 2013

11am - 6 pm, Tuesday - Sunday
Admission: free

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

+FARM 2014: Winter Studio at the Five Sisters Farm, NY, USA

Open Call: the Sweat Lodge in the Snow



The project for this 5 day intensive design, fabricate, and construction workshop is to build a Sweat Lodge for a weary farmer. The fabrication studio will focus, and participants will learn, digital practices that enhance work flow methods between design, metal fabrication, and installation by using the latest software + techniques.

Participants will warm up with a charrette to produce the design, then will quickly transition to digital techniques geared toward fabrication. Six applicants selected from an international open call will be invited to work with a metal fabrication shop including practicing professionals on site, developing practical, technological, and construction skills. Professional training will be provided in using a plasma cutter, press break, sheer, and basic welding techniques.

Applications Due Friday November 29th
For more information please visit: www.plusfarm.org

Sunday, October 6, 2013

'Thinking With the Body' at the Wellcome Collection. Until October 27th.


Wayne McGregor is well known for his physically testing choreography and ground-breaking collaborations across dance, film, music, visual art, technology and science. In 2000, he and his company Wayne McGregor | Random Dance embarked on a series of projects investigating aspects of creativity in dance with researchers from other fields such as cognitive and social science.

This exhibition, staged during the run-up to the first performances of his new work for Wayne McGregor | Random Dance, 'Atomos' at Sadler's Wells, offers a glimpse into this interdisciplinary research process and the impact it has in the rehearsal studio. Find out more about the process of choreography and how mind, body and movement interact in each of us.

From Saturday 28 September to Sunday 13 October there will be opportunities to meet dancers who have experience of working with the ideas discussed in the exhibition. The dancers will offer a unique insight into and practical demonstration of physical thinking techniques. Sessions will run on Thursdays 18.00-21.00, Saturdays and Sundays 14.00-17.00.

Admission to Wellcome Collection is free

Wellcome Collection
183 Euston Road
London NW1 2BE

Friday, October 4, 2013

Richard Serra: 'Drawings for the Courtald' 19 September 2013 – 12 January 2014


Richard Serra: Drawings for The Courtauld presents twelve of Serra’s most recent drawings, created especially for this installation at The Courtauld Gallery.

Rising to prominence on the New York art scene more than forty years ago, Serra is now celebrated internationally, notably for his groundbreaking sculptures and for his radical approach to drawing.

Serra’s Drawings for The Courtauld are extraordinarily powerful works. Produced using dense black litho crayon on transparent plastic sheets, their forms only just seem to cohere, as if still in the process of creation. Serra’s innovative technique pushes the boundaries of drawing in new directions.

This is an opportunity to see radical new drawings by one of the most important and revered
artists working today.

at The Courtauld Institute of Art 
Somerset House, Strand, London, WC2R 0RN, UK

Book Tickets

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Happy Magic Water Cube waterpark in Beijing


"Since its opening last year, Happy Magic Water Cube waterpark (the best name for anything, ever?) has become Beijing's second most popular destination, enticing visitors with a lazy river, wave pool, and speed slides, among other attractions. Blatant representations of underwater life in the form of inflatable jellyfish and seaweed irreverently brush up against the more austere (read: "serious") architecture. It turns out that the much celebrated ETFE membrane is the ideal backdrop for the playful proceedings, providing plenty of daylight by day, and turning the perfect shade of ocean blue at night.

There may be some naysayers who protest at the "debasement" of an architectural landmark. But there are many more who question the motives and decisions behind the making of Olympic-scale projects. No one pays more for these projects than citizens of the host city, who not only fork over tax dollars, but also powerlessly forfeit tracts of their metropolis in the name of "urban renewal". Olympic stadiums never make good on their investments, so why do city planning boards continue to eagerly sign off on the whims of a starchitect? It's time to say "no" to the Pritzker laureates and "yes" to more waterparks."

from architizer.


(the host building in its first incarnation.)

'Paper' at the Saatchi Gallery, 18 June - 3 November


"The role of paper is in decline: paperless offices are encouraged, emails reign supreme, and monetary transactions are conducted via credit cards and transfers. In Paper at the Saatchi Gallery, thoughtful, technically impressive and engaging examples of work in which paper features heavily or exclusively, attempt 
to redress this imbalance."-John Patrick Egan


Opening hours:
10am-6pm, 7 days a week, last entry 5:30pm

Address:
Duke of York's HQ
King's Road
London
SW3 4RY

Admission is free.

Friday, September 27, 2013

Nick Van Woert




Nick van Woert is an artist based in New York. The material used in the pieces above for the 'drips' is polyurethane plastic.  The colorful components in the piece below are cast urethane rubber applied to a fiberglass statue.


.

Jenny Sabin Studio



Pictured above: 'Branching Morphogenesis' installation, 2008

The studio investigates the intersections of architecture and science, and applies insights and theories from biology and mathematics to the design, fabrication and production of material structures. They collaborate with scientists and engineers and employ architects, designers and artists. Their applied projects are diverse and operate across multiple length scales including adaptive materials, tapestries, rugs, installations, pavilions and architectural interventions.

More here.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Technical Studies - Open Lectures

The 'Technical Studies - Open Lectures' starts next week.
The lectures are organised for our architecture students, but everyone is welcome.
All lectures in room M421
Thursday 3rd October, 6.30pm - Stelarc - The Cyborg Artist
Thursday 10th October, 6.30pm - Graham Stevens - Desert Cloud and other Lightweight Wonders
Thursday 17th October, 6.30pm - Neil Thomas and Aran Chadwick (Atelier One) Liquid Threshold
Thursday 24th October, 6.30pm - Tim Lucas (Price & Myers) The Kew House Project
Thursday 31st October, 6.30pm - Daniel Ptacek (Kinnickkinnic) 'The Adjacent Possible'
Thursday 7th November, 6.30pm - Dr Henrik Schoenefeldt (University of Kent) Environmental Experimentation
Thursday 14th November, 6.30pm - Nick Crosbie (Inflate) Air Structures
Thursday 21st November, 6.30pm - Paul Bavister (UCL) Sound, Acoustics, Music and Architecture
Thursday 28th November, 6.30pm - TBC
Thursday 5th December, 6.30pm - Jaisha Reichardt - 'Our Dreams Change, We Don't'
Thursday 12th December, 6.30pm – TBC

The first lecture: