This is the time to visit the summer shows. In London the RCA, AA and Westminster shows are now on and the Bartlett show starts on the 1st July.
The Royal Academy Summer Exhibition is also still open until 15th August, and also at the Royal Academy is an exhibition of recent work by Morphosis until 18th September (see image above). All well worth a visit for inspiration.
Peter Zumthor's first building in the UK, the 2011 Serpentine Pavilion, is now complete and has been open to the press. It opens to the public on the 1st July. The Guardian report that Peter Zumthor said at the opening: "This should be an escape, a place where nature is framed and compressed....Make of it what you like. There is no hidden, or even obvious, meaning here. This is a place for you to be. To be. Nothing else." Zumthor's written statement also said: "Every time I imagine a garden in an architectural setting, it turns into a magical place. I think of gardens I have seen, that I believe I have seen, that I long to see, surrounded by simple walls, columns, arcades or the facades of buildings – sheltered places of great intimacy where I want to stay for a long time." Read the full article here.
Unit B Responsive Architecture was a 2nd and 3rd year vertical degree unit at Oxford Brookes University.
We are concerned with site sensitive architecture that relates to its time and place, continuously adjusting, responding and reacting to fit itself to the present state of its environment and inhabitants. Nothing stays still. Indeed the only constant could be said to be change itself. It seems that reaction and interaction are pre-requisites for inhabiting an environment and sheltering occupants in such a level of flux. Why therefore should architecture be static?
