studio 3

The studio 3 blog for our MArch studio in Brighton Studio 3

Richard Long

The Yorkshire Sculpture Park and Hepworth Wakefield Gallery are holding concurrent Richard Long exhibitions, last chance to see them as they close on the 14th October 2012 (there is a video on the Hepworth Wakefield Gallery site - see below). If you can't make it to the exhibition Richard Long has an excellent website- recommend taking a look click here 
'Long’s work comes from his love of nature and through the experience of making solitary walks. These take him through rural and remote areas in Britain, or as far afield as the plains of Canada, Mongolia and Bolivia. Long never makes significant alterations to the landscapes he passes through. Instead he marks the ground or adjusts the natural features of a place by up-ending stones for example, or making simple traces. He usually works in the landscape but sometimes uses natural materials in the gallery. His work explores relationships between time, distance, geography, measurement and movement.' Tate
For full details of the exhibitions including a video see Hepworth Wakefield Gallery and Yorkshire Sculpture Park

Rain Room

Random International's Rain Room is in the Curve Gallery at the Barbican (London) until 3rd March 2013. 'Random International invites you to experience what it’s like to control the rain. Visitors can choose to simply watch the spectacle or find their way carefully through the rain, putting their trust in the work to the test. More than the technical virtuosity necessary for its success, the piece relies on a sculptural rigour, with the entire Curve transformed by the monumental proportions of this carefully choreographed downpour and the sound of water. Random International are known for their distinctive approach to digital-based contemporary art. Their experimental artworks come alive through audience interaction and staged performance.'
Video and full details from the Barbican here

Playful Ping Pong Pavilion 23rd June - 8th July LFA

Dan Sweeting from Unit B and Gang of Six won a competition for the design of a playful pavilion which forms part of the London Festival of Architecture from 23rd June to 6th July, The RIBA's Love Architecture Festival, and the Oxford School of Architecture end of year show. The pavilion is based on the Ping Pong variant 'Around The World'. Students from Montana State University and Oxford Brookes University finalised the design together.

From Sunday 1st July - Sunday 8th July as part of the London Festival of Architecture the public are invited to engage with the pavilion and there will be subsequent talks and activities taking place throughout the two weeks. For details of the location in London see the London Festival of Architecture site here.

Playful Pavilion blog here.

Unit B 2012 Exhibition

The Unit B exhibition at Oxford Brookes University runs until 9th June. The exhibition then goes to London at Chetwoods Architects, 12-13 Clerkenwell Green, London with the celebratory opening on 28th June and then it runs until 8th July.
Invitiation with details here.

Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei Serpentine Pavilion of Memory

The Serpentine Pavilion opened on 1st June (closes 14th October). Describing their design concept Herzog & de Meuron and Ai Weiwei said: “Every year since 2000, a different architect has been responsible for creating the Serpentine Gallery’s summer Pavilion for Kensington Gardens. That makes eleven Pavilions so far, our contribution will be the twelfth. So many Pavilions in so many different shapes and out of so many different materials have been conceived and built that we tried instinctively to sidestep the unavoidable problem of creating an object, a concrete shape. “Our path to an alternative solution involves digging down some five feet into the soil of the park until we reach the groundwater. There we dig a waterhole, a kind of well, to collect all of the London rain that falls in the area of the Pavilion. In that way we incorporate an otherwise invisible aspect of reality in the park – the water under the ground – into our Pavilion. As we dig down into the earth we encounter a diversity of constructed realities such as telephone cables and former foundations. Like a team of archaeologists, we identify these physical fragments as remains of the eleven Pavilions built between 2000 and 2011. Their shape varies: circular, long and narrow, dots and also large, constructed hollows that have been filled in. These remains testify to the existence of the former Pavilions and their greater or lesser intervention in the natural environment of the park. “All of these foundations will now be uncovered and reconstructed. The old foundations form a jumble of convoluted lines, like a sewing pattern. A distinctive landscape emerges out of the reconstructed foundations which is unlike anything we could have invented; its form and shape is actually a serendipitous gift. The three-dimensional reality of this landscape is astonishing and it is also the perfect place to sit, stand, lie down or just look and be amazed. In other words, the ideal environment for continuing to do what visitors have been doing in the Serpentine Gallery Pavilions over the past eleven years – and a discovery for the many new visitors anticipated for the London 2012 Olympic Games. “On the foundations of each single Pavilion, we extrude a new structure (supports, walls) as load-bearing elements for the roof of our Pavilion – eleven supports all told, plus our own column that we can place at will, like a wild card. The roof resembles that of an archaeological site. It floats some five feet above the grass of the park, so that everyone visiting can see the water on it, its surface reflecting the infinitely varied, atmospheric skies of London. For special events, the water can be drained off the roof as from a bathtub, from whence it f lows back into the waterhole, the deepest point in the Pavilion landscape. The dry roof can then be used as a dance floor or simply as a platform suspended above the park.”

 

 Domus article and video here
 Full details from the Serpentine Gallery  here

Unit B 2012 Summer Exhibition

Jon put together this film of second and third year unit work for the end of year exhibition.

Honorary Mention for Francis

Francis Hunt received an honorary mention for his 2009-10 Unit B design project RAWlab at the Educate Prize Awards ceremony. The EDUCATE Prize was an International Student Award focused on the implementation of sustainability and reward exempla of best practice in pedagogical methods and programme development. Educate Prize.

AA summer workshops in Japan

Summer plans? Koshirakura Landscape Workshop/The City After-Image, Koshirakura Village and F-2 Site, AA Workshops. Thursday 19 July – Thursday 2 August 2012. For details see: AA workshops.

Reiulf Ramstad and Jensen & Skodvin

Norwegian Reiulf Ramstad and Jensen & Skodvin will be giving a talk at the RIBA on Norwegian Architecture Landscape and Intervention on 17 April 2012 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM. Tickets from the RIBA - link here. There is also an exhibition of their work at the RIBA from 12 April 2012 - 15 June 2012, entrance is free. Full details here.  

Jensen & Skodvin
The above photograph is of Jensen & Skodvin's Gudbrandsjuvet Landscape hotel. The architects explain their scheme as: "Basically each room is a detached small independent house with one, or sometimes two of the walls constructed in glass. The landscape in which these rooms are placed is by most people considered spectacularly beautiful and varied and the topography allows a layout where no room looks at another. In this way every room gets its own surprising view of a dramatic piece of landscape, always changing with the weather and the time of the day and the season."

For more information on the projects visit the practice's web site at: here  

Reiulf Ramstad Arkitektker

The Norwegian Tourist Route Trollstigen shown in the second image was the work of Reiulf Ramstad Arkitektker. The second image is of their project for a summer house in Hvaler. For more information on the projects visit the practice's web site: here

Virtual Field Courses - Finland

This is the start of a series of posts on buildings we have visited on our field courses, the virtual field courses. The first is from our field course to Finland.

Laajasalo Church, Finland 
Architects: Kari Järvinen and Merja Nieminen

The Architects description (translation): 'The height and character of the interior spaces vary, highlighting each functional space; from the low, smooth ceiling in the foyer, we move on to the taller pergola hall that lies between the interior and exterior spaces, beyond which we find the bright church hall. The height and character of the interior spaces. The halls and the foyer can be combined into one big church space. The light towers on the yard side shine like lighthouses at night; during the day, they let in sunlight for the interior spaces. The wall structures are made of glulam in the form of pillars and stiffening boards. The ceiling structures of the church hall are made of glulam beam trusses connected by steel joints and the beams that support them laterally. The stiffening concrete walls and the steel parts of the wood joints highlight the warmth of the contrasting material, wood. The cladding is mainly made of wood, while the large surfaces of the halls' façade are protected by green-patinated copper sheets. The interior surfaces are made of pine and birch plywood, boarding and acoustic wood louvres. The impression left by the plane's blade on the board cladding is faintly visible. The surfaces have been varnished so that they are a natural colour or they have been left untreated so that time can colour them. The floors of the halls are made of oil-treated pine planks, giving rise to the impression that it is a music box or a wooden container. The spruce planks on the façades have been oil painted in the traditional Finnish red ochre. The wood structures enable the structures to be expressive and easily understood. The pillars, beams, grilles and trusses as well as their joints, the alternation between load-bearing and the needing to be borne and the visible layering of the structures lets the hierarchy and atmosphere of the various, diverse spaces be articulated. Laajasalo wooden church was realised on the basis of the winning proposal from an invited competition held in 2000. The church was consecrated during Advent in 2003.' Kari Järvinen and Merja Nieminen (Architects SAFA)

Visit the practice web site here:
Kari Järvinen and Merja Nieminen (Architects SAFA)
The photographs shown are from our visit. Plans and further information is available here.

Educate Prize

Francis Hunt's year 3 Unit B project rawLAB is through to the final five of the Educate Prize. The final results will be released towards the end of the month.