Although a visual art form, the principal trait that distinguishes architecture from any other art, and even design- it has to work. It has to stand. It has to function. It can’t merely be a trinket. We have to be able to use it. Arguably, that is both architecture’s greatest strength, because it gives us the medium through which we can directly, first-handedly influence our audience, and its greatest weakness, because physical reality limits our ability to express ideas to the extent we might aim for. That is why such exhibits as “Sensing Spaces: Architecture Reimagined” in the Royal Academy in London this spring (2014) are incredibly important to our discipline. Bringing to the attention of our biggest client- the general public, the issues and challenges that we, as architects face in our work, should be an important part of our cultural arena. If a widely understood common language is ever to be re-established between the architect and the public -- such interactive dialogues should occur more often.
Museum aan de Stroom
Writing about the exhibition, I have to mention the building itself, where it was located. The Museum Aan De Stroom is a well-known project of a famous architects Willem-Jan Neutelings and Michiel Riedijk, whose works are extremely influential. The building is a museum that tells a story about Antwerp city. Every level of the building is a separate exhibition. Each exhibition has its'own topic related to Antwerp, Belgium and history. First of all, when you see this huge construction with a strange intertwine stairs and a red colour of the facade, you can not really imagine what is inside. The symbol of Antwerp (hand) sits on every third stone of the facade . The same situation is in the inside of the building, there are the same amount of silver coins everywhere - on the walls, on the floor. Glass windows have an unusual shape of a wave, which is symbolically, because Antwerp is a port city. Inside the building everything is arranged in such a way that you either climb to the highest level and then start your journey; or start from the ground and finish on the viewpoint.
On each floor artists and designers presented installations devoted to sport, which made the space more fun to observe, while taking the escalator. So, each floor had each feature. I must add that the circulation of the exhibition, stands for the exhibits made with such precision and accuracy that you can not stop wondering. From the many exhibitions I chose two most interesting to look at. The first exhibition was devoted to various ships and vessels, from the oldest to the most recent ones. This ships were made extremely accurately by hands, with every detail. The second thing I drew attention to was stands for the ships. It was just a simple usual wooden pallets stacked in several layers and despite such simplicity it looked perfect and fitted to overall atmosphere. Third thing - they used a huge forms filled with sand on the exit of the exhibition. It was kind of entertainment for people. They wrote the wishes, lowered it into the bottle and buried it. As a result, every level of the building had the same entertainment, but with different themes.
The second exhibition was devoted to the various tribes and people. Again, I liked the design of the space. There was a shaped wooden wall painted with white in the middle of the room and thereby it made a space inside for more statues and pictures. But the most fascinating was a huge statues made of transparent material. Different spirits and people were engraved there. There was light from the bottom and top, that made incredible glow.The huge wooden constriction with a lot of finger joints was kind of floating in the air.Every statue had a different stands, which were accurately painted with dark colour and finish. This stands overall made a one big atmospheric exhibition, light came through wooden pieces and made the entire space look very miracle.
by Maria Mamykina
The Openbare Bibliotheek Amsterdam
http://www.arup.com/projects/amsterdam_public_library/amsterdam_public_library_1.aspx
MVRDV Studio Visit
This March L4 and L5 had a unique opportunity to visit MVRDV office and to speak to the architects. Unfortunately we were asked not to take any pictures for confidentiality purposes but still this story might be interesting to those who like MVRDV projects and probably is planning to join them someday =). The office itself is nothing but ordinary but the atmosphere is simply amazing. As many architectural offices this one has plain design, white walls, pin up wall, bookcases with models. The architects are mostly young people. The office was only established in 90s.
Reflection on Level 5 Semester B Studio
I find it pleasantly ironic that I'm writing this post on my
iPhone as I’m whizzing through space in the Moscow on the day before
submission. This entry is meant to discuss the challenges and questions we
faced in the studio project for the InsideOut module during the second semester
of our Level 5 year. Well, this blog post will be about motivation, prioritization
and act as a sort of self-evaluation. If anybody outside the British Higher
School of Art and Design ever reads this, especially young designers, I hope it
might come as a comfort to find similar thoughts occurring from similar
experiences, albeit the different backgrounds and conditions per se.
Semester Project. Materials and Construction research.
During our first research about the site of the project which is Chistie Prudi metro station me and Yulia Kalchuk were very interested in the materials that used to be in the pavilion when it was built and also about the construction. For example, I always asked myself how the stone slabs are fixed to the foundation.
In the process we went to the Lenin Library and found a very exiting book on the theme of our research. It was written in 1939. It is just 4 years later the metro station was opened.
I wanted to share some pages from the book and give some comments.
First of all I wanted to say that there were several variants of the pavilion. Architect Kolli wanted to do a very light station in terms of design to juxtapose the depth (35 m) and the heaviness of the materials which were marble Ufaley, Kaluzchsky marble and pink granit
There are several types of fixing slab to the concrete foundation. This information is really exiting! And the book is more like a manual "How to build a metro station".
I hope the you will enjoy this small extracts as much as I did!
Anastasia Borodinova
IAD L5
Cube houses in Rotterdam or just Kubuswoningen
During our trip to Rotterdam this spring one of the objects that we have visited were Cube Houses. Set of houses were build in 1984 by the project of architect Piet Blom.
Innovative decision was to rotate cubes under the angle of 45 degrees and put it on hexagon-shaped pylon. The design were created to symbolize village inside a city. Each house is a tree and whole structure together - forest.
Studio Practice / Amber Plaza / Ceiling navigation
Citywide Forum "Career Start" opened to help graduates from Russian Schools choose right direction in the beginning of their adult life. Forum aimed to let students feel what is it like working in the selected area and to let students participate in master-classes.
25 different companies participated in Forum
about 2500-3000 students took a part
Our studio was asked to organize the whole exhibition. After finilising the design for event (Small competition between all members of studio. Alan Khadikov won this part), we were divided into several groups.
I will concentrate on the ceiling navigation.
Team members: Alina Nezhivets
Annet Akopyan
Inna Vostrikova
Ideas for navigation:
Ribbons that follow the shape of floor film, that split the floor into different zones.
Simmilar idea, but here ribbons follow the angle shape of the floor film.
We decided to experiment with the shape that we have on the logo of Forum.
We used the shape of triangle like an arrows. On these triangles we planned to place names of the companies, above which it will be placed.
Triangles should be place on particular hight, according to the color of the film under it. Each color have specific hight, that people can easily orientate in the space.
Also was planned to use this colorfull composition as an overall idea near the reception desk.
In the final design all the triangles were made from foamboard, text was printed on top of it.
Triangles should be placed by an angle to the main path, as you can see on the plan.
Draft plan of navigation in section and on plan.
After finilising the colors of the floor film and place of companies, builders received this plan.
IAD student of BHSAD Moscow
by Alina Nezhivets
Studio Work
This Semester started from awful freeze Outside and cool project Inside the school. This is also the tittle of our final project - InsideOut, that we have been working on from January till May. First we spent two terrible days outside, the sight of the project, walking around Chistie Prudi at -28 degrees below 0 and tried to make some research. It seemed all bad around not only because poor quality of surrounded area but because winter in Russia is not pretty. Because of changeable weather conditions outside there is constant feeling of dirt and unkempt all 5 months of winter in Russia. Yes, 5 months.
Daily, people produce so much litter and do not care about the place they live, they built awful pavilions and crammed it with cheap advertisement and cafes with intestinal rods. How to make people refuse of having such lifestyle and prefer healthy way of life? First I was a bit confused of what to do with the research I’ve made. I wanted to bring ancient Russian culture back to this place, and reconstruct Chistie prude as it used to be before and everyone was happy, but then I got that this does not solve any existent problem.
As this year is British-Russian relationship, how can we redesign the space of Chistie Prudi and solve permanent problems and bring useful and relevant design for temporary events that will be held this year and «kill» two birds at once?
I tried to remember what important events happened in Russia this year, and as Russia was a host of Olympic games and the sport spirit greatly connected people and Russians a long time ago were not so united, thus it is a great message to people to make them interested. Now it’s time to meet British Original kinds of Sport and let people get introduced into British Sports and have fun out of going for sport. As there is a pond, it is also great opportunity to bring water sports to this place.
During the project I had ups and downs, at one moment I saw exactly how my project can look like but did not know where to start my design and it stopped me to do at least something. I was very afraid of doing the design on Chistoprudniy Boulevard because nobody considered this area, but considered only the sight around Metro. Thus I could not ask for someones help or consultation with dimensions or look what solutions they do around this area, thus I was a bit renounced from everyone. For another hand that was good for me, because I had responsibility to prove in my project that the decision of designing on a boulevard was right. While designing the pavilion, I had a stuck moment and jammed with diagrammes for two weeks and at one day inspiration came to me and I exectly saw a necessary pavilion and came up with the first design of the pavilion in 1 day!
Within the group in the studio, everyone discussed between each other their projects but I could not because my sight area was different. But finally I am glad of what I chose and how the project turned out in the end. I think despite of some questions that I am still solving problems in my project it is one of my best design for today.
Also as part of C&CS we studied Serpentine Pavilions, great project from Serpentine Gallery and it was incredibly interesting for me to consider temporary design solutions, because pavilions have been building for certain events and it is a field that I wish to work in. Furthermore I chose my tittle of essay connected with Serpentine Pavilions and consider national culture that architects bring to their constructions each year.
By Annet Akopyan
IAD, Level 5
BHSAD
Van Nelle Factory Rotterdam
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