CONCEPTUAL RESEARCH

Nick Gelpi: Unflat Pavilion/Feather-Weight House

Unflat Pavilion/Feather-Weight House image provided by Nick Gelpi Studio

Unflat Pavilion/Feather-Weight House by Nick Gelpi, Lecturer, Department of Architecture
Location: (Building 14 Lawn)
May 7 + 8, 2011

A freestanding pavilion, created by flexing two dimensions into three, this house deploys a fabrication system used to create a membrane, which is simultaneously structural, functional and representational in a single act.  Entirely constructed of laminated plywood, an open pattern is cut into flat plywood stock which transforms into three-dimensional architectural features as flat sheets are bent and unfurl into skylights, columns, buttresses, windows and vents, in the act of becoming UNFLAT.

This project demonstrates an architectural role reversal across its surface.  On one elevation, a soft skin is hung on a structural frame.  On the other elevation, the skin becomes structural, lifting the frame from the ground, inverting the normative structural hierarchy in an act of tectonic confusion.

The project uses a promising method of fabrication with flexures, as many hundreds of parts become discreet, yet remain continuously attached to the sheet, eliminating the need for fasteners.  This structure isn’t hard, heavy, bulletproof, or monumental, it is modest, soft, cheap, low-tech, and full of holes.

Inside the house, the walls appear porous and lightweight, its cavity illuminated with flexible LED strips attached to interior of each sheet.  (http://arts.mit.edu/fast/unflat-pavilion-nick-gelpi/)

Art Installations in the Shape of Fluid Pigeon Feathers by Kate MccGwire

Posted by admin in Architecture Inspiration

Kate MccGwire is an artist from London whose statement is “I gather, collate, re-use, layer, peel, burn, reveal, locate, question, duplicate, play and photograph.” For today we decided to showcase some of her art installations that feature fluid concepts achieved with the help of thousands of pigeon feathers. According to Environmental Graffiti, even though the artist was initially repelled by the idea of pigeons feathers in her works, MccGwire  “obsessively started to collect” her feathers, “playing and experimenting with ways of assembling them, with no definite idea of what was going to evolve.” The overall result is a series of intriguing works that challenge the mind of the viewer, while in the same time having a strong visual impact. As the artist herself asserts, her work “has a consistent ‘otherness’ to it that places it beyond our experience of the world, poised on a threshold between the parameters that define everyday reality“. How would you describe these art installations?

http://www.mediaarchitecture.org/category/projects/page/5/

Realities United created for the ILUMA building in Singapore RU a light and media facade, which had to be effective both during day and night. The project is part of a new development (Urban Entertainment Center) designed by WOHA architects1. In various ways this concept blurs boundaries as it actively merges the concept of a media screen with an ornamental architectural screen filtering air and light and as it blends abstract futuristic shapes with a 1970’s Vegas style.

http://www.mediaarchitecture.org/category/projects/page/5/

Nordwesthaus on Lake Constance, Austria

Folded Space, São Paulo/Brasil

Folded Space is a project by MSW that interacts with perception of Torre Pompéia building in São Paulo/Brasil. It uses video projection composed of geometrical shapes which, as they move and re-shape, transform the building onto which they are projected.
The video installation “folded space” uses the tension-filled constellation of massive parts of the building and bridge arrangements for a temporarily fresh interpretation.