Here’s some pictures of the Architectural Association Summer Pavilion, designed by students from Unit 2, which opened today in London’s Bedford Square.
Based on a concept by 3rd year student Danecia Sibingo, the pavilion is the fourth in the annual AA Summer Pavilion series.
Driftwood pavilion will be open until 25 July.
See our previous story about the Driftwood pavilion for more images and info.
See our top ten most popular stories about pavilions.
Here’s some text from the AA:
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Architectural Association Celebrates Talent with Unveiling of Summer Pavilion
The AA School will take over Bedford Square, London on 3 July 2009 with its annual celebration of young architectural talent – showcasing the architectural intelligence that defines it as the world’s most renowned and influential school of architecture.
Over 3000 visitors from across the world will come to view AA School Summer Pavilion, Driftwood and Projects Review on 3 July. This is an early chance to view this incredible celebration of hot young architectural talent.
–
Posted by Brad Turner
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Nice but stupid. Form, form, form! Architecture is not only form! I understand, that it’s experiment, but what about wasting materials, etc. It is artifitial discussion, immoral project, like Zaha, Liebeskind etc. Why we don’t try to solwe real problems?
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:32 pm
yeah I thinkz that teh AA are the best school, their designs always are amazing!!11! They are so coneptual it is awsome!
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:41 pm
I go with Martin
July 3rd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
I agree with Martin. This is a heck of a lot of material just for a temporary “blob in a park”.
Even if the material is supposedly ecological, that doesn’t grant the right to use it in an un-ecological, throwaway manner.
I understand it as a promotional tool for the AA, but trying to justify it beyond that seems ridiculous to me.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:11 pm
your so beautiful you bore me to death
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:14 pm
i’m sure the trees looked and worked better (structurally, aesthetically, spatially)
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:20 pm
where’s the human interaction?
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:25 pm
What makes this be a pavilion rather them a sculpture?
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:32 pm
where are the people!?!?…
Architecture without people is meaningless…:P
…actually I believe in such a case (pavillion), form is a more valid arguement as in other cases….
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:38 pm
When will all this meaningless form making end? Schools are a wonderful place for experiment and research. However, this is not research by any stretch of the definition. Forget about the ecological moralizing. I pray that students, with the help of a new generation of teachers, will find a more relevant and provocative way of engaging architecture.
July 3rd, 2009 at 2:41 pm
nice!
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:08 pm
is a pavillion, not an hospital!
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:32 pm
I agree with Martin, but remember if no one was doing art for arts sake and making extravagent gestures then we would all suffer (creatively) as a result. It’s important to have as many people doing as many different things for our well being as a cultured society… it’s like if our brain was only utilised for one function then we would probably die of boredom.
Was the timber used here not driftwood? If not then why is it called a driftwood pavillion?
It’s up to us as responsible designers to safeguard our environment…
July 3rd, 2009 at 3:40 pm
People…Form is one of the most important problems in architecture…Form gives forth to spatial, programmatic and even ecological solutions..Some of our most important moments in architecture have been because of exercises like these…
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:06 pm
I have to agree with Martin. Architectural demonstrations like this seem to ignore concerns about consumption. For some reason, architects take pride in being on the wrong page of history. Maybe we imagine that we’re all so far ahead of our time and so petty issues like global warming, human rights or the economic crisis take a back seat to the latest fascinating form finding method.
July 3rd, 2009 at 4:27 pm
i see it more as a collaborative work/experimental piece of ecological structural sculptural engineering build – more sculptural form than pavilion – the concepts/ideas of which could possible be transferred into buildings later. I still like it, and still look forward to having a look,
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
this is not Architecture!
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:18 pm
martin! i mark your words!!! actually it really would make sense when setting it on fire….
July 3rd, 2009 at 5:20 pm
Do they have to solve all the problem in the world? Every project has different focus.
So any suggestion for them to archieve this visual impression with a more Economical method?
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:24 pm
It’s really more of an abstract sculpture than anything else…public art.
As to it’s temporary pavilion status, instead of throwing it away, why not sell/donate/move it whether that’s to a wealthy private individual or to a low income communities public space…with logistical/financial support from a benefactor.
Or sell/donate it to an artist to disassemble and reassemble/recycle into something else.
Coming up with solutions (+). Just wringing our collective green hands (-).
July 3rd, 2009 at 6:35 pm
This form is not only form but experiment of construction and technology in an aesthetic manner but also in a spacial context of an urban environment. And it is obviously provoking lots of maybe not so bright thoughts!
July 3rd, 2009 at 7:09 pm
There is no problem with being experimental in forms. No architect has ever been famous without making good forms. And it is fine for this pavilion to explore only forms and the use of wood.
Yet we are looking for more different projects which are experimental in other aspects of architecture, eg. ecology, structure, functions, city, details…..etc.
I won’t say it’s stupid as this project only tackles few of the many aspects in architecture. But I won’t say it is nice.
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:20 pm
Could they not have even built a bench or something into it?
hello dead space.
July 3rd, 2009 at 8:25 pm
It’s a piece of sculpture, why are people so hung up on the conceptual justification for the form?.. Not that I think it’s a great piece of sculpture or anything but I find it sort of interesting to look at, in that it looks vaguely ‘organic’ from a distance, like the driftwood it tries to imitate, and then reveals itself to be quite precisely engineered close-up.
July 3rd, 2009 at 9:16 pm
i love dead space!
it relaxes my mind. ahhh…
July 3rd, 2009 at 10:05 pm
So if a sculpture is big enough so you can walk in it, it’s a pavilion? So architecture can be sculptures and vice versa?
Reminds me to the buildings/sculptures designed by Frank Gehry. In my opinion Gehry is an artist who makes sculptures. Only are his sculptures of that size you can walk in them. Does that make his sculptures architecture? I think not.
July 3rd, 2009 at 11:03 pm
i have to agree with anteater, this is a technological tour de force. not much further needs to be said. it has a nice relationship to its urban context. its engaging in many ways at the human scale. this project warrants closer inspection.
how did these guys use CNC machines to cut curved wood? provocative work.
July 4th, 2009 at 12:28 am
It’s a sculpture, not a pavilion. Computer architecture screams from this project. I’m sure the wood could have been used in a more meaningful manner. It is however a school project, so hopefully they learned something from this. I can’t imagine what though. Maybe they can use it in the next “Honey I Shrunk the Kids” film.
July 4th, 2009 at 2:41 am
The AA has done amazing pavilions over tha past 5 years and pushed the boundaries of teaching and constructing architecture.
While obviously not resolving all the worlds issues in one pavilion, this is a great contribution and backseatcommentators like the above make it less and less pleasant to read dezeen.
this is yellow press niveau!
encourage innovation stop complaining.
if each and everyone of you only made ONE contribution to architecture like this in his lifetime,(!!!) we would have a better world.
amen
July 4th, 2009 at 9:23 am
anteater – maybe you can educate me, because I have always wondered this, how are these type of structures (pavillion / art pieces) an “experiment of construction and technology … in a spacial context of an urban environment.” What does that last part actually mean? I visited last night and I as an average joe, certainly didn’t notice any response to any kind of context. I am not saying this is a bad thing, but its one of those things I always read next to architectural presentations but never really understand….
July 4th, 2009 at 10:59 am
so mid 90’s
July 4th, 2009 at 11:42 am
i think we often forget is the construction and actual work that went into erecting this pavilion by the few students. isn’t that part of ARCHITECTURE as well? as students, to be able to have the resource and support to build it is a lot to be grateful for.
people should calm down about all these crazy talks, they are not trying to change the world with it.
July 4th, 2009 at 11:55 am
‘ martin! i mark your words!!! actually it really would make sense when setting it on fire…. ‘
this thing should be set on fire to prove the point of it complete ignorance and to mark the end of senseless position architecture is in : ‘ taking a back seat to the latest fascinating form finding method ‘
July 4th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
it might be innovative in the way its built… but then…. again… this is not at all expected from AA… shit happens… but this is way too much…
boiling down down to mere slaves of nurbs and parameters that are setup to obey yet again the anthropometric constraints… sad… really sad…
the previous years pavillion was great… that made me think i should study there… this one’s making me have a second thought…. lets c….
all the best…
July 4th, 2009 at 4:29 pm
Oh, I think this is complicated. On one hand I agree with what many of you have said, that this is not architecture and it’s a waste and we should do something that is good for the world. And on the other hand this IS a school project to make something for just this space. And what is then wrong with a sculpture? What is wrong with just making beautiful, subjective, things? But I do think that it’s strange that this TYPE(because you can be experimental in different ways!) of experimental architecture is so pushed forward in school. It’s these things that wins the awards and is published and pushed forward from the leading schools of AA/Bartlett… There are so many other things going on. And it feels like this kind of computer/blob/sculpture architecture really is trend that is fading away… Well, and what do I know. I still think that everyone are aloud to do what they want if they just think about what they are doing:)
July 4th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
As I see, the opinions divided on pro and contra. To the one side this pavilion is meaningless and a grate waste of material, that is quite enough prodigal in spite of financial crisis. And this pavilion is only worth to be set on fire…))) very funny.
To another side pavilion is highly fascinating. Look, it’s just a student’s project, but it’s a good result of architectural intelligence.
I’m very far from professional architecture. So, my square pitch may consider very silly to someone. But I think constructure of pavilion is quete nice, form is composite and texture is rather pleasant. It will be quite advisably to install pavilion on the children’s playgrond…of course in case completing with some details…won’t it?
July 4th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
i vote success, on the grounds of a project by a third year to raise this in depth of a conversation.
whether or not it is an installation, or a pavilion. whether or not form should triumph function in the case of an architectural / spacial academic study.
success.
July 5th, 2009 at 4:47 am
it seems pretty obvious to me that the people making projects like this one above; covered by dezeen, don’t read or comment on the comments board of this magazine. kind of ironic, wouldn’t you think!!
July 5th, 2009 at 6:45 am
ํํWhy do we need that a small pavilion(?) has to save the (social & natural) world? At least, for this one, it saves, for our kids, a great opportunity to imagine in their heads and actually build it by their hands (in relation to available fabrication technique at the time).
Building things and acquiring forms are part of each other (senseless to ask whether this is architecture or not, it’s like keep asking “is this art?”). Yet, the most important thing in this project is the learning and building processes (including when the kids come to read all your comments.)
The way it defines space, shapes shades and shadows, concerns human scale, redefines material conception and interacts with immediate setting of a square ‘corner’ in central London should be worthwhile enough for the kids (and for us to judge them). Most importantly, it challenges us to reconsider the programmatic level of the ‘pavilion’.
We probably don’t like this designing approach, but this is just a work of a unit. In a school, there are those who concern housing problems and who went to flooding or refuge areas to do projects as well. Go to see exhibition as a whole and in comparisons with other schools to judge it.
I agree with n. pajerski, this is success enough is stirring conversation (if we still want to judge it).
July 5th, 2009 at 7:47 am
When designing solely for form, architects are only addressing the single sense of vision and sometimes reduced to a single viewpoint..:) while they are capable of designing for a full interaction with users giving a holistic experience. No point of wasting resources on pointless experiments!
July 5th, 2009 at 10:05 am
This looks like a hand-me-down from Thomas Heatherwick – a chunky contoured timber appearing to bend and twist alluringly. But if the purpose of the pavilion was form for form’s sake, it would have been better to see something exhiliratingly new rather than just a variation from the architect’s Style Guide 2006. And disappointingly simple in its construction methodology! We could have some exploded contours creating a bris soleil in the very least. The AA is using this elaborately contoured turd as proof of its self-appointed stratus as architecture school par-excellence. It should attract some keen first year students. But if course AA is being left behind by schools with serious commitments to research and a post-Rhino disinterest in Nurbs- the GSD, UCL, TUDelft and the like.
July 5th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I love Bedford Square for its traditional setup. And the installation forms just a beautiful contrast to the stiff and conservative environment of the UK and London itself. In that sense all of AA always have formed a collective criticism on their context, rather than a contribution to architecture as a universal intellectual discipline. The said does not diminish the quality of the work, but does not elevate it either. I do the work, as it has shown the qualities of the teachers to push the students to an investigation of form, material and construction. Unfortunately they do not push them enough to become architects though…
July 6th, 2009 at 9:01 am
i cannot understand the whole hate for computational design strategies… imho who have to split the CD fraction to 2 parts. theres the group of designers doing the same fluid/ blobby/ strange stuff over and over again and never gets beyond the concept 1:1 scale model and rather useless state of project… then there is this oterh (quite little) group which tries to investigate all those designing methods to a problem solving community… who try to search ways (engineering and construction wise) to use all the techniques to have better architecture… many people (especially on itnernet platforms like this one here) are bored by the designs cause of there similiarity… this similiarity comes from the simple fact that there is no inherent construction-strategy! so if we find ways to use the technique and build real buildings in the future… also the designs will become more sophisticated jsut by the fact that construction will not kill them… it will enforce them! so stop hate people who actually build little experimental things… in a few years we can perhaps use cnc/cam to make outragous solutions?! who knows… at least it is an interesting path and worth the reserach
July 6th, 2009 at 11:21 am
man you guys are over reacting… is the AA not a school? and in schools do students not practice and learn concept/techiniques for their professional careers? so whats wrong with students doing this and manifesting a techinically/structurallly advanced in the real world so as to better inform their/our future projects? it all sounds like sour grapes/jealousy to me… maybe we should all give up and live in barret homes and only listen to brittney spears?
it does respond to a context by the way. it deflects round the lamppost it sits next to.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
No thought whatsoever given to how the user might interact with it.
I guess I could take a photo of it?
And post it on my blog…
July 6th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Well it certainly has divided you guys! Thank you, for the considered remarks (even in the negative.) Shame on the illiterates who only offer oaths.
This is an exercise that concerns process and technique, a kind of digital craftsmanship. Think of the Bauhaus application of industrial technique and substitute the word digital, for industrial. Educationally this is experiential based learning. The students learn from a rich formative experience crafting a complex project and the process involved to do so.
We have a long distance to travel (in 3 terms) so we travel light. We jetison certain other ligitimate architectural concerns and go deep in our area of specific enquiry. Within a unit based system you can experiment with pedagogy. We go out to the left knowing that others ballance us on the right.
This not a design! It is design and build! It’s about making things (craft), and embracing and managing complexity. The pavilion was only the vehicle of our enquiry. It seems to be you who judge things as objects, without understanding their deeper cultural meaning. How superficial!
July 6th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
You have placed this experiment in a public square to be interpreted by architects and non-architects. You should expect the public to see your work in a political/cultural context. Its foolish to expect the public to understand exactly your limited scope and, without coaching, to narrowly define this thing that they have encountered on the street as an apolitical “exercise in digital craftsmanship”
July 7th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Yes, it is in the public realm, in front of a school of architecture on the occasion of a year of end show, as the fourth in a series of pavilions by Internmediat Unit 2, and accompanied by the Project Review prublicatin speaking about the unit and its intrests………..
I think all of this is accessable, to those who enquire. As for those who don’t, that’s fine, as Frank Gerry said, “you make your mud pies and hopefully someone appreciates them.” What is the point of projecting your architectural expectation onto the work of others.
There was a debate in Canada when the National Gallery purchased a Mark Rothko painting for $12million. The philistines claimed “What about the homeless.” Departing form mose academic desing and build programmes, this project lacks direct social engagement in the community, appart from ‘delight’ (1/3 of the Vitruvian definition of architecture). We know that!
July 7th, 2009 at 11:09 am
as stated before i really guess it is necessary to focus on isolated aspects of architecture these days… computation and construction techniques evolved that fast so we are not able to come on a sophisticated and satisfiying level with progressive designs if we try to solve all design problems in one step!
asian artists learned brush strokes for years before they started painting… so why not go step by step in architecture? if i have a look at most of the build examples of progressive computational designs it is very prototype like… now people focus on simple things can bring things some small steps ahead… lets go for the research and lets go for the basics… we will earn from these things in future! (dont we?)
July 7th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
it is revealing that no one asks for plans or sections of this project. This is because it is not an architectural project. It doesnt generate space, only form.
I agree, it is good to focus on learnig techniques. But: While learning brush strokes is part of painting routine, piling up premature products of computer generated designs is in fact missing the very point of architecture – creating space. This is one of the projects that is lost in thechniques. We do it because we can not because we think its necessary. Go back and learn your brush strokes: learn about space before you start fiddling with techniques you don’t understand.
July 7th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Firmness, comodity and delight…… unless I am missing something? The Smithson’s ‘The Castle and the Pavilion’ categorised all architecture in two groupings. Castles are heavy programmatically intensive buildings like airport terminals or hospitals. Pavilions are ehpemeral lightweight, temporary and programmatically light.
So ditch firmness (heavy built) and ditch commodity (substantial accommodation) and you are left with delight. The pure and simple uncomplicated joy of building, in harmonic proportion that is pleasing to the eye, activated by shadow, a joy to behold and to physically negotiate. (I am pretty sure thats architecture?)
Apparently you guys are Philistines. Your society has no place for joy nor delight. You live in a practical world of utility and problem solving. Your vision, and your definition of the discipline you practice is so narrow you cannot seem to accept the uncomplicated joy of building! (Unless you are prejudicing the pavilion based on technique.)
July 7th, 2009 at 2:46 pm
I still think this a really good project, and understand the importance of the students learning like this, an amazing opportunity. I’ve just been thinking, walking into the square and initial reactions, how about some kind of monitor – delighted or curious or disappointed or don’t like ?
& Karl – as far as I can see they definitely did generate/create a space.
July 7th, 2009 at 5:12 pm
@Tutor Agree with you on most parts and if you have read my last post you can see i appreciate that way of thinking… but after this pavillon what is you personal conclusion? What would you except as further steps? I personally had more inspiration and visions after visiting the drl pavillon… this on eis very pleasent to my eyes but cant take me off the ground and give me some inspirational kicks… (not yet sure why)
July 7th, 2009 at 9:53 pm
The most important skill for any architect to have is their ability to think critically. It’s not worth taking the bait of sculpture vs. architecture. What’s missing is some evidence of any critical thought whatsoever. Some of the comments are fair, there isn’t much to a pavilion. So should we back off? OK, but this pavilion is no different than any other nurbz inflected geometry produced in academia.
Come to think of it, I will take the sculpture bait. As a sculpture, it’s bad sculpture. Has anyone seen the world of sculpture lately, say the last 30 years? Does the name (Robert) Smithson ring a bell? The work is simply weak by all accounts. Wake up people. It’s not provocative. It’s boring.
I’m not trying to be a complete naysayer. I’m just dying for a provocative piece of architecture to be built again, one that takes us in a new direction. I think it’s time.
July 8th, 2009 at 7:22 am
I enjoy delight and joy, I just get it so much more from substance…. just me…
July 8th, 2009 at 10:28 am
tr, I like your comments. We do need more critical thinking and the A vs. S argeument is boring and superficial. I think you need to appreciate that this was done / made by second and third year students. Furthermore, I would hope that the new provocative direction in architecture would come from inspired work in practice and not from academic pedagogic exercises, we never aimed for something so ambitious.
ste, You asked about personal conclusions. I am feeling the pavilion thing is ending. It was a good run, beginning with the Serpentine in 2000 for nearly 10 years now we have played with this typology as a format for free architectural modelling, at full scale (so experimenting in a playful way with building stuff.) It was largely about space, construction and technique.
The problem is, it lacks social purpose. The blood-life of an architectural movement is linked to it’s social purpose, and I feel this ‘movement’ is becoming quickly deflated. The spotlight is moving on to newer issues. That doesn’t invalidate what was achieved, but perhaps it is becoming increasingly less significant…. We should move on.
By the way, someone grafitied the pavilion, shame……
July 8th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
this is dope hands down. STOP snitchin’.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Discussion, discussion, discussion… ok, right…
But seriously, what do you do with this besides looking at it before it rots?..
All these pieces generate a lot of discussion and architects have lost completely the point of the profession. Architecture can be and should be so much more simple. This is just a means to justify the high cost of studying at schools like the AA- something like ‘I can do this and you can’t because i know how to use GC, Rhino, etc’.
Highly sophisticated big amounts of BS.
July 8th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I appreciate it as an experiment and one that gets students building.
http://digg.com/d1w3ft
July 8th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
Yes, let’s all do a 500 hour drawing like people at UCL, frame it and put it on the wall.(back to the drawing board as they like to call it) to the guy who nagged about the AA not going beyond NURBS and Parameters, at least they dont offset 450 lines and call it a drawing. at least the AA backs students, supports them, and encourages to build rather than framing a photoshopped image of bunch of wheels and strings with a dramatic sky and a black background,…
I think people have a lot of nerve to criticise a student project to this level. It is a shame that a forum like dezeen has become home to such pointless drivel and senseless criticism.
July 8th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Of course this is architecture.
1. The art and science of designing and erecting buildings.
2. Buildings and other large structures: the low, brick-and-adobe architecture of the Southwest.
3. A style and method of design and construction: Byzantine architecture.
4. Orderly arrangement of parts; structure: the architecture of the federal bureaucracy; the architecture of a novel.
5. Computer Science The overall design or structure of a computer system, including the hardware and the software required to run it, especially the internal structure of the microprocessor.
Definition from http://www.thefreedictionary.com
July 8th, 2009 at 4:45 pm
How much did this thing cost? How much does it cost to display it like this? How is that money funded? Why? And then I read:
“… showcasing the architectural intelligence that defines it as the world’s most renowned and influential school of architecture.”
Oh, I see… it’s a giant ad. That explains a lot.
July 8th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
I live on Bedford Square – it’s my ‘hood, one of the most perfect Georgian squares, that has been given the regeneration treatment by Camden Council in recent years.
Big expanses of vandal-proof open space are perfect as a place for the AA to extend its show from the dense internal spaces of its premises, especially for a design and build student project made of elements created at its Dorset site and assembled in-situ. It’s there for one month (as I understand; maybe the planning agreement will be extended further this summer, and its social purpose is no more or less pre-defined (beyond the Vitruvian ‘delight’) than the ones last year – three of them, if you include Tonkin Liu’s mobile installation for the LFA, which touched down for a week. I see it as an installation, the result of an educational research project realised by teamwork (12 students). I’d rather be drawn in by this ephemeral delight than the hordes of traffic wardens marching up and down
the gravel; the drug dealers making assignations on the square, and as for what you do in it, with it – it’s summer – go and kiss your friend inside, read a poem, make a vow (to open your mind) and or whatever. Remember that it’s not M15 architecture, not some humungous energy-guzzling office building; it isn’t arrogantly stealing anyone’s space or housing rights. Keep it in proportion – it’s small, ephemeral, and it’s arousing you to some emotion. It’s not a pavilion (last year’s had a stage, so you could call that one a pavilion I guess), but an installation or giant model if you like – SANAA’s new Serpentine pavilion fulfills that definition, and the range of uses is myriad (talks, 50 poets reading, marathon discussions), but then Serpentine has many sponsors, and we are talking about a different cultural context. Making things is central to culture – and a rite of passage in an architectural education; otherwise you lose touch with materials, tactility, the experiential dimension, and there again, the discipline of production and teamwork is fundamental. So I’m defending Driftwood’s presence on my doorstep and its integrity as an exercise, and think those worried about irresponsible use of material should keep their hair on and the would-be pyromaniacs keep their matches dry and aim their fire at a better target. Max Fritsch, the Swiss novelist and playwright called ‘technology the knack of so arranging the world that we need not experience it’ but projects like Driftwood show its facilitation doesn’t need to turn out that way.
You may subjectively prefer not to experience it. That applies to all design, all art, all architecture, all human expression. Just go find something that deserves to be criticised.
July 8th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
I don’t understand we all these people feel the need to talk so much s**t about this project. (And I also don’t know why Asaf felt the need to talk s**t about the Bartlett). Haven’t any of you been to architecture school… This project was designed and built by 2nd and 3rd year students, many of them probably had never built anything (at this scale) in their entire lives. Most of the criticism is on point I will not argue with that, but another part of critical thinking is to understand what roles a project serves in the greater field of architecture. This is a project where STUDENTS were able to explore and learn digital design/fabrication techniques (most likely for the first time) and apply them to full scale project. It’s nothing more than that. As a student who has tried and seen others try to produce work of this (formal) complexity at a one to one scale in an academic environment I know how difficult it is to produce these kinds of projects. It’s usually a nightmare. And I applaud the AA for their ability to continue producing these project.
So for all the HATERS who have nothing better do then hate on student work on a blog… CHILL OUT… its gonna come down soon and you’ll never have to see it again.
But for now lets just let the students be proud of what they accomplished, I think they deserve it.
July 9th, 2009 at 9:19 am
some very interesting discussions started here so the pavillon already did alot more then giving the students a nice experience… i guess the whole cultural context and the tradition of archtiectural schools doing 1:1 scale prototypes with contemporary techniques gives those small things much more impartance then one might think at first sight! its a small amount of money and ressources for what can be achieved… so its already more then justified to do these things!
July 9th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Someone knows how to use 3D Max and export to a giant laser-cutter. Yawn!!!!!!!!!
July 10th, 2009 at 9:42 am
We pretty much worked that discussion thru. What have we learn’t:
1. There are alot of people out there who don’t like computers. Well, there were alot of people (particularly in the UK) who resisted industrial mechanisation in the proto modern period. They advocated a return to craft and produced some exceptional architecture but…… that debate eventually subsided. Maybe you are swimming against the tide? Isn’t the real question – how do we integrate digital production within architecture in a purposeful and sophicticated manner.
2. The project has divided you into two camps; those who are attracted to a sunsual visual and spatial experience that challanges conventional categories of architectural type and those who project moral responsability on projects with expectations of economy, sustainability and social purpose. (I always thought economy was an engineering concern, I am hard pressed to think of a single great piece of architecture that is economic?)
All press is good press.
July 10th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
ahhhh,
Adver-tecture or Architecture… mmm
why is sensual digitised form so often hand-in-hand with Adver-tecture?
Nevertheless, I agree/hope that it is indeed a phase before we are properly able to substantially utilise it… everything is connected…
September 9th, 2009 at 1:02 pm
students have been producing these objects, albeit at a far smaller scale, for the last five years; laser cutter and NURBS modelling //do not// architecture make. Seems more of an exercise in tools than architecture; but then that seems to be what the AA is aiming for these days.
October 22nd, 2009 at 1:55 pm
To all the haters.
Is there really a clear difference between what is sculture and architecture?
Why the angst?
You talk about environment,perhaps you should complain to companies buying illegal wood from Indonesia.
Why the rigidity in thought, stop complaining, start appreciating.