Design studio Pareid filled a lecture theatre at the College of Architects of Madrid with a reversible installation made from PVC pipes, which were later donated for use as construction materials.
Called Everywhere and Nowhere, the installation took over COAM's Sálon de Actos as part of the fourth edition of the Urvanity Art Fair.
To decorate the lecture hall, London-based studio Pareid installed red neon lighting and sourced the same corrugated PVC tubes that are often used in construction to protect wires or form drainage pipes.
These were draped around the room and its three large columns in a bid to draw attention to the hidden network of wires, cables and pipes, which is constantly transferring physical matter and digital data across the globe.
"The language of excess, fluidity, connectivity and transmission are rendered in this space through the use of three materials: tubes, lights and metal," Pareid founders Déborah López and Hadin Charbel told Dezeen.
"Lining the walls, ceiling and parts of the floor, visitors are immersed in the machine-like organs and red glow – all of which are familiar and at the same time alien."
Instead of permanent adhesive, Pareid used clamps and straps to suspend the tubes in various arrangments around the room.
"The [Urvanity Art Fair] lasted for three days, meaning the installation had to be able to be mounted quickly and ephemerally," explained López and Charbel. "As it occupied the room of an existing building, it also had to leave no trace behind."
During the festival, a small bar and a central seating area were placed in the room to host a range of public talks, conferences and social gatherings.
Afterwards, Pareid donated the corrugated tubes to a small construction company in a nearby town, which has since used them to protect the electrical wires in one of its recent buildings.
"The project aims to tackle issues surrounding temporary installations and the construction industry's waste as well as people's appreciation for certain aspects of the built environment," said López and Charbel.
"These tubes are things everyone needs and values but at the same time, they are visually unappreciated and thus hidden underground," the designers added.
"They are indeed the aesthetic rejects of what most people experience as architecture. By foregrounding them as the elements that allow our contemporary urban and rural lives to seamlessly operate, visitors are met with an element they usually do not care to see."
Pareid is known for its multidisciplinary approach to architecture and design. The studio has previously made a textile from human hair to measure urban pollution and built a brightly coloured classroom in Thailand around two funnels for harvesting rainwater.
The photography is by Javier de Paz García.
The Urvanity Art Fair was on show at the College of Architects of Madrid from 24 to 27 February 2022. See Dezeen Events Guide for an up-to-date list of architecture and design events taking place around the world.