A collection of research & context

The symbol of Venice, a red marble lion on the San Marco square.

Venetian artist Chiara Enzo gave me insight of local life and their frustration with the beautiful city and the ridiculous amount of tourists which increase in numbers every year.

I have sat on this red lion three times in my life - once when I was 4, another when I was 16 and here above I took this as a 38 year old adult. I have been considering the erosion and how it very simply relates to 'It’s not you it’s the water thrower'. 

It’s not you, it’s the water thrower (2016)
Leila Houston

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​Olafur Eliasson

When you talk about language there is an assumption that you need to have several people in the discussion, well a monologue is actually a good word, sometimes people think of Architecture as a monologue that suggests that there is a house or Architecture that says something to an abstract world which maybe just listens. If you talk about language you have this idea that you both say something and then what you said changes your surroundings. - Olafur Eliasson.

See video here

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Re Actor by Alex Schweder & Ward Shelley
Focus on America
Living with Art & Design

Sep 17, 2016
Text by Adrian Madlener

Investigating how constructed environments can affect and be affected by human interaction, frequent New York-based collaborates Alex Schweder (featured on tlmagazine.com earlier this year) and Ward Shelley conceive ReActor. Mounted in the expanse of Omi sculpture park – set within the bucolic landscape of the Hudson Vallery and at a 2.5-hour drive north of Manhattan,the 13.4 by 2.4-metres house-like structure balances off of a central 4.5-metres axis. Conditioned by both external and internal forces – the movements of two inhabitants – ReActor tilts, rocks, sways, and turns a full 360-degrees. Inside a mirrored interior provides both dwellers with the essentials: a bed, dining table and washing station. Both Schweder and Shelley spend periods of five days living within the construction. Occupying either side of ReActor, each person’s daily routine is influenced by the movements of the other. If one leans over the edge of an extruded balcony at on end, the other has to do so as well to ensure stability. Perhaps as a physical metaphor for the shared responsibility of cooperation, Schweder and Shelley’s latest example of “social relationship architecture” expressed as “performative architecture” builds on earlier collaborative projects like the Counterweight Room – in which two performers rely on the tug-and-pull of each other’s weight to interact with a vertical interior.

After this, their first outdoor work, the duo hopes to continue their exploration of how constructed surroundings can impact relationship dynamics and vice versa. The correspondence between sculpture, architecture and interaction takes the notions of praxis, high and low art, as well as conceptual expression to new echelons.

ReActor is part of the 2016-17 Architecture Omi exhibition WOOD: From Structure to Enclosure.
2-Day Special Appearance: 24-25 September
5-Day Performance: 6 – 10 October
Architecture Omi’s Field 01
Omi International Arts Center
1405 Country Route 22, Ghent, New York
Sculpture Park Open during Daylight Hours

Photo: Richard Barnes

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The Temporary Inhabitant
(L’Habitant Temporaire)
By Thomas Batzenschlager
“L’Habitant Temporaire” is a project by Thomas Batzenschlager, a French architect living and working in Santiago (Chile), which takes the form of an illustrated essay on domesticity. This collection of twenty interiors located in different parts of the world is carefully represented by means of plans and perspectives, a visual description of spaces where the author lived for just some hours or for several years.
Starting from the spaces of intimacy, the author wishes to talk about different cultures, each reflected in the limited space of an interior room and to relate disparate forms of habitat through a common mean of representation.

The book “L’habitant temporaire” is edited by Lemieux Éditeur
For further information: presse@lemieux-editeur.fr
The drawings, along with photographs and video projections, are exhibited (until Sept.18th) in an abandoned church in Metz, l’Église Des Trinitaires in an installation designed by the same author.
More information below. Images from the design and the realised installation at the end.

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Ceramics Applied to Architecture
Sep 16, 2016

Museu del Disseny de Barcelona Plaça de les Glòries Catalanes 37-38, 08018 Barcelona

‘Brick by Brick’ is an innovative showcase of ceramics as incorporated into architecture, bringing attention to the critical, yet largely understudied, intersection of these two disciplines. Displaying works from a wide range of time periods and regions—from ancient Mesopotamian pieces to the contemporary interpretations of Picasso and Miró—the exhibition explores the symbolism and utility of clay bricks, tiles and ornaments in architecture over time. Curated by renowned French architect Pedro Azara, the show includes approximately 300 pieces from 60 different collections across Europe. ‘Brick by Brick’ will open alongside the 47th Congress of the International Academy of Ceramics in Barcelona, a leading ceramics convention hosting artists and scholars in the field. It is also scheduled to run concurrently with a series of activities and lectures on recent innovations and technological advancements, run by the Chair of Ceramics at the International University of Barcelona.

More information here.

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Interview by Felipe de Ferrari and Diego Grass for On Architecture

Neoliberalism itself is the most powerful instrument of regulation because it kind of includes everything: to just push things over into the economy, into the economic sphere, so everything can be kind of economized.What we are witnessing now is that even dissidence, especially creative dissidence, is incorporated in seconds; how a certain lifestyle of difference, alternative and creativity has become a leading figure for how neoliberal individuals have to behave. So in a positive term I could say that how we work, how we live, how we communicate and how we operate in the field of design could be something that has a relevance now. We should try to critically look at our old practice as designers, architects, urban planners, artists, whatever we call ourselves, and to think about our partnership with power and market players. - Jesko Fezer, architect, Berlin.

“Flatland” and “Counterweight Roommate”: Two Installations and Performances by Alex Schweder La and Ward ShelleyIn “Counterweight Roommate” a tall and thin construction hosting living facilities, the two inhabitants are connected through a single rope making the use of the already constricted space dependent on the movement of the other occupant/performer.

More info here