Architects and designers from The Bartlett School of Architecture are exhibiting their work at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, which is expected to see 200,000 international visitors from 28 May to 27 November 2016. Staff and alumni from the School are represented across three separate exhibitions including the Ireland, Montenegro and the V&A Applied Arts Pavilions.
Bartlett School of Architecture projects include:
Losing Myself
Ireland Pavilion | Níall McLaughlin and Yeoryia Manolopoulou
Professor Níall McLaughlin is collaborating with Unit 17 design tutor Yeoryia Manolopoulou on ‘Losing Myself’ (pictured above), which will be presented at the Ireland Pavilion. Focusing on Alzheimer’s Disease, the exhibition highlights the process of designing and revisiting buildings for people who have dementia. The exhibit contains two main components: a website – www.losingmyself.ie – that arranges a series of drawings, stories, and research on dementia; and an installation in the pavilion, which contains drawings that explore a building designed for people with dementia.
www.losingmyself.ie
Solana Open Aviary
Montenegro Pavilion | Claudia Pasquero, ecoLogicStudio
‘Salano Open Aviary’ by ecoLogicStudio is one of four projects exhibited on the Montenegro pavilion outlining sustainable futures for the former saline ‘Bajo Sekulic’ near Montenegro’s most southern town, Ulcinj. Claudia Pasquero, a lab director on The Bartlett’s MArch Urban Design programme, seeks to take the artificial territory of the Solana Ulcinj to the twenty-first century by means of the latest technologies. The project proposes to literally turn the site into an aviary without a net, where birds and humans can explore close interaction without being forcefully enclosed in a confined envelope; this is made possible by digital bird tracking technologies, hi-resolution satellite earth monitoring and robotically driven land sculpting.
www.ecologicstudio.com
Infractus: The Taking of Robin Hood Gardens
V&A Applied Arts Pavilion, Smout Allen with ScanLAB Projects
MArch Unit 11 design tutors Mark Smout and Laura Allen have collaborated with Bartlett alumni practice ScanLAB Projects to 3D scan the soon-to-be-demolished London housing estate, Robin Hood Gardens. Infractus presents a a scan of the building and its associated remnants of domestic life, all in its current dereliction, and a manifestation of data through 3D crystal laser etching, a process normally used for the creation of mass-produced souvenirs. The project can be seen at the V&A’s Applied Arts Pavilion at the Sale d’Armi in the Arsenale, in an exhibition entitled ‘A World of Fragile Parts’, curated by Brendan Cormier. The exhibition explores the threats facing the preservation of global heritage sites and how the production of copies can aid in the preservation of cultural artefacts, through engaging the long curatorial history of casts, copies, and replicas.
www.smoutallen.com
More information
The 15th international architecture exhibition, opening 28 May, is curated by Chilean architect and 2016 Pritzker Architecture Prize winner Alejandro Aravena. Aravena’s theme, ‘Reporting from the Front,’ focuses on architecture’s capacity to improve the human condition by responding on many fronts — such as segregation, inequality, suburbia, sanitation, natural disasters, the housing shortage, migration, crime, traffic, waste, pollution, and community participation.
Venice Biennale 2016
28 May – 27 November
www.labiennale.org