Check this space on Monday 27th

FROM OFF TO ON PROGRAM . Interactive art installation LOCATION . Kobe, Japan COMPLETION . October 2011 CLIENT . Kobe Art Biennale CONDITION . Open competition AWARD . Honorable mention SCALE . 30sqm

VALUE . 6,000€ COLLABORATORS . Romee de la Bigne _ interactive design Daiki Nakagawa _ project management Kaneko Shinya _ project management SPONSOR . Kobe Design University

 

' TO OUR UNDERSTANDING, «KIRA» DEFINES SOMEONE'S INNER BRILLIANCE AND CAPACITY TO HIGHLIGHT SURROUNDINGS BY TRANSMISSION. ' In other terms, any person is able to reach a state of consciousness in which he/she can perceive its environment with clear-sightedness, and therefore «illuminate» it. Indeed, kira is reciprocal and contagious: by unveiling hidden potential around us, we reveal and spread charms that enrich us all. As a manifestation of kira, explorers are sensitive enough to carefully observe their environment, chasing marvels of unknown lands: nothing is taken for granted, everything is «extra-ordinary». This installation invites people to dialog through art by using an interactive and universal media: hand-drawing. Like a blank canvas, the container embodies a receptacle for artists and art amateurs' creativity as they «print» their emotions on a surprising table settled inside.

Trapped in the dark and with a UV pen for only equipment, the visitor is expected to feel his way along. He eventually notices the presence of a massive volume settled in the centre of the space. When he approaches that mass, he notices that UV-lights are progressively switching on, reaching their maximum intensity when he touches it. Getting eyesight back, he is eventually able to tell the volume is a large drawing table. Rm: a UV-light is not itself a proper light, but turns white objects into lights! The visitor is the genuine light!! Actually, the visitor is assimilated to a speleologist discovering a primitive cave with prehistoric drawings painted on the rock, except that drawings are not relics from past ages. Basically, the whole space is dark until he draws on the table. Drawing is the only way to be involved and visualize the «self-made exhibition». ' TO SEE YOU MUST DO! '

DANS LE NOIR PROGRAM . Capsule apartment LOCATION . St-Cloud, France COMPLETION . June 2011 CLIENT . Mr G.Degremont CONDITION . Private commission

SCALE . 25sqm VALUE . 25,000€ COLLABORATORS . The Judge _ photography

 

Equipped for short stays and treated like a personal capsule hotel unit, the studio apartment was completely rearranged in order to adapt to the client' specific needs. Deeply involved in his career, he mostly demanded an efficient refuge matching with his hectic life style. Without an hesitation, the owner agreed to sacrifice the existing kitchen to turn it into a modular capsule bedroom. The surface being quite limited, such a decision definitely influenced the project as it upgraded from a classic studio to an hybrid 2 rooms apartment. Integrally covered with a tailored mattress, the whole room is a bed floating 1,05m high from the ground, creating an decent storage volume underneath integrating a wardrobe and a cellar. As the capsule is directly connected to the winter garden in the loggia, feeling claustrophobic within it is not likely. Subdivided in multiple sub-spaces, the dwelling holds as many surprises as it conceals trap doors, secret drawers or hiding places. Every single activity of the client is located in a specific spot, ergonomic as can be, so that the combination of all the functions forms a scale one 3D puzzle.

Preferring the softness of half-light to the brightness of day-light, the owner was highly satisfied by the implementation of dark materials (slate, naturally tainted oak) associated to black varnish (plywood boards). What appears to be for some an atypical place to settle came to be, for him, a genuine custom-made earthly paradise. ' ECHOING SENSORY AND PERCEPTIVE EXPERIMENTS LED BY JAMES TURRELL*, THE APPARENT DARKNESS REQUIRES AN ADAPTION PERIOD, TO TAME THE MATTER AND OPENLY REVEAL ITS CHARMS. ' Besides, the night gives a new dimension to the living room, right at the intersection between a cosy jazz club and a primitive art gallery (client's private collections). * Art House Project, collaboration with Tadao Ando - Naoshima island, Kagawa prefecture, Japan. Won over by his investment and curious by nature, the owner asked a real estate agent to reevaluate his property, and got for only answer a note saying it was now «unique and priceless»!

SOUFFLE PROGRAM . Interactive art installation LOCATION . Montpellier, France COMPLETION . June 2011 CLIENT . Festival des Architectures Vives CONDITION . Open competition AWARD . Official Selection

SCALE . 25sqm VALUE . 2,000€ COLLABORATORS . The Judge _ photography Stephane Froidurot _ videography SPONSORS . Finsa + Maison de la Mousse

 

After a fortuitous sky fall, SOUFFLE landed within Tresoriers de France's courtyard. ' THE IMPACT BETWEEN THAT ALIEN OBJECT AND THE "EXHIBITION SPACE" BROKE THE LOCAL STABILITY AND EQUILIBRIUM. ' Any person suited to tame the installation will be granted a privileged access to a refuge within, half way between a confessional booth and a teleportation box. The visitor, barefoot, wanders through a peaceful

garden, where an oversized rock penetrated or crashed. Walking around, she/he eventually discovers a fault through which sneaking in the block itself seems likely. Surprisingly, the inner atmosphere is far less hostile than expected. After making her/himself comfortable, the intruder shortly notices that any single vibration triggers an interaction with the structure. If fancied, she/he is given the chance to take control of the atmospheric elements projected on the ceiling.

BLOO NATION PROGRAM . Eco-friendly association LOCATION . London, United Kingdom COMPLETION . September 2009 CLIENT . University College of London

CONDITION . Open competition AWARD . 1st prize COLLABORATORS . Lola Pedro _ co-founder

 

' IT TAKES 140L OF WATER TO PRODUCE A SINGLE CUP OF BLACK COFFEE. '

Find out more about water sustainability issues on www.bloonation.com and help us reverse the water crisis.

URBAN CALENDAR PROGRAM . Museum of fashion LOCATION . Tokyo, JAPAN COMPLETION . March 2011 CLIENT . Arquitectum

CONDITION . Open competition SCALE . 7,000sqm COLLABORATORS . Priscillia Jorge_ architecture

As an ephemeral yet noble discipline, fashion has always been a major witness of time. While marking major periods of history, its capability to challenge ageing through swift adaptations proved its being a genuine expression of temporality. Even in the most common preoccupations it addresses, fashion design must deal with climate, weather, seasons, and cycles: anything that evolves with time. Where other forms of art strive towards elitism, fashion finds its true meaning not only in beauty manifestations, but in the daily concerns it faces. ' IF FASHION IS REPRESENTATIVE OF TIME, COULD IT PUNCTUATE OUR DAILY LIVES TO THE RHYTHM OF CREATION PROCESS? ' Like an "everyday partner", the fashion museum provides Tokyo with an urban calendar. The regular aspect of the tower is disrupted by ateliers suddenly sticking out according to activities of resident designers. It adjusts to stylists willing to settle for a season to create their own collection within its walls. Because know-how and dedication of designers might be covered up by the apparent spontaneity of fashion, Tokyo inhabitants and visitors will eventually be given the chance to figure out through time and experience what creation implicates.

FROM TRONDHEIM, WITH LOVE PROGRAM . City-branding + Art center LOCATION . Trondheim, Norway COMPLETION . January 2010 CLIENT . Europan 10 Norway CONDITION . Open competition

AWARD . 2nd prize SCALE . 46ha + 5,000sqm COLLABORATORS . Leo Thafvelin _ architecture + urban planning

 

' WHAT IF ART COULD BE SPREAD WORLDWIDE LIKE A POSTCARD? WOULD ART GO BACK TO SOMETHING UNEXPECTED AND UNPREDICTABLE? COULD THE WORLD BECOME A MUSEUM WITH 1,001 SCATTERED ROOMS? ' Randomly shipping a contemporary art gallery in a 20' container is almost like sending a postcard to someone across the world. You never know how, when or where the person will read it. This person might not even know the place you wrote from, yet they can discover it through an image and your words. That's how Trondheim unassumingly becomes ubiquitous as a cultural hotspot.

Instead of expecting the whole world to come visit, Trondheim decided to travel by exporting its art and culture. Just like city branding, Svartlamoen became a kind of local art label, renowned internationally yet still mysterious for most of us. Some say that residents there simply grow art! At a time when art is widely consumed and altered by its economic value, Trondheim, without challenging major institutions, claims to be apart from the system by gently proposing an alternative way of thinking by creating, presenting and spreading art.

 

With enough amenities on site to accommodate all of the programmes required to create art from scratch, Trondheim barely suffers from being enclosed geographically. Moreover, the plot location could hardly be more convenient to export art, as Svartlamoen sits between the harbour and railways. Anything that is produced within the site can be sent anywhere on Earth (maybe at random) by taking advantage of shipping boats and freight trains. Each time a boat leaves the harbour or a train its station, it is possible to add one art container to its cargo. In the end, containers would be like galleries, and each time someone sent a gallery, he/she would also add a new room to the "scattered museum". As one of our priorities is to underline potential of the site, we obviously rely on the inhabitants' will to invest in spaces meant for them. Unassumingly, we propose to provide them with the best possible infrastructure to develop their own conception of what a cultural place should look like. Nothing is immutable, everything is alterable

Such a housing estate isn't only destined for local resident artists, but could potentially welcome visitors to generate a national or international exchange, providing a place to socialize in a creative atmosphere. As a result Trondheim will become a dot on the map as a favourable place for alternative creation. By taking advantage of a performance hall and another project across the street, an iconic cultural centre for the neighbourhood is formed. Its scale allows inhabitants to use it regularly and in many ways: exhibitions in the galleries above (platform to load container on the "rooftop"), theatre performances, film projections (directly on the façade across the street), dance performances, gigs in the café/bookshop. This complex aims at enjoying art, like a reward after all the ongoing work at the site. This might be the liveliest place to socialize in Svartlamoen.

MONT PARNASSE PROGRAM . Vertical farm LOCATION . Paris, France COMPLETION . September 2009 CLIENT . SOA architectes

CONDITION . Research laboratory SCALE . 6,6ha COLLABORATORS . SOA architectes _ architecture + theory

 

' AS PRAISEWORTHY AS INSERTING AGRICULTURE INTO THE CITY COULD BE, WHAT SPACE THE LATTER COULD LEAVE TO A FOREIGN SPECIMEN OF ARCHITECTURE? ' With the environment as a major ideology of the XXI century, the vertical farm could as well be the urban expression of this phenomenon. After all, if the city embodies the largest form of economical and social organization, by accommodating more than half of the world's population, logically it should be altered by the ecological challenge that we face. The need to meet our commitments should already justify the possible insertion of an unique form of nature, preserved and domesticated. Evoking an environmental, ecological and economical progress, the Vertical Farm turns out to be a poetical symbol of the very act of feeding, like the Horn of Plenty. Its sophistication won't be condemned as far as it conveys educative knowledge, helping the population understand its mission and meaning. Although it

is a sort of factory, the implemented technology within simply serves as a support for plants, enhancing their natural cycle. As a pilot project, the Vertical Farm in Montparnasse will play a role of exception, in the sense that other kinds of farms varying in scale, service and functioning will, together, partially produce food where we consume it. Without intending to totally replace existing farms, this new array of equipments will tend to work as a complementary mean to feed the population in a local yet wide scale. Indeed, before the Petroleum Age, a great part of our wastes and resources were treated at a territorial scale. This anticipation survey was elaborated in parallel to the lead of the research laboratory in urban farming at SOA, architects of the Tour Vivante, and in collaboration with Dickson Despommier, inventor of the Vertical Farm concept. Some of the studies made are even likely to be implemented in a near future.

CAPTIVE PROGRAM . Refurbishment LOCATION . Paris, France COMPLETION . December 2008 CLIENT . Fondation Tour Eiffel CONDITION . Open competition

AWARD . Shorlisted SCALE . 8,650sqm COLLABORATORS . GMGB _ structural engineering

' HOW COME THE MOST OVERWHELMINGLY SUPPORTED MONUMENT IS WHAT PARIS USUALLY REJECTS : A TOWER ? ' Dominating the architecture spectrum, from engineering to art, the Eiffel Tower transcended its physical incarnation to reach the status of an icon. What if, as the quintessence of art or a representation of the sacred, the delicate "Iron Lady" became a masterpiece belonging to a museum, protected from alteration, crystallized in space and frozen in time? Paris, preoccupied by its matchless heritage, is the very city that some call "museum city" after all... Coiled up in a mega-structure completely independent, a museum unique in its kind, the Eiffel Tower would still be at the disposal of its 6 million annual visitors, who would for the first

time look towards it instead of enjoying the view. The most noble and most dreaded creature eventually captured! The proposed experiment tends to define the intrinsic relationship between Paris and its tower, by somehow separating them for a short while. Can Paris survive without "her" (or vice versa)? Elaborated by Buckminster Fuller, tensegrity consists on a mecanical system comprising a set of discontinuous objects components within a continuum of tensed elements, in a stable equilibrium. In other words, by bonding rigid bars with cables, without directly connecting the bars together, a rigid structure can take shape. Owing to compression and tension forces, the frame self-sufficiently stands and cannot be pulled out of shape.

DRIFTING ART-LAND PROGRAM . Floating gallery LOCATION . London, United-Kingdom COMPLETION . June 2008 CLIENT . Arquitectum

CONDITION . Open competition SCALE . 450sqm COLLABORATORS . GMGB _ structural engineering

 

Hard to assess in urban term, the river claims the birth of the city while staying detached from it by its particular identity: ubiquitous as a spine, yet barely passable by inhabitants. Inserted in the Thames, undefined as a plot (central but distant), the drifting island embodies a favoured observatory by proposing an alternative reality of London. Visitors are given the chance to experience and sense water in an elaborated architecture that merges and exchanges with its environment, like any living organism would unassumingly do.

By acknowledging that the proposal of a unique journey prevails on a mere "moving gallery" design, the floating structure offers much more to see from the outside world than its apparent interiority let us know. In order to absorb the deep essence of London, a bunch of periscopes sticks out from the exclusive water skin, sucks in the veracity of the Capital city, until then undetectable, and finally reveals it in the core.

' THIS DEVICE REINTERPRETS IN A CONTEMPORARY MANNER PLATON'S MYTH OF THE CAVE, WHICH DISOWNS PRECONCEPTIONS THAT OUR SENSES FORM BY HABITS. '

The main hall comprises both permanent and temporary exhibition spaces, plus the auditorium, scarcely partitioned by sails, randomly tightened to a forest made of thin posts. Flooded with natural but treated diffuse light, the immaculate area allows time to be suspended for a while, so that people can wander freely among artworks.

If one gets more adventurer, he could sneak in the underwater basement and try to find intimate lounges, within reach, though hidden in a coral sea of hanged filaments. This claustrophobic vision that periscopes provide permits to focus and comprehend the city, paradoxically more efficiently than from the surface.

CLUB 3 PROGRAM . Pop-up architecture LOCATION . Saint-Etienne, France COMPLETION . March 2008 CLIENT . Minimaousse 3

AWARD . 1st prize SCALE . 35sqm VALUE . 3,000€ SPONSORS . Maison de la Mousse

 

Concerned by elderly persons' condition at a time where society is getting older, Club3 temporarily settles in cities. In parallel to "Paris Plage", our capital city could instigate another sociocultural initiative dedicated to the old age. Taking care of the logistics, in association with elders' clubs, the city of Paris could find in this limited scale summer project a mean to preserve a tight bond with a population often forsaken and weakened in this period. ' THE MAIN PRINCIPLE IS TO CREATE A SOCIAL FORUM FOR ELDERS TO TAKE ADVANTAGE OF SUMMER THE SAME WAY YOUTH DO. ' Dropped down in market places, Club3 visit older people in a familiar place they practice daily or weekly, without disturbing the local harmony. With a pre-established programme, each association, club or group would have access to

this tiny venue, to perform any kind of public event (concert, open-air dance, street theater, food tasting, cards tournament, etc), and make sure every single week is unique. When carried by local services of the city of Paris, Club3 presents itself like a stash of foam cubes reminiscent of market's products storage. 4 steel frames are engaged in fixings of the ground, usually used to build stalls, and then connects to the pile of cubes via cables. When organizers of an event decide to, they can trigger the unfolding system with tensioners and racks. Unpredictably, all the cubes previously leaning against one another are progressively pulled up in the air owing to a network of tensed cables. Floating all around, they form a generous shelter for visitors and provide shadow like trees do, for elders to bear the summer heat. Some cubes can even, independently or assembled together, serve as modular pieces of furniture or stage.

BLACKOUT PROGRAM . Multi-purpose public equipment LOCATION . Tokyo, Japan COMPLETION . Septembre 2007

CONDITION . Diploma (Guillaume) AWARD . Summa cum laude SCALE . 7,200sqm

 

With efficiency more than aesthetic for spearhead, Tokyo becomes the first genuine hybrid city melting infrastructure with "da-me" architecture* without complex. Particularly undefined, architecture there is sometimes a sequence of conditioned and empty shells through which citizens pass, hence simply serving the city's velocity.

In a context excluding any notion of constancy, the concept of massiveness sounds outdated. Consequently, the introduction of a physical landmark within this chaotic environment seem required, to fix for a moment space and time. This theory tends to reinterpret the regretted "meisho" from the Edo era, fragments of the old city where artificiality was banned. Looking inward, these public spaces were areas to socialize, gather or meditate, like an escape to the city even though they were placed in their very chore.

* Yoshiharu Tsukamoto coined this term in Made in Tokyo, a book produced by his office Atelier Bow-Wow and his laboratory at Tokyo Institute of Technology.



' ARCHITECTS GENERATE SHAPES TO ENVELOP EMPTINESS AS WELL AS MUSICIANS COMPOSE MUSIC TO CAPTURE SILENCE. '



Blackout treats the residual public space by reversing the notions of inside and outside to create a "super-interior" facility, where people can surprisingly feel as free as when standing in the middle of a square.

Latest station emerging from the JR Yamanote Line, Shibuya's composition is similar to the one of a village, with a concentric pattern. The project is set in the very middle of this district, intending to challenge the most tumultuous part of the possibly most hectic metropole, and seek quietness within. Floating in between highways, train tracks, bus terminals and footbridges, this case study envelops the void to provide it with sense and function. Apparently massive, the artifact betrays the passerby but eventually invites him to discover a collection of public spaces ordered in hierarchy depending on their degree of intimacy. Like cave-dwellings, inhabitants can find a refuge in the mass, and slide from the real to the imaginary world, freed from any urban stressful reference.

RELIGAR PROGRAM . Social rehabilitation program LOCATION . Santiago, Chile COMPLETION . September 2007

CONDITION . Diploma (Remy) SCALE . 4 x 37sqm

 

The proposed project is the extension of a former diploma dealing with the social interaction of prison inmates with the outside world, and more specifically the visitors' room. For a better understanding of the notion of seclusion, three typologies were analyzed: the monastery, the military school and the remand centre. In the first two cases, the monk and the soldier in service both form the will to be secluded for a while and personally choose to go through a certain constructive process. On the other hand, criminal imprisonment still doesn't include any formative procedure, necessary to re-socialize prisoners. The prison system in Chile is so saturated and inefficient that condemned persons never get any chance to think about a possible new direction for their future. As an example, the overpopulation of the detention centre of "Ex-Penitenceria" is blameworthy, with 6,500 inmates when its capacity is only 2,500. The second offence's rate is very high. ' MOST OF THE TIME, THE AFTERMATHS IN THE TRANSPLANT OF A FOREIGN ORGAN TO A RECEIVER, WITHOUT TREATING ANY OF THEM, IS REJECT. ' It is consequently essential to prepare the inmate and also our society to successfully re-insert criminals who paid their dept, without stigmatizing them. A first step forward would be to strengthen the bond between this tiny enclosed world and society, as obviously, only being apart from society isn't sufficient to come back in a better position. In this scheme, re-insertion would even be abolished and translated into re-bond. Indeed, the imprisonment system should work on the "exit of prison", and blur the boundary between inside and outside, as for now the transition is very abrupt. This post-prison proposal steps in like a political program for the Chilean state, with a simple yet innovative target: to officially probate the end of detention in the eyes of society. In order to reach this aim, dialog modules are spread inside prisons and outside in the city, with a wide range of programs to progressively help ex-criminals move on with us.

PROFILE

HOLDUP / heuld^p / noun 1. be the physical support of; carry the weight of 2. maintain to a certain level, raise; enhance 3. stand up; resist or withstand 4. continue to live; endure or last; survive 5. cope, face up; confront with resistance (without violence)


Genuinely imbued with experiences abroad in their respective backgrounds, from Latin America to Eastern Asia, Remy Bardin and Guillaume Jounet establish in late 2011 their own office, determinedly foreign exchange-oriented: HOLDUP.

Owing to growing collaborations, they avoid being confined to the known field of architecture and already tend to explore new territories through a multidisciplinary approach.

REMY BARDIN EDUCATION . Universidad Diego Portales (CHILE) . Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture Paris-La-Villette (FRANCE) . Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts Appliques et des Metiers d'Art (FRANCE) EXPERIENCE . Edouard Francois (FRANCE) . Agence RH+ (FRANCE) . Xaviere Bouyer (FRANCE) . GMM Arquitectos (CHILE) . Agence MUR (FRANCE)

GUILLAUME JOUNET EDUCATION . Tokyo Institute of Technology (JAPAN) . Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Architecture Paris-La-Villette (FRANCE) . Ecole Nationale Superieure d'Arts Appliques et des Metiers d'Art (FRANCE) EXPERIENCE . SOA Architectes (FRANCE) . WHAT Architecture (UNITED-KINGDOM) . Atelier Bow-Wow (JAPAN) . K-Architecture (FRANCE) . Atelier Du Pont (FRANCE)

THINK TANK COLLABORATORS . Caroline Bourgeois_book editing

AWARDS 2011 KOBE ART BIENALE Honorable Mention Kobe, JAPAN FESTIVAL DES ARCHITECTURES VIVES Official selection Montpellier, FRANCE 2010 GREEN UCL 1st prize London, UNITED KINGDOM

EUROPAN 10 2nd prize Trondheim, NORWAY 2009 MINIMAOUSSE 3 1st prize Saint-Etienne, FRANCE 2006 INSTITUT FRANCAIS DU DESIGN Janus prize Nantes, FRANCE

EVENTS 2011 KOBE ART BIENALE Art In A Container "From Off To On" Kobe, JAPAN METAL CULTURE Salmonk Festival "The Waving Wall of Chalkwell" Southend-on-Sea, UNITED-KINGDOM FESTIVAL DES ARCHITECTURES VIVES Musee Langdocien "Souffle" Montpellier, FRANCE 2010 UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF LONDON Green UCL "Blue Gold" London, UNITED KINGDOM DOGA Europan Norway "From Trondheim, With Love..." Oslo, NORWAY EUROPAN EUROPE "From Trondheim, With Love..." Neuchatel, SWITZERLAND

SKUOR Urban Transformation "From Trondheim, With Love..." Vienna, AUSTRIA 2009 CITE DE CHAILLOT Minimaousse 3 "Club3" Paris, FRANCE 2008 BIENNALE INTERNATIONALE DU DESIGN Minimaousse 3 "Club3" Saint-Etienne, FRANCE 2006 BIENNALE INTERNATIONALE DU DESIGN Jeunes Talents "Allowing to escape" Saint-Etienne, FRANCE LIEU UNIQUE Ewol "Allowing to escape" Nantes, FRANCE

MEDIA

 

LINKS

Web design . GSV Communication - www.gsvcom.fr

Photography . Thejudge - www.thejudge.ch

Engineering . GMGB - www.gmgb.eu