WHAT IS BEYOND RATIONAL?

The past two decades has witnessed a dramatic rise in technology as an aid to architecture whether from a material, a production, or a logistical point of view. While architects often serve as mediators between technological changes, culture and society, translating the advancements into spaces that alter our habits and behavior, technology has also changed the way that we think and design projects. The role of technology is not simply rational but also philosophical, sensational, and conceptual.

Showing objects, projects and ideas from young architects now practicing in Zurich, the exhibition hopes to highlight not only the emerging voices of design but also the thoughts and trajectories that have resulted from contemporary tools and techniques. The contributions run across a spectrum from the pioneers of new digital technologies in form-making to the revisiting of low-tech means in confronting our social and ecological responsibilities.

Michael Hansmeyer presents his Platonic Solids, an investigation of mathematical polyhedras created through highly rigorous and iterative steps that belies the rationality of the computational logic and take us beyond what our imagination alone can produce. ROK’s Flat2Form brings geometry and digital processes to structural ornamentation, questioning our common assumptions of materiality while Ueli Degen and Merkli Architekten show that low-tech ideas when applied at a large scale can also make a difference. Re-using PET-bottles, their lamps challenge us to take on the responsibility that comes with modern technology to make design accessible to all. Karamuk Kuo, combining low-tech construction with hi-tech logistical programming, show that our world, like the technologies that we use are often not so easily categorizable and that design thinking necessarily has to adapt. ILAI and Duplex Architekten each present material and spatial studies to current architectural projects, the results of a sensibility that embeds architecture within a culture of making. Hosoya Schaefer Architects show two films, using a medium that has come to define more and more design communication. L(E)ICHTRAUM is a structural investigation using logics, rules and algorithms to produce radically lightweight, ribbon-like columns while Mobiglobe turns to much grander issues to question what the mobility of the future might be. And last, but not least, futurafrosch presents 144 thought-provoking ideas to get us out of our seats to engage with technology.

Liberated from the prosaic constraints of typical construction projects, and the functionalism that often defines our measure of technology, the exhibited works chart relationships between technology and design, whether high- or low-tech, whether material or immaterial, to speculate beyond just the rational.

Hosoya Schaefer Architects: Mobiglobe & L(e)ichtraum

MOBIGLOBE (2010)
by Hosoya Schaefer Architects

What will be the mobility of the future? By what means will we travel; how will we plan our cities and how will we organize our lives in order to stay mobile? Such questions are addressed by visionary thinkers in the Mobiglobe installation at the Autostadt in Wolfsburg. The installation shows mobility as the systemic interplay between transportation, city structure, resource flows and lifestyle. Its main message is that sustainable mobility needs to be based not only on improved cars running on renewable energy or new solutions for public transport, but also on urban planning strategies, resource management and changes in personal lifestyle. Only with combined measures in all areas can mobility truly be optimized. In the film, presented on six over-sized rear projection panels arranged like the windows of a car, four visionaries are presenting their projects or concepts; in the same space, six interactive stations add detail and explain the defining parameters of each project.

The graphic leitmotiv of the installation is a starry sky representing the many ideas available to improve the future. Among them are those that can be combined to innovative strategies and sustainable solutions. But only when the issues confronting us are understood in a systemic manner, meaningful choice becomes possible. The interviews take place in the white space generated by one of the stars enveloping all the screens and are supported by precisely choreographed graphics. Each segment ends with a panorama of a real environment showing the project or concept in action. The film illustrates the progress from idea to strategy, project and implementation and makes a proactive stance towards the future palpable.

Team:
Concept, graphics, script: Hosoya Schaefer Architects, Zurich
Production, script, direction: blm filmproduction, Hamburg
Postproduction: Optix Digital Pictures, Hamburg
Production Interactive Stations: Shiftcontrol, Copenhagen
Graphic consulting, styleguide: Buro Destruct, Berne
Installation design: Ralph Appelbaum Associates Inc., New York (2006)

Interviews:
Vertical Farm: Prof. Dickson Despommier, Columbia University
Curitiba: Jaime Lerner, ex-Mayor Curitiba and ex-Governor Paranà
BedZed: Pooran Desai, OBE, Bioregional und One Planet Living
City Car: Will Lark Jr., Smart Cities Group, M.I.T. Media Lab



L(E)ICHTRAUM (2010)
by Hosoya Schaefer Architects

We are interested in geometries and structures which are based on logic, rules and algorithms. But they should also be organic, able to adapt to local conditions and to generate differentiated spaces. This model is a snapshot of an ongoing investigation in our professional and academic work and has been produced for the Architecture Biennale in Venice. It is based on an idea developed in the context of a competition in the Europaallee development in Zürich. The structure is based on a hexagonal grid which can be continued indefinitely. According to programmatic, functional or spatial needs the grid can be adapted flexibly and provide large or small, narrow or wide, regular or organic spaces and anything in between. Openings and courtyards provide light and allow for cells filled with green. Each module has three points of support in the form of ribbon columns. One side of the ribbon always sits on a grid node. The other in turn travels around the node and makes the column dance. Twisting and turning in different directions the columns provide stiffness to all sides. The model illustrates an idea of space which is limitless, expandable, adaptable and in that sense universal, but nevertheless also local, specific and differentiated.

Team:
Architecture: Hosoya Schaefer Architects, Zürich
Structure: Arup / Mitsuhiro Kanada, London
Model: Grüne Modellbau, Wolfratshausen

www.hosoyaschaefer.com

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