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.

Ueli Degen: PET Lamps

Pet Lamps with Micro Macro
  

PET LEUCHTEN – Design ohne Technologie (2010)
von Ueli Degen & Merkli Architekten
First productions in Brazil led by Ueli Degen


Pet Lamps in Brazil
PET - Leuchten können kinderleicht und mit blossen Händen gemacht werden. Man braucht für ihre Herstellung keine Maschinen, einfachste Werkzeuge wie eine Schere und Nägel genügen. Und das Rohmaterial - PET –Flaschen -  ist überall erhältlich, wo Wasser getrunken wird: weltweit.

Eigentlich braucht man nur eine Idee. Und die hat den kürzesten Weg: den vom Kopf in die Hand. Die Technologie hat die Reichweite unserer Hände verlängert und ihre Kraft vervielfacht. Sie hat aber auch die Distanz von der Idee zum Produkt vergrössert. So dass unsere Ideen manchmal auf der Strecke bleiben. Somit kann fehlende Technologie auch eine Chance sein. Die Idee zu den PET - Leuchten entstand im brasilianischen Hinterland - einem Ort, wo Mobiltelefone noch keinen Empfang haben und sich die wenigsten ein Auto leisten können. Schon eine Motorsäge ist für viele unerschwinglich - von einer industriellen Produktion ganz zu schweigen. Günstige Arbeitskräfte gibt es dagegen genug. Die Mehrheit der Menschen sind in dieser Situation: Sie haben keinen Zugang zu Technologie. Dafür zwei Hände und einen Kopf. Diese zu gebrauchen ist der Ursprung allen Erfindungsreichtums - und damit Triebfeder sowohl von Design als auch Technologie.



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