30KUUB is a nomadic gallery space of 30 cubic meters that challenges invited designers to temporarily transform its small space. We got asked to make a collective, interdependent spatial installation together with Studio Sputnik, The Cloud Collective and NOV’82 based upon the notion of ’24 hours architecture’, the theme of the Dutch National Architecture Day 2013.
In analogy with the Surrealist poème automatique in which several writers collectively wrote a poem by reacting on a previous line, we segmented the space in four rows and agreed on two simple rules: each office would make a table and each part had to be made in a single day, so the next design could react upon it the following day. The result: an Espace Automatique.
The first office started filling in the back of the space, the second team reacted on that by installing their segment and so on. The overall theme was a notion of time: each segment represents a part of the day from the morning in the front, via the afternoon and evening to the night in the back, linking the installation thematically with the theme of the National Architecture Day.
Each office would make a table and each part had to be made in a single day, so the next design could react upon it the following day. The result: an Espace Automatique
Our dreams and productive work coexist and feed each other, expressed by the grid of straps that hold our tables in place.
We have re-imagined the idea of a working table in relation to the morning. First thing we do in the morning is think what we are going to do this day, based on the ideas and dreams we had last night. The working table starts the day as a coffee table. The main dividing characteristic between types of tables is their height. By lowering a second table, we introduce a coffee table, that could also be a bench. The higher tables are too high to work on, but symbolise the fact that the labour of an architect is not only drawing, but also dreaming.
Our dreams and productive work coexist and feed each other, expressed by the grid of straps that hold our tables in place. If one element is taken away, the whole composition collapses and does not make sense anymore. Furthermore, the hanging construction references our moniker which we took from the Grand Academy of Lagado, the fictional University in Jonathan Swifts’ story of Gulliver’s travels, where an architect tries to find out how to build starting from the roof and ending with the foundations. This is our humble effort to try this as well.
typology installation
collaboration LAGADO architects, Studio Sputnik, The Cloud Collective and NOV’82
commissioned 30KUUB by Piet Vollaard, Pieter Kusters and Air Foundation for Dag Van De Architectuur 2013
deliverables concept, design and implementation
realisation self built
location 30 Kuub Gallery in Groos Concept Store, Rotterdam Schieblock
photography LAGADO architects, NOV’82
publications 30KUUB website
