Archinect - News

Pop Rocks: Soft Urban Boulder Field

2012-10-04T14:22:00-04:00

Vancouver hosted a fascinating hybrid of public spatial art and waste material upcycling in its downtown area this summer: Pop Rocks, a temporary installation that covered a full city block. The project is fabricated entirely from post-consumer and post-industrial waste from the metropolitan Vancouver region.

The installation, an equal collaboration between Matthew Soules Architecture and AFJD Studio (Amber Frid-Jimenez & Joe Dahmen), engages tactically with these materials to produce soft forms that extend the typical range of active and passive social activities, fostering unexpected social encounters and new perspectives on the city.

High Above Columbus Circle, a Living Room, TV Included

2012-08-12T22:40:00-04:00

Imagine you’re a New York City building official, and the mayor’s office has decided to let an artist build a living room six stories up in the air and wrap it around a historic statue of Christopher Columbus in the middle of one of Manhattan’s busiest intersections. Oh, and the plan is to have 100,000 people climb up stairs to view it.

Panorama / Istanbul

2011-07-23T14:42:02-04:00

Panaroma is a public art which criticize the lack of public space and the confused function of the few open/green spaces in İstanbul. Art Project by Andreas Fogarasi. Project architect & construction supervision by Alper Derinboğaz.

The installation is planned to move inside Istanbul every 3 months as follows: Kadıköy, Beşiktaş, Levent, Eminönü. Therefore the structure needed to be built in manner to be easily transportable as it was going to visit important public spaces in Istanbul. In order for it to be portable and to give it an “architectural luna park” quality Panorama was designed to include smaller parts that could be assembled at will. The contrast between the mobile steel construction and architectural elements like the marble casings and marble steps emphasized the main idea of the work. The white circle that hangs there in an “illogical” way presents an attractive element that invites the viewer to the platform. To be left alone with this white circle creates a contradictory state in the backdrop of the beautiful panorama of the Moda coast.

Panorama may not be functional or easily legible but it presents a happy surprise for those who will come across it. The confusion about its functionality en...