Archinect - News

Looking back at One Take Architects' pop-up digital art museum in Beijing, inspired by the Himalayan landscape

2020-03-18T14:57:00-04:00

In 2019, Hangzhou-based One Take Architects completed the Mandala Pop-up Digital Art Museum, which was a temporary structure showcasing an immersive multi-media exhibition inspired by the Himalayan landscape and arts and culture. The architects envisioned the pop-up museum as a utopian, isolated garden in the heart of bustling Beijing.

Photo: Wang Shilu.

Photo: Nan Xueqian.

Featuring facade lines inspired by the Tibetan Himalayan mountain Namcha Barwa, the museum was designed like a set of blocks that can be split and reorganized into a “dKyil-‘khor”, an inner palace in Chinese Buddhism and which translates into “mandala” in English.

Concealed from the outside, the building measured over 50 meters long, was less than 5 meters tall, and had a width of less than 9 meters. As visitors move through the art museum, they could chart their own path to create their own experience, encountering immersive digital art, changing lights, reflective mirrors, sca...

Louis Vuitton's “shoppable museum” pop-up makes a pitstop in Beverly Hills

2019-07-22T18:52:00-04:00

Louis Vuitton X brings together a remarkable collection of early twentieth-century special-order trunks, beautiful art deco perfume bottles and window displays commissioned and designed by Louis Vuitton's grandson Gaston-Louis, iconic Monogram bags reworked by renowned artists and designers such as Karl Lagerfeld, Rei Kawakubo, Cindy Sherman, and Frank Gehry, and original collaborations and commissions by artists including Yayoi Kusama, Richard Prince, and Zaha Hadid.

Fusing art and commerce, “Louis Vuitton X” is a pop-up exhibition currently at the 458 North Rodeo Drive building through September 15 in Beverly Hills. The glitzy pop-up space is a burst of color that showcases 180 items from Louis Vuitton's archives and traces the fashion house's 160-year creative history. Of course, the exhibition features a shopping element to it, where visitors can browse LV's latest “Artycapucines” collection designed in collaboration with six international artists. After its LA stop, the pop-up exhibition will go on a global tour.

Need a building in 8 minutes? Ten Fold's self-deploying structure has got you covered

2017-07-06T14:25:00-04:00

The company says they’re fully equipped as soon as they’re opened and can be stacked on top of each other. No foundations are necessary, and Ten Fold says the structures can be deployed on sloped or uneven ground. According to the company, “The components are modular so almost any arrangement of panels, doors, windows, and service pods is possible.”

Need a building in a pinch? Well Ten Fold Engineering has got just the thing! In what is sure to take glamping to the next level, the company is now offering self-deploying structures that pop-up in under ten minutes and come fully equipped. The structures are designed to offer 689 square feet of space and 706 cubic feet of storage and can be transported by a standard truck. Due to the family of pin-jointed linkages, little power is required for installation and the only tool necessary for assembly is a hand-held battery drill. The structures are easily customized for various usages and could be deployed as medical clinics, beach houses, supermarkets and/or offices to name a few. The current cost is $129,330.

Miller Kendrick Architects complete Welsh pop-up hotel

2017-05-19T08:00:00-04:00

Miller Kendrick Architects, a small practice founded by Michael Kendrick and Paul Miller in 2015, have completed their build of a ‘pop-up-hotel’; a cabin that was one of eight winning designs of ‘Epic Retreats’. Named ‘Arthur’s Cave’, this small structure will be featured on Channel 4 as part of the ‘Cabins in the Wild with Dick Strawbridge’ series, the first episode of which airs on Sunday 21st May.

The modern design was inspired by its surrounding ancient Welsh landscapes, which tumble and stretch for miles around the faceted larch-clad structure. With a fantastic outlook across the Snowdonian National Park, and shelter formed by the rocky foothill of Castle Y Bere, MKA’s geometric cabin nestles in a unique and captivating location.

Staying true to MKA’s passion for testing new forms of low-cost, efficient, and sustainable methods of construction, Arthur’s Cave uses locally sourced materials and a clever construction method of jigsaw-joined birch plywood ribs, which acts as structur...

Could a pop-up village in south-east London be the answer to the city's housing crisis?

2016-03-22T04:50:00-04:00

Rapidly rising property prices and rents, combined with the loss of social housing through right to buy, have put councils under growing pressure to find new ways to help people off their housing lists. In Lewisham one solution is a £4.3m scheme to provide 24 homes and 880 sq m of business space that can be picked up and moved at a later date, allowing the council to make use of vacant brownfield land while longer-term projects are finalised.

A minimalist pop-up apartment for Bangkok's parking garages

2015-11-17T17:59:00-05:00

In Bangkok, where rents are quickly rising and young professionals often struggle to find places to live, architects created a simple tiny house that can easily pop up in a parking garage or inside one of the city's half-built abandoned buildings. [...] Instead of solid walls, the structure has a lattice-like design that lets breezes pass through. "With the wall, we need as much ventilation as possible," she says. "It is always too hot, not cold."

Bangkok-based firm All(zone) is currently exhibiting their "Light House" shelters at the Chicago Architecture Biennial.

Banksy about to open "Dismaland" pop-up exhibition in British seaside resort

2015-08-19T15:31:00-04:00

Rumors have been circulating around the internet for a few days, but later this week Banksy is now set to open a new pop-up exhibition entitled "Dismaland" at in Weston-Super-Mare, UK. The venue is called "Tropicana", a 10,200-square-foot site to be transformed into "Dismaland", a probable attack on American entertainment giant Disney. [...] As usual with Banksy, the details are very scarce, but earlier this morning Iain Brimecome and Jon Goff were able to fly their drone above the site [...].

Another aerial view of "Dismaland," expected to open later this week. Photo: Iain Brimecome & Jon Goff, image via streetartnews.net.

Photo via @francisclarke on Twitter.

Banksy in the Archinect news:

Cult of the temporary: is the pop-up phenomenon good for cities?

2015-07-20T12:05:00-04:00

These projects could be life changing for the vulnerable people they support. Yet in celebrating pop-ups as the solution to urban problems, are we simply distracting from the lack of structural public provision in these areas – and worse still, normalising, even glorifying, its absence through passionate avowals of temporariness?

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And so, as pop-ups become an everyday feature of global cities, we should be alert to the conflicting ideologies embedded within them. As we seek to build on the innovation, resourcefulness and inclusion they enable, we must remain conscious of their potential to normalise and even glorify the precariousness of urban life.

K O S M O S asks: is architecture merging with other media?

2015-07-15T18:11:00-04:00

Telephone poles, scaffoldings, abandoned utility plants: like taxpayer-sponsored dark matter, these elements form the largely ignored visual majority of our daily urban experience. K O S M O S, a self-described "virtual firm," whose four partners occasionally physically convene in New York, Basel, or Moscow, has spotlighted and transformed these otherwise drab infrastructural elements into a ribbed foil pop-up in Moscow entitled EMA. Described as "a temporary installation and renovation of ex-industrial territory in Moscow," EMA essentially repurposes an abandoned eyesore into an event space. We emailed Leonid Slonimskiy a few questions about K O S M O S' global approach to revitalizing forgotten infrastructural elements, as well as the selfie-savvy aesthetics and corresponding media-blurring issues of EMA's design.

Archinect: You describe EMA as "reveal[ing] and leverag[ing] the hidden infrastructure of the city." In what other cities would you like to attempt similar infrastructura...

Centre Pompidou to cover France with pop-ups

2015-02-12T14:47:00-05:00

Towns and cities across France will soon be able to boost their culture offerings by hosting pop-up branches of the Centre Pompidou. The Paris museum is expanding its empire, and aims to establish domestic temporary outposts. “We will soon launch an open call for candidates [to select a French city],” says a spokesman for the Centre Pompidou. These pop-ups will remain open for four years.

D.C.'s war over pop-ups

2014-07-28T15:04:00-04:00

Throughout his neighborhood of Lanier Heights, developers are buying up two-story townhouses and building an extra floor or two, additions that are known as pop-ups. They’re also extending the structures as far back as allowed, to within 15 feet of the property line, obliterating backyards in the process. [...] A few doors down the other way is a deafening construction site, where a single-family home is being turned into eight units, taking full advantage of what was once the backyard.

Architectural installations to pop-up on Hollywood sign hiking trail this weekend

2014-05-14T20:43:00-04:00

On May 17, the yearlong series' final event, inspired by L.A.'s most prominent icon, the Hollywood sign, is being staged. Six projects will be installed on the Hollywood sign trail, where all of Los Angeles is laid out before hikers. Details are still being finalized, but the event could feature imaginary viewfinders designed by Elly Ward and mini-monuments erected by Elizabeth Timme, co-director of design office LA-Más.

Trek to the Hollywood sign

What: Installations along a trail near the Hollywood sign

Where: Hollywood sign trail. Park in the Greek Theatre Parking Lot G in Griffith Park or at Griffith Observatory and take the shuttle to the Hollywood sign viewing area.

When: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. May 17

Price: Self-guided tour is free. Shuttle to the site, $7; free for 2 and younger.

Information: www.laparks.org/shuttle/shuttle.htm, www.ontheroadprojectla.org

A Summer Program to Nudge South Street Seaport Back to Life

2013-05-24T18:47:00-04:00

This summer at the almost defiantly unhip South Street Seaport, there shall be pop-up boutiques housed in shipping containers. There shall be outdoor film screenings with lounge-chair seating. There shall be SmorgasBar. And, the lords of artificial weather willing, there may be glitter rain.

PinkCloud’s Pop-Up Hotel Turns Empty Office Spaces into Temporary Hospitality Spaces

2013-05-22T17:44:00-04:00

The finalists of the 2013 Radical Innovation in Hospitality competition recently gathered during Hospitality Design Expo in Las Vegas to present their ideas for the next big hotel concept in front of a jury of top industry judges. [...] the Copenhagen-based international architecture collective PinkCloud.dk took home the $10,000 grand prize for its Pop-Up Hotel concept, which utilizes empty Class A office spaces in urban centers, turning them into temporary hospitality spaces.

Paper Craft Weds Japanese Tradition And Modern Architecture

2012-10-31T13:30:00-04:00

“Working with paper forces me to be humble, since this medium has a character of its own that asks for cooperation,” Siliakus explains on her website. In the beginning, she worked by hand, using an X-acto knife and a bone folder to prototype each piece dozens of times.