Archinect - News

Digital Elytrons. Latest Architecture Technology at the V&A Museum.

2016-07-06T04:48:00-04:00

Todays, pavilions are an omnipresent type of building. Unburdened to a certain degree from constraints of conventional architectures, such as program or function, pavilion designs offer architects a reign of technological and formal possibilities. Architects are commissioned for designs, in which speculation, provocation and experimentation is allowed, or even more, it is requested. Currently, visitors of Victoria & Albert Museum, run in the courtyard into an exemplary architecture experiment, posing a radical statement for contemporary digital architecture technology.

The Elytra Filament Pavilion, designed by a team of architects and engineers around Achim Menges from the Universities of Stuttgart and Munich, demonstrates a visionary for a yet to be determined digital future in the building industry. Within the context of the exhibition "Engineering the World: Ove Arup and the Philosophy of Total Design", the museum's courtyard has been turned into a test ground for the latest emerg...

"So much more than an engineer": Ove Arup gets his first museum retrospective

2016-06-16T19:37:00-04:00

“He was so much more than an engineer,” says the V&A’s Zofia Trafas White, who co-curated the show with Maria Nicanor. We are walking through a corridor of the Dane’s dreamy doodles, which forms a slightly surreal start to the show [...] “Designing,” Arup said, “is defining a sensible way of building.” Noticeably, all the projects on show trumpet their engineering credentials at full volume, as the (seemingly) logical expression of how they were made.

For more on Ove Arup and his firm, check out these links:

Ove Arup celebrated with new show at the V&A

2016-06-16T10:17:00-04:00

The show, curated by the V&A’s Maria Nicanor and Zofia Trafas White, is a fascinating exploration of the 20th century engineer’s life and work, and how it has influenced today’s practices in his field. Arup, fittingly argue the curators, was a true pioneer, championing real collaboration with architects, using a computer for the first time during the Sydney Opera House project in the 1960s – a hefty but fascinating machine called 'Pegasus', on display at the show.