Tent London and The Lightbox announced the shortlist for The Art Fund Pavilion architecture competition. Applicants were asked to design a semi-permanent pavilion, which will serve as additional gallery space for The Lightbox. The museum and gallery, which is already housed in a RIBA Award-winning building by Marks Barfield Architects, have decided to mark their award of the £100,000 Art Fund Prize by investing in architecture again by initiating and financing this competition.
AREA [Architecture Research Athens] – Greece
‘We believe that good architecture operates within the given parameters to transform abstract building systems into specific material investigations. Projects acquire meaning when they relate to their site and their community, both through form and program. We see the Art Fund Pavilion as an important opportunity to offer its community a new place of exploration and social enjoyment’ – Area
Feix & Merlin Architects with Martin Stockley Associates – UK
‘The Lightbox have created a fantastic opportunity for a wonderful piece of micro-architecture, and we hope to give them a pavilion that is high impact but low-cost, one that is sustainable and efficient in its use of materials, flexible in its architecture, and ultimately a pavilion that has a bit of magic about it, a bit of intrigue, and almost certainly some naughtiness.’ – Feix&Merlin Architects with Martin Stockley Associates
IN & EDIT Architecture – France
‘The Art Fund Pavilion competition has been a great opportunity forIN&EDIT to pursue our reflections on post-industrialized sustainableissues. By using continuous variations on a standard pattern, wepropose to use the full possibilities of a computerized controlled process: optimized wood cutting allowing each piece to be different.The assembly of the pre-mounted elements like a 3D puzzle, will reveala sustainable, ludic, inviting, segmented and yet a continuous structure.’ – IN & EDIT Architecture
Karim Muallem – UK
‘Complexity in design need not be always in the complexity of the form but rather in the complexity of its responsiveness. Clever designs are not always about the elaborateness of the shape but rather in there adaptability. The idea was to start with a simple unassertive compact box, and through a process of responsive transformation triggered by crowd movement and function alterations end up with a highly adaptable and exiting form.’ – Karim Muallem
Tina Manis Associates – USA
‘It’s difficult to ignore the global scale of financial crisis that engulfs us at this time. And in this particularly rich time of global economic shifts, architecture and creative thinking has the opportunity to be at its highest. Often, conflict coincides with true invention and in order to make the most of these moments, we should return to the elemental disciplines in life that make it wonderful; such as art ‘ – Tina Manis Associates
