LAVA, Emergency Shelter Exhibition
LAVA’s (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture) Digital Origami Emergency Shelter is a concept for an inhabited molecule. The design is based on a water-molecule, referencing the Japanese Metabolist movement`s idea of prefabricated capsules as living space. (Source: LAVA website)
Elizabeth Farley in the Sydney Morning Herald (22 Sep 2011) writes:
The recent Emergency Shelter Exhibition at Customs House was organised by Japanese architect Jun Sakaguchi with - no doubt - the highest possible motives. Yet the proposals ranged from the daft to the downright fatuous.
Lanterns were big. Japan, lanterns - get it? The Laboratory for Visionary Architecture(LAVA) , usually conspicuous for its thoughtful intelligence, produced digital origami, a ''new take on the paper lantern''.
A layered plywood amoeba, stylishly edged in LAVA's trademark lime green, it was designed more for media attention than for tedious practicalities like blocking water, wind or rats.
Described by its architects as ''an inhabited … water molecule, referencing the Japanese metabolist movement's idea of prefabricated capsules as living space'' it ''plays with ideas of prefabrication'' and ''can be shipped as a flat pack, cut out of local plywood, or dropped off by helicopter''. The interior can then be ''carved out of wood, cardboard, newspapers or other locally available materials''.
''Local plywood? Cut by local CNC routers?'' Professor Tokyo exploded. ''Newspaper? Does it rain in disaster areas?''
LAVA's Chris Bosse, pressed on this, comes clean. The computer-cut layering isn't really part of it. Nor is the lime green. Nor, actually, is the LED lighting. In fact, the model isn't really like the proposal, at all.
''My initial response,'' he says, ''was to buy an IKEA tent for $20 … but then we didn't see how that contributes to the world's design response.''
Had he done that, we might have had a proper discussion, instead of a flatulent PR flurry. But it wouldn't have got LAVA front-covered by a dozen different design mags. He can hardly be blamed for doing what the media demands.
One local firm of architects also had a little lantern moment, offering homeless Japanese a collection of translucent white Tardises with walls created by the people of Sydney out of ''ema'' or Japanese prayer tablets, to show that ''we are here for them''. Crikey. Is that what worries people as the road opens up in front of them, their babies get doused with radiation and they find cows rotting in trees - that we are here for them?
There are effective responses but, predictably, they miss the limelight, mainly because they're getting on and doing it, such as Tony Clark's prizewinning backpack bed.
Such as DV. Rogers's Disastr Hotel, which at least uses its ply to shed water. Or ShelterBox, whose waterproof boxes hold a tent, water purifiers, stoves, tools, blankets and toys. This year, 107,470 ShelterBoxes have gone out across four continents. Have you heard of them? No.
My Tokyo friend wonders whether it's too jaundiced to ''expect architects who do good to behave more like [the media-shy] Paul Pholeros than Donald Trump''.
But what we should wonder is how it came to this. Why a sensible, cheap, targeted solution is not a ''design response'' yet an airhead object that barely considers the issues garners global attention. Definitely time to get cynical.
Read more: www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/victims-need-a...
LAVA, Emergency Shelter Exhibition
LAVA’s (Laboratory for Visionary Architecture) Digital Origami Emergency Shelter is a concept for an inhabited molecule. The design is based on a water-molecule, referencing the Japanese Metabolist movement`s idea of prefabricated capsules as living space. (Source: LAVA website)
Elizabeth Farley in the Sydney Morning Herald (22 Sep 2011) writes:
The recent Emergency Shelter Exhibition at Customs House was organised by Japanese architect Jun Sakaguchi with - no doubt - the highest possible motives. Yet the proposals ranged from the daft to the downright fatuous.
Lanterns were big. Japan, lanterns - get it? The Laboratory for Visionary Architecture(LAVA) , usually conspicuous for its thoughtful intelligence, produced digital origami, a ''new take on the paper lantern''.
A layered plywood amoeba, stylishly edged in LAVA's trademark lime green, it was designed more for media attention than for tedious practicalities like blocking water, wind or rats.
Described by its architects as ''an inhabited … water molecule, referencing the Japanese metabolist movement's idea of prefabricated capsules as living space'' it ''plays with ideas of prefabrication'' and ''can be shipped as a flat pack, cut out of local plywood, or dropped off by helicopter''. The interior can then be ''carved out of wood, cardboard, newspapers or other locally available materials''.
''Local plywood? Cut by local CNC routers?'' Professor Tokyo exploded. ''Newspaper? Does it rain in disaster areas?''
LAVA's Chris Bosse, pressed on this, comes clean. The computer-cut layering isn't really part of it. Nor is the lime green. Nor, actually, is the LED lighting. In fact, the model isn't really like the proposal, at all.
''My initial response,'' he says, ''was to buy an IKEA tent for $20 … but then we didn't see how that contributes to the world's design response.''
Had he done that, we might have had a proper discussion, instead of a flatulent PR flurry. But it wouldn't have got LAVA front-covered by a dozen different design mags. He can hardly be blamed for doing what the media demands.
One local firm of architects also had a little lantern moment, offering homeless Japanese a collection of translucent white Tardises with walls created by the people of Sydney out of ''ema'' or Japanese prayer tablets, to show that ''we are here for them''. Crikey. Is that what worries people as the road opens up in front of them, their babies get doused with radiation and they find cows rotting in trees - that we are here for them?
There are effective responses but, predictably, they miss the limelight, mainly because they're getting on and doing it, such as Tony Clark's prizewinning backpack bed.
Such as DV. Rogers's Disastr Hotel, which at least uses its ply to shed water. Or ShelterBox, whose waterproof boxes hold a tent, water purifiers, stoves, tools, blankets and toys. This year, 107,470 ShelterBoxes have gone out across four continents. Have you heard of them? No.
My Tokyo friend wonders whether it's too jaundiced to ''expect architects who do good to behave more like [the media-shy] Paul Pholeros than Donald Trump''.
But what we should wonder is how it came to this. Why a sensible, cheap, targeted solution is not a ''design response'' yet an airhead object that barely considers the issues garners global attention. Definitely time to get cynical.
Read more: www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/victims-need-a...