DAVID GARCIA STUDIO IS NOW MAP ARCHITECTS


We are delighted to announce that the studio has grown, we have changed address and amazing projects and collaborations in extreme environments are underway. We are therefore uniting our research, publication and architectural design work under one name, and we are now MAP architects.
Visit our new website at www.MAParchitects.dk

THE STUDIO EXHIBITS AT THE VENICE BIENNALE



The Studio is off to Venice, for the preview opening on the 27th of August, of the 13th Architectural Biennale. We are pleased to be one of the architecture practices representing the Danish Pavilion. After a year's work, collaborating with Henning Larsen Architects and Greenlandic, KITAA architects, and an endless list of Greenlander who welcomed us to their homes, our research and proposal on Greenland and its migration challenges is finally finished.

When debating the future of Greenland, migration is on the agenda. Tourism, mining and mineral exploration can cause a migration flow that might turn the greenlandic population into a minority in their own country. The project investigates a historic dynamic urban development in Greenland and creates new aggregating structures that facilitate the meeting of different groups of people in the urban context.

More about the projects here.
and the curators and the other exhibiting teams, at DACs website.

LAUNCH AND LECTURE AT CHERNOBYL


Exploded reactor nr 4, courtesy of the AP.


The Studio will be launching its fifth issue of MAP on Chernobyl, this week. We are delighted to be lecturing during the launch at the Chernobyl Museum and visiting the exclusion zone and we will be performing a series of tests on the radiation blocking properties of different materials during our visit. Many thanks to Solo East Travel and The Chernobyl Museum, and to Parvinder Marwaha for their help and support.





























Model of exploded reactor, courtesy of the Chernobyl Museum.

EXHIBIT AT STOREFRONT N.Y.


The Studio is presently exhibiting at The Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. This is the second time we have the pleasure to exhibit in this prestigious venue and we are happy be part of such a collective. Archizines exhibits a selection of architectural publications, and MAP is represented.



Images courtesy of Storefront.

WORKSHOP IN ILULISSAT, GREENLAND

DAVID GARCIA STUDIO is again in Greenland for our second workshop for the Venice Biennale. Together with Henning Larsen Architects and KITAA Arkitekter, and the rest of the teams, we have been in Ilulissat for a week of meetings with local authorities, workshops and travels, in a further attempt to engage reality with our projekt. During our travels, The Studio took the opportunity to test materials at 30 degrees below zero, and under wind and pressure, via kites and shelters.

NEW PROJECT IN THE MALDIVES

The Studio, together with the architectural practice PMO of the Maldives, is designing a ten floor residential building in the heart of the capital Malé.

CRIT & LECTURE

EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS AND FUTURE LANDSCAPES master course presents a full action day, with crit and triple lecture. Liam Young, teacher at the AA in London and Ricardo de Ostos, teacher at the AA and The Bartlett, Christer Malström, director of the Architecture School in Lund, and David Garcia, Guest Professor and director of the master course will take part at a morning and early afternoon critique of the work being developed by the students at the course.
At 17:00, Liam Young, Ricard de Ostos and David Garcia, will take part in an unprecedented experiment: The "BOUNCE Lecture Series". Can a lecture be improvised between three speakers? In an effort to break the linearity and planned nature of lectures, this platform will attempt to improvise by association. Each speaker, with the web and their laptops at hand, will link to the previous speakers image and comments in a successive bounce of ideas and visual journey.
Come along for a full day of visions into a world inspired by science and driven by fiction.


CRIT and LECTURE at the FULLSKALELABBET
, LUND Arch. School
9:00 am Monday 31. October

CCA exhibit "IMPERFECT HEALTH"

David Garcia Studio will be exhibiting its Quarantinable Farm and Domestic Isolation Unit projects at the CCA's exhibition "IMPERFECT HEALTH" which includes OMA, SANAA, Morphosis, MVRDV. If you are in Montreal, make sure to drop by.

Health is a focus of contemporary political debate in a moment of historically high anxiety, but are architects, urban designers and landscape architects seeking a new moral and political agenda within these concerns? Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture examines the complexity of today’s interrelated and emerging health problems juxtaposed with a variety of proposed architectural and urban solutions.
Pollen, pollution, toxic materials that make up the built environment, globalized industrial food production, reclaimed manufacturing landscapes, unbalanced population demographics, sedentary and indoor lifestyles, and efforts to fight death are becoming imperfect materials for architecture to explore. Emerging as trends like healthy cities, green buildings, fit cities, global cities, re-use cities, tailored cities, these strategies suggest inspired solutions, but could also address isolated concerns which privilege specific users or conditions. The focus on problems sometimes creates conflicting agendas and disregards the complexity of the urban fabric.

A book accompanying the exhibition and extending this research will be published in Spring 2012 by CCA with Lars Müller. Edited by Mirko Zardini and Giovanna Borasi, it includes essays by Carla Keirns, David Gissen, Hilary Sample, Linda Pollak, Deane Simpson, Margaret Campbell, Sarah Schrank, and Nan Ellin.

From 25 October 2011 to 1 April 2012.

DAVID GARCIA STUDIO TO EXHIBIT AT VENICE BIENNALE 2012


HENNING LARSEN ARCHITECTS and DAVID GARCIA STUDIO are one of the four teams which have been selected to represent the Danish Pavillion at the Architecture Venice Biennale in 2012. The theme of study, FUTURE GREENLAND, aims to look at the challenging future of perhaps one of the most rapidly changing zones in the world. The Danish teams will be joined by architecture studios and institutions from Greenland, and together will develop the concepts and projects for the exhibition. The Danish Architecture Centre and Professor Minik Rosing together with NORD architects will be curating the event. A workshop in Greenland in November will start of the collaboration. Congratulations to the Greenland teams, TNT Nuuk, KITAA Arkitekter, Tegnestuen Nuuk, Clement, Carlsen Arkitekter, Qarsoq Tegnestue and Thomas Riis, and the Danish teams, Vandkunsten, BIG + Superflex, Elkiær & Ebbeskov + Hausenberg, we look forward to seeing you in Greenland. 

MAP 004 FLOODS LAUNCHED

MAP 004 FLOODS was launched in the Maldives on the 10th of September, and the sea measuring device survived monsoons and typhoons on two islands. Through out the tests we managed to chart tide surges and sand movements, and we will now continue the project to create an array of measuring devices at selected islands. We would like to thank the people of Kurumba and Bandos for their hospitality and help with the project, The National University for their invitation to lecture and to RIAS for the sponsorship of the materials for the floating device. A very special thanks to PMO for inviting The Studio to the Maldives, for their passion and support. 
At The Studio, thanks to the team that built the device, Nynne Blak, Shane Masterson, Nicolas Feihl and Hinke Majoor




MAP 004 FLOODS TO BE LAUNCHED IN THE MALDIVES

MAP 004 FLOODS  will be available to distribute world wide from the 12th of September. The official launch will be on the 10th of September in the Maldives. The firm PMO, have invited David Garcia to an underwater launch of this MAP issue, to underline the challenges that the archipelago faces in the immediate future. MAP 004 FLOODS deals with the spatial implications of inundation, presenting projects in The Netherlands, Italy, the US and the Maldives. Architect Peter Cook writes the introduction to this issue.The Studio is constructing a sea level rise measuring buoy to take to the Maldives as part of the launch. More to come.This issue of MAP has been possible thanks to THE BARTLETT RESEARCH FUND. Thanks to PMO and to RIAS for their sponsorship in the launch.

THIRD PRIZE FOR INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION


The Studio has received a third prize for the Jøssingfjord museum international competition in Norway. Placed on the remnants of an old titanium mine and at the mouth of a fjord, the museum proposal plays with relationships between the vertical and horizontal landscape skyline and mining typologies as spatial design.
 We are delighted to receive this prize contributing to the studio's track record of 9 out of 10 prized competitions.

BAUHAUS LECTURE AND CALL FOR PAPERS


Thanks again to BAUHAUS - WEIMAR and the Horizonte lecture series. Impressive publication and and energy at this platform. Here is a link to their call for papers for the next issue. A special thanks to David Bauer, Michael Kraus and Carsten Tetens for saving my laptop, and by extension, my lecture.

GRANT FROM DANISH ART FOUNDATION


The Danish Arts Foundation, architecture review, has awarded David Garcia Studio, 100.000 danish kroner to research on the spatial implications of sea level rise in Denmark in general and in Copenhagen in particular, with special emphasis of speculative proposal to such an extreme scenario. Just recently, The Danish Meteorological Institute has in May published a report detailing recent studies for sea level rise in Denmark, predicting a 49cm to 100 cm rise in the next 100 years, much more than previously though.

We are delighted to have been awarded this opportunity to engage in our field of study and we look forward to publishing our results as they develop.

STUDIO WORK PUBLISHED IN "BOOK OF ICE"


Paul D. Miller has just launched a book on his on going project in Antarctica, including some of our architectural speculations on that continent.

Drawing on Antarctica's rich history of inspiring exploration and artistic endeavors, Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky has put together his own multimedia, multidisciplinary study of the South Pole.
In light of climate change and tireless human enterprise to be present everywhere on the planet, Miller uses Antarctica as a point on entry for contemplating humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Using photographs and film stills from his journey to the bottom of the world, along with original artworks and re-appropriated archival materials, Miller ponders how Antarctica could liberate itself from the rest of the world. Part fictional manifesto, part history and part science book, Book of Ice furthers Miller’s reputation as an innovative artist capable of making the old look new.

LECTURE AT NATIONAL ART GALLERY, VILNIUS (LT)


David Garcia will be lecturing on architecture and invention at The National Art Gallery in Vilnius, Lithuania
The fourth session of ARCHITECTURE [discussion] FUND is dedicated to rethinking of how the mechanism of architectural education functions and bringing into a new perspective to the curriculum of an architect. The speakers representing different attitudes are invited to touch upon the subject from their point of view: How has the architecture as discipline changed and what new forms will it take in the future? How wide and multidisciplinary can the architectural education be? How do the processes of research and design interact with it? Has the fundamental master/apprentice model dissolved due to the institutionalizing of the architectural education, or can this model still be recognizable in the performance of the contemporary architectural offices? How does the educational practice reflect ideological frameworks and contexts? Is it becoming a platform for political action?

THE STUDIO PUBLISHED BY GESTALTEN

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
—Oscar Wilde



The cities in which we live today are unfortunately not the cities that we need for a humane and sustainable tomorrow. Societies and politicians are desperately looking for solutions and ideas for the urban areas of the future. That is why the development and discussion of utopias are–next to sustainability–the most current topics in contemporary architecture.

We have learned from the 1960s and 1970s that utopian visions are one of the most important catalysts for fundamental change. Modern wind farms for generating energy, for example, were initially contemplated at that time and are now permanent fixtures in our landscapes.

Utopia Forever is a collection of current projects and concepts from architecture, city planning, urbanism, and art that point beyond the restrictions of the factual to unleash the potential of creative visions. In contrast to the largely ideal-theoretic approaches of the past, today’s utopias take the necessity for societal changes into account. The projects in this book explore how current challenges for architecture, mobility, and energy as well as the logistics of food consumption and waste removal can be met.

Whether created by established architects and artists or new talents, the projects in Utopia Forever are radically shaping our notions of life in the future.


Utopia Forever
Visions of Architecture and Urbanism
Editors: R. Klanten, L. Feireiss
Release Date: March 2011
Format: 24 x 28 cm
Features: 256 pages, fullcolor, flexicover
ISBN: 978-3-89955-335-2

THE STUDIO'S SUSTAINABLE HOUSE PUBLISHED BY RIZZOLI


David Garcia Studio "G HOUSE" is included in Mimi Zeiger's latest work, MICRO GREEN, published by Rizzoli and coming out in March. From treehouses to pre-fabs, this book presents sustainable, micro-green living at its best. Micro Green delves into the concept of compact living and demonstrates the possibilities of living with less while maintaining a rich life. As sustainable architecture becomes mainstream, many architects and designers are using technology and wit to experiment with what it means to be green, and the results are both effective and enthralling. The rustic treehouses, airy domes, and recycled-scrap structures of Micro Green are presented through vivid photography and detailed building plans, and display a range of environmental influences. Here living spaces are carved out of hillsides, trees rise through decks and floors, and walls melt seamlessly back into the surrounding woods. Though many of the homes chronicled in Micro Green are unique in design, their economical size and ingenious interior spaces are the epitome of practicality and illustrate an acute understanding of compact living and its potential for rural, suburban, and even urban ecosystems. Small in both carbon and architectural footprint, the dwellings in Micro Green have large implications for the global movements of eco-consciousness and sustainability.

THE STUDIO'S MOBILE ARCTIC UNIT PUBLISHED


Involving HMKV (Germany), Projekt Atol (Slovenia), the Arts Catalyst (United Kingdom), C-TASC (Canada), and Lorna (Iceland), this collaboration focuses on the global, cultural, and ecological significance of the polar regions. These zones are causing current geopolitical and territorial conflicts, while at the same time posing opportunities for transnational and intercultural cooperation. Arctic Perspective uses media art and the research of artists to investigate the complicated, global, cultural, and ecological interrelations in the Arctic, and to develop concepts for constructing tactical communications systems and a mobile, eco-friendly research station, which will support interdisciplinary and intercultural collaborations. Scheduled to run over a period of years, this project will involve workshops, field work in the Arctic, publications, exhibitions, and a conference.

The Studio and architect Alanna Baudinet collaborated on a this project for a mobile arctic unit which is included in the ARCTIC PERSPECTIVE PUBLICATION. The design is to be an open source mobile architecture system capable of functioning in extreme as well as temperate climates and containing mass, industrial and amateur production and manufacturing potential. The unit is to serve as a model for mobile research in extreme cold environments, designed to incorporate high tech solutions while utilizing sustainable resources.

The ARCTIC PERSPECTIVE – THIRD CULTURE project is supported by the European Commission Culture 2007-2013.

FOOD AND ARCHITECTURE

Architects and architecture students are increasingly concerned with food production, designing everything from edible schoolyards (Work AC) to pig skyscrapers (MVRDV), as well as entirely new urban landscapes of cultivation (Nicholas de Monchaux's Local Code). But what about an edible architecture—an architecture that is designed to be consumed, whether by humans or our companion species?

Back in 2007, I taught a workshop on hybrid programming to architecture students at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. Part of the aim with this five-day-long exercise was to find alternatives to the traditional model-making materials, which at this school did not go much beyond cardboard and glue. To achieve this, on the  first workshop day, I took the students to the local supermarket, and presented the store to them as a resource for model-making materials. From packaging to Saran wrap, and pills to broom hair, I surveyed the store with them, as a palace of alternative construction materials.

To my surprise, food was used more than I expected. One student used broccoli for columns and banana peels as flooring. Another used salmon skin to clad her building (a shortlived façade) and a third built the structural systems out of pasta (which he later steamed and the building slowly collapsed). Some included food as part of their narrative as well; the Dairy and Cinema shared the same space, divided only by the projection screen, which was a huge suspended milk container. If the dairy sales were too good, you might only see the bottom half of the film. The Observatory and Bakery was mostly built with Swedish crisp bread, painted blue. The astronomers would often get the munchies in the middle of the night, and eat away at the premises—the Hansel and Gretel syndrome I called it—only to have to pay the baker to repair the damage (with more bread, of course).

The story hardly ended back in 2007. Presently, at Unit 3 at The Bartlett, one of my students has this semester designed a Teashop and Mushroom farm.Through her thorough research on mycelium (the vegetative part of fungus and mushrooms, consisting of a mass of branching, thread-like underground roots), she found it is currently used as insulation material for construction. In her design, through the humidity and steam produced during tea making, mushrooms grow out of the walls, filling the cavities with insulating mycelium, and slowly overtaking/becoming the structure.
Inevitably, this brings to memory the house in Roseville, California, where bees had inhabited the ducting and honey was oozing out of the walls and electrical sockets.The owners were worried that the honey would attract the ants, and the ants…well, you can imagine where this is going.

Eating your own house might seem like an absurd idea, but absurdity often presents itself unannounced. I recently built a small pavilion in Beijing solely out of bamboo. At the inauguration, a guest was sitting on a bamboo chair inside the pavilion, using her own bamboo chopsticks to eat some fresh bamboo shoots. 
As I stared at her, my mouth hanging open in surprise, she offered me a bite.

This article is the result of Nicola Twiley's invitation to Food for Thinkers, a week-long, distributed, online conversation looking at food-writing from as wide and unusual a variety of perspectives as possible. Between January 18 and January 23, 2011 at GOOD.is/food.


WEAVING PROJECT COMPLETED


The Weaving Pavillion is now finished at the Village, downtown Beijing, where it will be the main centre for the NOTCH 10 Art and Culture festival. It is the first weaved structure (no glue, screws or nails) to function as facade, roof, column and foundation.
This pavilion wished to explore the potential of weaving as an alternative method of construction in architecture. While traditional building methods of construction are based on stapling (bricks), casting (concrete) and welding elements (space frames and trusses), weaving offers structural stability with weaving as the only binding solution. 
The project is the result of a two year research, which started in Japan. Thanks to Liberty, Isobel and Max for their fantastic efforts on site. More here.


Pavilion: David Garcia, David Garcia Studio .
Onsite team / David Garcia Studio: Liberty Adrien, Isobel & Max Gerthel.
Electronic Ecosystem: Jacob Sikker Remin & Mogens Jacobsen.
Composition: Morten Riis.
PCB Design: David Gauthier.

Thanks to:
Lei Yang, Bo Zhang, Caroline Ektander and all the people at Notch.


FIRST PRIZE FOR UNESCO DELTA CITIES COMPETITION


David Garcia Studio's submission for the International UNESCO Delta City of the Future competition, has been awarded first prize. Out of 57 teams world wide, and after being one of the 7 teams selected in the first round, we were invited to Rotterdam to take part in the final, 24-hour competition session. The brief aimed to give solutions to the flood risk area of the harbour and the redevelopment taking place in Rotterdam. We were announced as winners at the Delta Climate Change Conference. More to come.



TEACHING FELLOWSHIP AT THE BARTLETT




























The Bartlett School of Architecture has awarded David Garcia with a Teaching Fellowship in Architectural Design. He will be teaching BSc, Unit 3 together with Jan Kattein, during the course 2010/11, starting this September.
The Bartlett School of Architecture is part of a truly multidisciplinary Faculty of the Built Environment in world-class University College London. It is located at the heart of the world's largest cluster of innovative architecture and engineering firms in London. It attracts an extraordinary variety of staff, students and international visitors, all of the highest calibre.

DAVID GARCIA STUDIO PUBLISHED BY DAMDI


David Garcia Studio has been published by DAMDI, in both ARCHITECTURE MODEL, LEAD TO DESIGN and PORTFOLIO books. We look forward to see these great works in the bookstores.

ICEBERG LIVING STATION

Buildings and base stations have grown exponentially in the last 20 years in the Antarctic. For 2010, about 80000 tourists are expected to visit the South Pole, and an average of 5000 researchers are based in the main land during the summer period. This proposal aims to design a living station for 100 visitors with minimum environmental impact. To achieve this, we aim to avoid “building” by traditional means, which would implicate transporting materials foreign to the continent, which never leave Antarctica again. Instead, the “architecture” is holed out in a super large iceberg (about 2.5 square kilometre area), which would eventually melt in 7 to 10 years time. Icebergs are compacted snow, which only become ice at a depth of 25 metres, and as igloos have demonstrated trough out the centuries, snow is a very efficient insulation. Caterpillar excavators, traditionally used in the Antarctic to move and clear snow, would cut out the spaces inside the iceberg. The geometric logic of the movement of these machines, now used to “design and cut” the spaces, create the curves of the interiors. Two access ramps (one for pedestrians, the other for vehicles) give access to the main hall and canteen, with access to kitchen, medical services, and toilets. From this public area the living station grows into an array of passages, which give access to the sleeping quarters, clustered in groups of eight or nine rooms around a common lounge. A lecture/conference hall allows for cultural activities. Containers would transport food and reusable solar cells and energy equipment, and would be used to store waste and grey water residue, which can be shipped of regularly.

WORKSHOP IN BRAZIL

David Garcia will be giving lectures and a workshop in Brazil during the first week of September. The workshop will be given at the UFOP School of Architecture in Ouro Preto, where a study of abandoned open-air mines will be carried out and a series of proposals for the re-use of the sites will be developed.

DAVID GARCIA LECTURE AT "OSLOO" INSTALLATION


Today at 19:00 David Garcia will give a short lecture intertwined with DJ music at FOS floating installation "OSLOO". The lecture will present concepts of UTOPIA and DYSTOPIA.

WINNER IN FIRST ROUND OF UNESCO COMPETITION



David Garcia Studio's submission for the UNESCO Delta City of the Future-competition has made it through to the final. Out of 40 international teams, 14 have been selected. We are now invited to come to Rotterdam to take part in the 24-hour pressure cooker session. Congrats to the studio team.

DE ZINES EXHIBIT IN MADRID


"La Casa Encendida" in Madrid, will exhibit David Garcia Studio's MAP publication from the 29 of June to the 1st of September 2010. ‘De Zines’, tries to reflect what is happening in the contemporary editorial creation on the level of independent publications, how this area relates to the artistic production and social, cultural and current political environment. Around 400 international publications have been gathered from most established magazines in the market until handmade zines and a selection of experimental magazines.

SHADOW ORGANISTRUM


Inspired by the 13 century musical instrument, and working with the rhythm and tempo created by the human arm, the Shadow Organistrum tests interactive forms of virtual space. This device creates a continuously random link between the user, as they turn the lever, and the space that surrounds them. The installation puts into question the “reality” of the space found between the shadow surface and the focus, or source of light. Not sound, but shadows, “draw” the “musical” score, and the space surrounding the device.