Set in the depths of rural Hungary, Hello Wood has emerged from the landscape for its 2015 edition, entitled 'Project Village'. Since 2010, the Hungarian-led collective of architects, designers, students and artists have gathered from around the world to create temporary wooden installations. Now in its sixth year, Hello Wood was realized with the help of 150 volunteers from 30 countries, and co-curated by Johanna Muszbek, with the shared vision to build a series of community-driven pavilions. Together the teams created fifteen unique wooden pavilions, each centred on a different component of the architecture of a village.
Project Village 2015 has marked the beginning of Hello Wood's three-year exploration of contemporary architecture which seeks to "redefine the concept of the village." Challenged with the task to execute "real-time masterplanning," participants designed and constructed an abstract village from the ground up in less than a week. The resulting structures address everything from the social nature of villages to the fading presence of religion in cross-cultural contexts. From the construction of a mobile pub to the creation of an outdoor performance space for use by village inhabitants, Project Village has crafted an all-encompassing vision for the future of small-scale intellectual architecture.
Driven by a desire to enliven the notion of community in architecture, the founders of Hello Wood have sought to open a conversation on the role of the village in an ever-increasingly globalized society. They have created a refreshingly progressive model in which projects are conceived, critiqued and constructed in a matter of days. For architecture students yearning to build, Hello Wood offers a unique opportunity to experiment while learning from seasoned professionals serving as project leaders. Each of the fifteen teams for Project Village was guided by a team of practicing architects, academics and design professionals with an expertise in wood construction. The resulting wooden structures make use of a host of techniques while drawing inspiration from the landscape and a variety of architectural typologies.
The beauty of the Project Village lies in its simplicity: the airy, minimal spaces rely on the energy of inhabitants to determine their true functions. Geometric towers soar while jagged plywood panels intersect vertical planes. A neon-painted open air performance space stimulates the senses, just as bands of all types explore its acoustics. A contemporary pergola frames the central communal space, flanked by a series of asymmetrical towers reminiscent of Sou Fujimoto's 2013 Serpentine Pavilion. In other wise, Project Village is an explosion of spatial energy rooted in environment, communal will, and the power of materials.
Explore all of the projects below:
Ghost in the House
Team Leader: Katsuya Fukushima
Team: Alex Rieveley, Csongor Egyed, Hanna Gelesz, James Foskett, Kou Zongjie, Luca Petrányi, Monika Krčméryová, Ryo Morimoto, Victoria Guinet
Cities and their residents are constantly in flux: birth and death have become an element of life. Ghost in the House imagines the abstract: a place where death lingers as rebirth begins. The three storeys of the open-air house create a narrative beginning with the ground floor dining space; the first floor for bedroom and, ahem, love making; and an attic space where memories of life and death are kept and forgotten.
The Hedge of Hello Wood
Team Leaders: Ákos Juhász / Charley Brentnall
Team: Elzbieta Czyzewska, Marxreiter Adrienne, Matteo Aricò, Natasa Kitiri, Neal Hitch, Edward Crooks, Zsófia Varga
A pivotal component of Project Village 2015, The Hedge of Hello Wood serves as the focal point and backdrop for the village's performance space. Soaring several metres about the ground, the Hedge scales the landscape and shapes the space into a flexible and intimate stage for use by bands big and small.
Village Cinema
Team Leaders: Rufus van den Ban / Suzana Milinović
Team: Florian Beukeboom, Fruzsina Karig, Joanna Stolarek, Matthew Mitchell, Rafael Silveira, Tamás Dema, Yichen Song, Zsolt Sarkadi
Village Cinema is not, in fact, a cinema. It's an observatory from which residents can gain new perspectives on their surroundings. The mobile structure is similar to a rickshaw and can be positioned according to the whims of its users. The soundtrack is created by the community and the video created by nature, allowing residents to truly see and learn about their community through the lens of the cinema.
Migration House
Team Leaders: Marcin Kurdziel / Danny Wills from URBAN THINK-TANK
Team: Amalia-Alexandra Skamagkouli, Charlotte Balmer, Eleőd Huba, Jesus Sanchez, Sárdi Krisztina, Lorenzo Marconi, Martin Spalek, Kőműves Márton, Bálint Viola
Serving as the primary refuge for immigrants to the Project Village, Migration House provides a physical space for new residents. Programmed to serve a threefold function, the house behaves simultaneously as a pub, church, and bordello in order to address the needs of a diverse community. Migration House is designed to provide shelter to migrants of all kinds regardless of means of arrival, background and economic status and serves as a commentary on the state of the current refugee crisis facing the Middle East.
Rolling Pub
Team Leaders: Bart Jan Polman / Johanna Muszbek / Maurizio Bianchi Mattioli
Team: Ábel Kiss, Agnieszka Turczynska, Anna Smyczyńska, Áron Szabó, Ben Summers, Danique van Hulst, Dóra Komlóssy, Guiseppe Ferrigno, Laura Nica
Arguably the most important component of any community, the Rolling Pub takes socializing to the streets. Thanks to its ability to roll through the village while accommodating a variety of types of guests, the Rolling Pub serves as a "social condenser" with an aim to connect disparate personality types in a fun environment.
The Towers
Team Leaders: Jan Vondrák / Jan Mach / Lukáš Holub from MJÖLK ARCHITECTS
Team: Anna Ladurner, Dóra Karner, Kamilla Trauer, Kim-Fabian Dallarmi, Louis Bruno Bindernagel, Melissa Jin, Paulina Frankowska
The Towers serve as an elegant and necessary infrastructure component of Project Village, providing water and communication. While both towers are defined by a simple three-dimensional grid pattern, each take a drastically different form to serve its unique purpose. The water tower is a short rectangular structure with integrated showers at the bottom and a bathtub on top, while the communication tower soars above the village with a loudspeaker at its peak to rapidly convey information to residents.
Sanctuary
Team Leaders: Jennifer Argo / Lee Ivett
Team: Flavia Notarianni, Bianka Hajdú, Joe Ridealgh, Johannes Fandl, Kate McAleer, Pablo Martínez, Sarolta Rab, Raya Boyukova, Tomasz Budnicki, Zsófia Kőműves
The Sanctuary is a mainstay of community design, regardless of religious affiliation. Designed as a reflection of the current societal departure from organized religion, the Project Village sanctuary reimagines the typology of religious space from a social standpoint, creating opportunities for meaningful contemplation and spirituality. The flexible space encourages mindfulness for groups and individuals, emphasizing the capacity to explore non-religious spirituality.
Cohesive Fence
Team Leaders: Pablo Kobayashi / Dániel Eke
Team: Agnieszka Wir-Konas, Billy Morgan, Dalma Kató, Dániel Nagy, Denise Feldbacher, Heini Wandersstud, Máté Jambrik, Joanna Woś
Where does a village end? What role does a fence play in the creation of community? The architecture of a fence speaks to a broader dialogue on inclusion, privacy and a community's role in a larger framework. Cohesive Fence is an oxymoron: designed intentionally to foster community, the discontinuous fence provides opportunities to socialize while affirming Project Village's stance as an open and fluid community.
Performance Agora
Team Leaders: Lux Nieve / Pep Tornabell
Team: Anastasia Bordian, Antony Plumb, Sean Brunswick, Carla Llaudó, Ewa Cempel, Isabel Halpern, Tamás László, Maria Nunez, Yara Valente
In the Project Village, democracy reigns supreme. While most agora and theatre spaces are largely defined by a rigorous seating pattern, the Performance Agora invites discussion and participation through the creation of flexible modular seating arranged without boundaries around a central axis. As the team explains, "the Agora is completely formed by the people it welcomes."
Tea Totem
Team Leaders: Pastuszka Lukasz from MOOMOO Architects and Zsófia Illés from COLLECTIVE PLANT
Team: Aitana Miriam Villanova, Anais Outurquin, Anna Kopácsi, Barnabás Cseszlai, Attila Daniel Jung, Facer Lucas, Jun Ming Kong, Bernardo Zacka
Led by a team comprised of an architect and an urban botanist, Tea Totem is the holistic core of Project Village. Programmed as an herb-drier and teahouse, the Tea Totem serves a vital function as a component of food production in the village. The soaring space contains two interior chambers: one for the merchant and one for the buyer to sample and purchase products in an intimate setting.
Tower Gate
Team Leaders: Márta Fischer / Oliver Sales
Team: Daphne Zografou, Davor Dušanić, Dominique Tang, Jonathan Schweizer, Máté Kudar, Sergio Sanz Vela, Sofie Berg, Tatiana Muñoz
Unlike the imposing gates found in fortified cities, Tower Gate is designed to welcome those who enter and to inspire curiosity in local residents. The web-like gate serves as the entry point to the village, its elastic appearance guiding visitors as they navigate their arrival into the Project Village. Designed to elicit a happy response from visitors, Tower Gate sets an appropriately playful mood to enter the whimsical village.
Sleepingtories
Team Leaders: Jocelyn Froimovich / Bence Komlósi
Team: Fábián Villányi, Ingvild Stokke, Juli Kéri, Koen Fraijman, Marta Ząbik, Tian Jiayi, Valentin Desmarais, Zita Técsi
The act of rest is traditionally confined to private, hidden spaces. In Hello Wood's Project Village, Sleepingtories are public spaces where comfort is not a luxury but a necessity, and where rest is celebrated and not denigrated. Space for community sleep is a core tenet of the Project Village and it comes in many forms: a portable wooden sleeping bag, a rolling wooden bed, and a sculptural open-air bed for public sleeping.
Community Work 'In Progress'
Team Leaders: Ifigeneia Dilaveraki / Rikkert Paauw
Team: Árpád Tóth, Ayelen Peressini, Bartosz Zabiega, Eva Liisa Kubinyi, Jyothi Pillay, Lena Margarete Antonie Breitenborn, Roman Ledesma, Thiago Flores
The village is never finished: structures are added and subtracted as community needs change. Serving primarily as a village hall, Community Work 'In Progress' capitalizes on the transient nature of the village, producing a space that will never be finished. Designed as a community workshop, the space is envisioned as the heart of knowledge, debate and conversation in the village. It will be entirely purpose-driven and is built to allow significant spatial changes as needed.
Mazzocchio
Team Leaders: Martial Marquet / Nicolas Polaert
Team: Andrea Ballesteros Beato, Carina Zabini, Gábor Tajnafői, Juan Ezcurra, Sára Weichinger, Sonya Falkovskaia, Vojtech Nemec
Reminiscent of a disused European gasometer, Mazzocchio is a trussed ring that encircles the central Agora, forming the village's central space for socializing. Serving as the unifying element and largest structure in the village, Mazzocchio fosters a sense of community through transparency. For evening use, the inviting space features a built-in lighting system suspended on along the trusses.
Biwak
Team Leaders: Ákos Eleőd / Zoltán Kalászi / Tamás Máté / Áron Vass-Eysen
Team: Barbora Tothova, Maria Roy Deulofeu, Marina Mylonadis, Márta Schmidt, Mathilde Garcia-Drimmer, Riccardo Onnis
Hungarian mythology creates strong links between nature and its residents. Cities, by contrast, sever residents from their natural environs in favour of a manmade landscape. Biwak serves as a middle ground, providing comfortable shelter to those wishing to convene with nature in Hungary's lush landscape. Each Biwak is different from the next, whimsically punctuating the landscape with jagged edges and open spaces.
Find out more about Hello Wood 2015: Project Village on their website, and check out ArchDaily's previous coverage of Hello Wood, here.
