Architects: Slowscape Collective Location: London, England Project team: Stuart Franks, Christopher Kennedy, Simon Moxey, Ceri Williams, Thomas Woods Project area: 90 sqm Project year: 2011 Photographs: Stuart Franks, Ceri Williams, Dominic Tschudin
A team of postgraduate architecture and design students from the Royal College of Art has conceived of and built an adaptable 90 sqm event space for an exhibition featuring the work of well-known artists including Mariana Castillo Deball and Sean Dockray.
The installation, entitled Slowscape, considers the speed of visitors’ movement through the gallery and how the subtlety of built form can encourage us to pause and engage with sound and the moving image.
The paneled timber structure gently rises across the rectilinear gallery at a canted angle, folding up to form angled balustrades and a projection tower at the rear. From this point a platform wraps around the existing columns and walls to form benches that engage otherwise overlooked areas in the open gallery space.
While the slight incline of the ramps encourages visitors to sit or lounge on the surface, 60 lightweight recyclable stools – each folded from a single cut sheet of fluted plastic – were also designed as a comfortable alternative for more formal events and longer film screenings.
The exhibition Shadowboxing (www.shadowboxing.rca.ac.uk) finished on April 4 after a two-week period during which Slowscape played host to screenings, performances, lectures and discussions.
