Almost two months ago we put a request out to all of our readers who were completing the academic year to send us any built work that they may have completed as part of their studies. Our hope was to display the fantastic diversity of ideas and styles that is emerging from institutions across the globe, and the response that we got was fantastic. With almost 100 submissions, we received projects from countries as far afield as Chile, the United States, Norway and Japan. We also received everything from pragmatic projects such as a chapel for a disadvantaged community in Mexico or a low-budget sidewalk parklet, to wondrously bizarre constructions such as a steel worm that connects spaces through sound and an inhabitable haystack.
With the help of our colleagues at ArchDaily Brasil and all of ArchDaily en Español, we've compiled a selection of 26 of the most interesting, elegant or unusual projects from around the world - join us after the break to see what your international peers have been up to.
Project Title: Fluid Pavillion (Cornell University)
Studio Name: Special Topics in Construction From Sheet To Form
Tutors: Martin Miller and Sasa Zivkovic
Students: Charisse Foo and Hanxi Wang
Country: USA
Using the idea of material memory, this adaptable plastic pavilion from Cornell University’s Hanxi Wang and Charisse Foo plays with the idea of equilibrium and resting states. By using thermoforming to deform sheet plastic into a certain shape, they “programmed” a new resting state into the material, expanding on a set of 2D shapes to create a 3D “pinched” surface for the tiles; a light, adaptable and organic form that still has a default state. The resulting structure is deformable and interactive, but still clearly forms a cohesive structure of its own.
Project Title: Espacio – Relax en Bambú (Universidad San Martín de Porres)
Studio Name: Taller 4
Tutors: Rodrigo Amorós and Harold Noriegac
Country: Peru
Based on the idea that construction is an essential component of architecture education, this workshop challenged students to design and construct a bamboo structure. The structure had to be designed in a week and built in 10 days. More specifically, the structure was to provide shade and a space for students to meet up and relax.
Project Title: Frame Pavilion (College of DuPage)
Studio Name: Arch Design + Build
Tutors: Mark A. Pearson and Mark Rose
Students: Rachel Banaszewski, Joseph Barba, Paul Berkowicz, Jude Cann, Ralph Dabu, Patrick Desamito, Francois El-Bittar, Eric Hurtt, Jacquelyn Johnson, Tala Kadro, Alexander McWhirter, Andres Pinto, Alex Schneider, Kevin Smith, Jose Zarate, Kevin Zeng
Country: USA
Designed and built by 16 community college students over an 8 week course, the Frame Pavilion was the first opportunity for these students to experience building a design they had worked on. As hinted at by the name, the Frame Pavilion takes the popular architectural concept of framing views and puts it into cedar. Each module forms a separate frame, which vary in design, and are placed together to frame a social community space for the campus while at the same time attempting to frame views of the landscape and light.
Project Title: A Biblioteca Milton Santos (UFMG)
Advisor: Profa. Margarete Maria de Araújo Silva
Student: Eric Crevels
Subject: Final Course Project
Country: Brazil
The work was developed to explore the duality between materials and alternative construction systems. As an empirical exercise, the construction of the Milton Santos Library was carried out, located at the Bamboo Reference Center (CERBAMBU) in the Ravena district, and in partnership with bamboo expert Lúcio Ventania. The project was mainly realized in bamboo, using different constructive systems derived from this material.
Project Title: SoundWorm! (The Rice School of Architecture)
Students: Adelina Koleva, George Hewitt, Juan Borbon, Juncheng Yang, Lydia Smith, Nathan Keibler
Country: USA
Taking the an interdisciplinary team and expanding the spirit of that to cover the entire campus, the SoundWorm! project was conceived as a way of fighting isolation and alienation within university life, with the team highlighting the demands on time by classes, jobs, and social media that prevents students forming a relationship with their physical space - or with each other. SoundWorm! tries to bring technological communication into the public space, using sound (the most public sense of all) in 5 separate speakers within the SoundWorm! structure, all of which are transmitting from 5 different recording devices placed around campus. Placed right next to the campus’ library, SoundWorm! is an attempt at creating a library of public sound and spoken communication.
Project Title: Mo_gallery (Universidad de Alicante)
Studio Name: Workshop “Pneumatic Serendipity”
Students: Pedro Miguel Caballero Sánchez (Universidad de Granada), Cristina Sastre Navarro (UCAM), Antonio José Rodríguez Sánchez (Universidad de Valencia), Diego J García López (Universidad Alicante)
Country: Spain
From the University of Alicante’s “Pneumatic Serendipity” workshop, emerged this collaborative project, which united students and architecture professionals from universities in the southeast of the Iberian Peninsula to construct a temporary museum. The museum will raise funds for the “Movember” Foundation, which helps fight against male cancer. The students designed a temporary exposition space for the city of Caravaca de la Cruz, which will be set up in public plazas and display a collection of paintings and photographs by young artists during the month of “Movember.”
Project Title: Pavilion near the River (Samara University of Architecture and Civil Engineering)
Students: Ilya Nekrasov
Country: Russia
This project, built for Nizhny Novgorod’s 2015 O’Gorod Festival, is part of a wider project on simplicity in architecture. With the aim of emphasizing context and creating a “catalyst” for the area’s scenery and tone, the pavilion simply tries to frame the views of the area as plainly as possible, with still keeping a distinct design identity for itself.
Project Title: Comedor Comunitario Guaraní (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso)
Studio Name: Travesía
Tutors: Rodrigo Saavedra and Óscar Andrade
Country: Chile
Part of the poetic vision of the Catholic University of Valparaiso’s School of Architecture and Design, each year the Travesía workshop organizes a trip to an American community, with the aim of designing and constructing an architectonic piece. Under this program, in November of 2014, the 3rd year workshop, comprising 44 students and two professors, went by bus from Valparaíso, Chile to the Tekoa Pindo-Porty indigenous community, located 30 kilometers south-east of Porto Alegre, Brazil. In a peripheral neighborhood called Lamí, the group carried out their project, building the community a meeting space.
Project Title: Säie Pavilion (Aalto University)
Studio Name: Wood Program 2015
Tutors: Pekka Heikkinen, Philip Tidwell, Hannu Hirsi
Students: Claire Bouthegourd, Elisabeth Kofler, Giulia Archimede, Hiroko Mori, James Stanier, Javier Mera, Kento Manabe, Laura Zubillaga, Ninni Westerholm, Simen Bie Malde, Joni Helminen
Country: Finland
Designed for the Museum of Finnish Architecture’s summer exhibition, the Säie Pavilion aims to provide a shelter for workshops and museum activities, as well as general socializing and relaxing around the museum during the summer. Built of Finnish pine, the pavilion makes a virtue of its building material by referencing traditional garden pavilions and gazebos, as well as the gothic architecture of Finland and the dense forests that helped inspire it. Instead of being joined conventionally, the structure plays up the woodland theme even more by being bent into place during construction.
Project: Casa Revista (FAUUFRJ)
Tutors: Andrés Passaro e Marcos Silvoso
Design: Clarice Rohde
Country: Brazil
Casa Revista (Magazine House) is the first digitally manufactured house in Brazil. The project was developed by Clarice Rohde of the 3D Modelling and Digital Fabrication Lab (LAMO3D) at the university and coordinated by Andrés Passaro. Based on the WikiHouse construction system, which is open-sourced and uses CNC router fittings, the study sought to “Brazilianize” the system, acclimatizing it and solving basic issues surrounding the home.
Project Title: UnBlocked (MIT)
Students: Shiyu Wei, Evelyn Ting, Bumjin Kim
Country: USA
A lightweight mylar exhibition space, UnBlocked is both a structure and a skin for displays and exhibitions that can be easily cut to specific spaces and then assembled on site, creating a carved out space held together with little more than tension ties. Smaller iterations can act as frames for individual works and provide shelter to the public, or simply act as an entrance to encourage people in, while larger ones could produce a sculptural space for art wherever space can be found. This specific prototype is inspired by Lipchitz’s 1950 bronze “Birth of the Muses”, chosen for its flatness and scale, but could be easily adapted to the site or theme of the exhibition it holds.
Project Title: Pabellón (Universidad Modelo. Mérida,Yucatán)
Tutors: Arq. Isaac Zambra and Arq. Lourdes Inés Echeverría
Students: Alir Daphne Herrera Gomez, Pablo Guillermo Alamilla Moreno, Maria Fernanda Espinosa González, Elvia Gabriela Sanchez, Alejandro Aranda Mena
Country: Mexico
This project was carried out by five architecture students. The project is a pavilion characterized by triangular wooden panels, coated with a transparent alkyd varnish. Measuring 1.25 meters by 1.70 meters, the panels are connected by plastic ties every 30 centimeters. The structure is 1.9 meters tall and can fit around 12-15 people.
Project Title: PennDesign Pavilion 2015 (University of Pennsylvania)
Tutors: Mohamad Al Kayer, Ezio Blasetti, Danielle Willems, Andrew Saunders
Students: Billy Wang, Kathryn Vergeyle, Kyle Ingber, Erik Leach, Emily Gruendel, Jose Holguin, Daniel Fachler, Harry Lam, Mark Chalhoub, Ma Ning, Benita Trenk, Rhea Gargullo, Walaid Sehwall, Matthew Lewis, Jung Jae Suh, Libby Bland, Clay Gruber, Amanda Huang, Jon Canter, Jie Xu, John Darby, Ruiyi Chen, Sameeha Joshi, Xi Yao, Yannick Rodriguez Diza
Country: USA
A temporary research pavilion for the University of Pennsylvania, the PennDesign Pavilion is a surprisingly lightweight, flexible structure despite its hefty looking exterior. Formed of wooden arch works as a frame with metal laid over the top, the pavilion aims to explore topological construction and the logic of assembly.
Project Title: TIA2 - Parklets! (Universidad de Morón)
Studio Name: Taller Integral de Arquitectura DOS (UM FADAU)
Main Teacher: Arq. Alejandro Borrachia
Teachers: Gaston Budin, Gabriel Sottile, Gustavo Losio, Norberto Oleaga, Sebastian Cecchetti
Teaching Assistant: Franco D´Aversa, Matías Carloni
Country: Argentina
Imagining a future urban setting where the pedestrian is the main actor in the city, the aim of the project was to create a “minimal habitat” as an extension of the sidewalk, for temporary and interchangeable use. Part of the project evaluation of the parklets! was based on the use of resources at hand.
Project Title: Digital Fabrication Lab Research Pavilion (The University of Tokyo)
Studio Name: Advanced Design Studies, Digital Fabrication Lab
Project Director: Prof. Yusuke Obuchi
Tutors: Hironori Yoshida, Toshikatsu Kiuchi, So Sugita, and Toshihiko Kiuchi, Kosuke Nagata, Kaz Yoneda
Students: Kevin Clement, Minjie Xu, Fawad Osman, Qiaomu Jin, Ornchuma Saraya, Benjamin Berwick, Anders Rod, Yanli Xiong, Gilang Arenza Judinaputra, Pitchawut Virutamawongse, Samuel Aaron Eugene Lalo, Rosina Shatarova, Ratnar Sam, Ying Xu, Deborah Lopez, Hadin Habib Charbel, Ann-Kristin Crusius, Jiang Lai, Yuanfung Lu, Alexandra Karlsson, Jan Vranovsky, Mariko Mori
Country: Japan
A proposal based more around the method than the product, the Digital Fabrication Lab has created this pavilion as a proof of concept of their main proposal: a network of human-driven 3D printers which they call STIK (Smart Tool Integrated Konstruction.) Instead of the normal materials for 3D printers, they instead used waribashi, a recycled material produced as a byproduct from Japan’s industrial chopstick production. Based on analysing the properties of the waribashi and understanding and controlling how they are distributed, the system can create large and complex structures which are entirely stable by themselves.
Project Title: Paolo Salvetti Lab (Escola da Cidade)
Submitted by: Paolo Michele Salvetti
Country: Brazil
This project is an empirical experiment on the perception of space in a time when images dominate contemporary architecture. The work examines how space can impact the individual, aiming to create an atmosphere that provokes different feelings, such as surprise, a sense of closing, opening and welcoming; an attempt to create a more humane and sensitive architecture. The goal is to simulate a feeling of individuality for each person; using bamboo Paolo Salvetti tried to create different perceptions of density, weight and shape, integrating the structure with its surrounding context.
Project Title: Johnson County Sunset Office Building Pavilion (Kansas State University)
Studio Name: Design+Make Studio
Students: Valerie Gaughan, Anna Groppoli, Brian Delaney, Tanner James, Ian Cole
Mentors: el dorado inc
Country: USA
The Johnson County Sunset Office building had already been designed and built, but plans to add an outdoor space for meetings and socializing had been abandoned, leaving the complex with no outdoor space. Design + Make Studio at KSU came to the rescue, developing a concept using the ideas of the original architects. The Studio also happened to have nine large glulam beams to repurpose, which the team used to expand on a midcentury form that built on both the beams and the existing building.
Project Title: Capilla Vistas de San Pablo (ITESM Querétaro)
Studio Name: TAAC-Taller Activo
Tutors: Alfonso Garduño, Diana García, Edmundo Palacios and Janna Castro
Students/Design: Daniela Cruz Charlot and María José Robles Adame
Students/Development and Construction: Ariadna Ambrosio, Hans Duer, Vincent García, Illaly Loarca, Narciso Lugo, Karla Luna, Scarlett Márquez, Alejandra Pérez, Mario Ramirez, Zay Soto and Edder Villegas.
Country: Mexico
The main goal of the workshop is the revival of the “COLLECTIVE” in the construction of the city, working with the community to design and construct a public project over the course of 16 weeks. The students are responsible for obtaining the resources needed to carry out the construction of the project. This project was developed in Vistas de San Pablo, a community with limited resources that needed a chapel for mass and to teach catechism classes. Community residents had begun construction on the chapel, putting up a block wall on one side of the land, which was used as the starting point for the design of the chapel. The project was developed from dialogue between the community and the students.
Project Title: Rindal Star Cube (Norwegian University of Science and Technology)
Students: Erik Hadin, Emily-Claire Nordang, Sina Wagner, Lea Wenzel, Lola Lagier, Marie-Louise Kittel, Agustin Ruvira, Anna Marco, Christoffer Hagen, Anette Helstad, Aino Telama, Erling Søyland, Kristine Frøshaug, Bendik Jarmund Molnes, Tiphaine Laurent, Simon Schwaiger, Lara Castillo
Architectonic Consultants: Bjørn-Otto Braaten, Arnstein Olav Gilberg
Structural Supervision: Jan Helge Siem, Filippo Frontini
Project/Construction Management: Jan Siem / Arstein Gilberg
Country: Norway
Built as a structure for stargazing, the Rindal Star Cube was designed and built completely by students, giving them experience in taking a project from start to end. As part of Rindal’s cultural path, the 5m3 black cube appears stark and intimidating from the outside, with burnt spruce shingles contextualising the harsh geometry of the cube, but the interior is an open and playful area designed around the idea of a journey that culminates in taking people up to look towards the stars on a net hammock set among platforms. The building even has space for campfires and sleeping areas, but sadly does not include marshmallows.
Project Title: Sombreadero Patio de Madera (Universidad Católica de Chile)
Studio Name: Introducción a la Construcción
Teachers: Claudio Vásquez, Diego Arroyo, Miguel Delso
Teaching Assistants: Juan Echaurren, Esteban Arteaga, Cristóbal Montalbetti
Country: Chile
Made to cover the patio at the university’s Lo Contador campus, the structure was made of wood, PVC and concrete. The structure’s components - pillar, beam, cover and foundation - were made during the semester by students under the guidance of the faculty members. This was broken down into four phases that were distributed among groups composed of six students and one teaching assistant: planimetric design, scale prototyping scale (models); 1:1 prototyping and construction.
Project Title: The Crack Pavilion (Chalmers University)
Studio Directors: Jonas Lundberg, Daniel Norell
Tutors: Klas Moberg, Karin Hedlund, Pedram Seddighzadeh, Ellen Ordell, Peter Lindblom and Tabita Nilsson
Students: Team of 25 Students from Material & Detail Studio of the first year Master’s Program (MPARC)
Country: Sweden
Aiming to rethink concrete blocks, the pavilion owes more to detailed Inca masonry that it does to modernist concrete construction. Built out of interlocked geometrical concrete sections, the pavilion to designed to give a variety of expressions and elevation; changing from a heavy, solid form during the day to showing cracks of light during the night due to interior lighting. The whole structure is built of over 70 pieces, molded carefully before being carefully assembled over three days.
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Project Title: Pouso (IAU-USP)
Students: Ana Carolina Martins Dias Felizardo, Aline Sgotti, Camile Vecchi Pacheco, Giulia Massignan, Nayara Caroline Batista Resende, Natasha Cristina Bellaz do Amaral Campos Silva
Country: Brazil
Developed by six first year students, Pouso is a design experiment that aims to introduce students to the construction processes involved in the creation of urban furniture. The object is designed to occupy urban space, featuring a parametric surface cover, seated on a hollow skeleton of wood.
Project Title: Mobile Craft Module (California College of the Arts)
Studio Name: Prototyping Mobility Advanced Architecture Studio
Tutor: Adam Marcus
Students: Barry Atiabet, Keith Edwards, Joshua Evans, Tien Yi Hsieh, Ludmila Ilieva, Reynaldo Kambey, Thomas Monroy, Ryan Montgomery, Mark Nicholson, Chien Lien Pan, Murhaf Salameh, Adithi Satish, Jin Shen
Country: USA
Anchoring the Market Street Prototyping Festival in San Francisco, the Mobile Craft Module is a prototype for a series of flexible and reconfigurable mobile stations incorporating workshop and exhibition space in one, rolling craft module. Each module is partially open, with equally modular storage, exhibition and work spaces inside, using a plug-and-play system that allows for easy reconfiguring. The steel frame is clad in Cedar; as a branding touch, the cladding is cut robotically into a series of abstract shapes that happen to spell “CCA” if one looks from the right angle.
Project Title: DIGFABMTY 1.0 (Tecnológico de Monterrey - Campus Monterrey)
Studio Name: Tecnologias Avanzadas en la Arquitectura
Tutor: Alex Rodriguez
Students: Paulina Rangel, Francisco Ruiz, Omar Nava, Maru Padilla, Cesar Delgado, Andrés Martinez, Esteban Huacuja, Javier Jasso, Cristina Gonzalez, Lucia Coronel, Alberto Frias
Country: Mexico
The project started with an algorithm created by one of the students where a pyramidal shaped component was placed across a vaulted surface, creating a strong differentiation by changing its height. Another algorithm was elaborated to unfold all the 195 components to a flat surface to be laser cut and then folded to generate the pyramidal shape from a single piece of 3 millimeter Coroplast. The team carefully assembled all the components using an industrial staple gun and plastic cable zip ties and reinforced the structure with PVC pipes that were fixed to the ground. The pavilion will encourage future students to use digital fabrication techniques.
Project Title: Jello Pavilion (Cornell University)
Tutor: Lorena del Rio
Students: Nils Axen, Danica Davis, Bee Gan, Yiwei Gao, Irene Garcia, Boyao Jiang, Lucia Lee, Jingyang Liu, Liam Martin, Alejandra Martinez, Jinting Yang, Yaoyi Zhou
Country: USA
Inspired by avant-garde architecture embracing the then revolutionary potential of plastics in the 1970s, the Jello Pavilion is an entirely inflatable structure built on an ultra low budget. Spurred by wanting to work on something lighter during the stress of exam week, the thin plastic shell surrounds a large fan which inflates the interior into a fairly globular space, which can then be configured for whichever use you may need it for by simply using Velcro strips attached around the pavilion. Filled with balloons and light projects, the Jello Pavilion is quite simply fun.
Project Title: Kerby (Columbia University)
Studio: Fast Pace // Slow Pace
Tutors: Mark Bearak, Bridget Borders
Students: Maximilian Hartman, Jordan Meerdink, Shalini Amin, Nutchanun Boontassaro, Tanya Griffiths, Julien Gonzalez, Jasmine Ho, Fancheng Fei, Ian Wang, Nicole Mater
Country: USA
Named Kerby and made to “be a world traveler,” this pavilion is an interactive, flexible installation that can be entirely flatpacked and sent across the world, before being reassembled in a similar fashion to a 3D puzzle in around 2 hours, assuming you haven’t lost a piece. Cut from plywood in a way that encourages the material to become fluid, Kerby has already been exhibited at the Columbia GSAPP End of Year Show and the FIGMENT Art Fair.
Thanks to everyone who joined in and sent us their university's studio projects - we hope you enjoyed seeing what the students of the world have to offer as much as we did!
Article Credits:
Texts: Dario Goodwin (English), Pola Mora (Spanish) and Romullo Baratto (Portuguese) Rory Stott (introduction)
Translations: Katie Watkins
Production: Rory Stott
