Instant Lounge, invented by UEO, will be exhibited on the 2019-2020 Shenzhen Biennale. Instant Lounge is a site-specific room-size retractable 3D printer that makes temporary furniture in real-time. The exhibition will be in Shenzhen Futian High Speed railway station from December 21- March 21.
In the urban context, the flux of people constantly redefines public space throughout the day. How can digital fabrication address this impermanence? What if public space could identify the sitting and lounging needs of pedestrians throughout the day to provide instant furniture? A train station platform or an airport terminal, for example, can be empty during rush hours to allow for free-flowing human traffic. However, it should be filled with seating during delays, provide adequate furnishings for conversations and meals in the evening, and lounging beds for overnight connections. “Instant lounge” can formally engage these daily scenarios without waste.
"Instant Lounge” is a cable machine that is anchored into a ceiling at four nodes which allow it to be scaled to various size spaces. The machine lays a thick rope into various seating, playing, and sleeping configurations that respond to demand. Once a seating configuration is no longer needed, the machine collects the rope and composes a new configuration. Similar to a 3D printer, “Instant Lounge” layers material to build, but unlike a 3D printer, the machine continually reuses the same material. The rope is made from a continuous cotton tube filled with maybush pits that can decompose and merge with the natural environment after being discarded. The life cycle of the rope spans approximately three years.
Conventionally, digital fabrication is used both as a desktop feature that facilitates rapid prototyping, and in much larger settings, such as workshops and factories, to construct permanent parts of buildings, cars, machinery, etc. The concepts of quickly testing ideas embedded in the former, and that of inhabitation in the latter, are divorced in this dichotomy of scales. “Instant lounge” is a reconciliation of the two, wherein impermanence plays a key role. Deployed in the public space to make temporary furniture configurations, the machine responds to the ever-changing conditions created by dynamic dwelling hence making evolving spatial concepts instantly inhabitable.
About UEO
UEO is a group of inventor, designers, artist, and architects established in New York City and in Zhuhai. UEO builds Apps, machines, installations and architecture. Gabriel Munnich, Yaoyi Fan and Pablo Toubes-Rieger with Eiora Architect collaboratively designed a large-scale 3D printer that was exhibited at the Venice Biennale and at Bugaik International Exhibition in 2018. Personal works have been exhibited internationally in Barcelona, Santiago, China, and New York City. They have also been exhibited at the MoMA architecture exhibition on Yugoslavia in 2018. Leslie Dougrou and Gabriel Munnich were awarded the Menschel Fellowship, and 3D scanned vernacular architecture of Tongo, Ghana for their UNESCO application. Other awards garnered by the collective include the David Yurnall Award, and the Peter Bruder.
About UABB:
http://szhkbiennale.org/
The Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, also known as the Urbanism\Architecture Bi-City Biennale (UABB) of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, was founded in 2005. It has been held every two years since. It is considered the world's only Biennale or Biennial exhibition to focus specifically on urbanism and urbanization.
"Urban Interactions": Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) - 8th edition. Shenzhen, China
Set to open in December 21, 2019 in Shenzhen, China, "Urban Interactions" is the 8th edition of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB). The exhibition is composed of two arms, “Eyes of the City” and “Ascending City”, that will investigate the relationship between urban space and technological innovation from different perspectives. “Eyes of the City" will be curated by MIT professor and architect Carlo Ratti while Politecnico di Torino-South China University of Technology features as Academic Curator. The "Ascending City" will be curated by Chinese academic Meng Jianmin and Italian art critic Fabio Cavallucci.
Team: Gabriel Munnich, Yaoyi Fan, Pablo Toubes-Rieger, Leslie Dougrou
Site: China, Shenzhen Futian High Speed railway station
