MVRDV and The Why Factory's have collaborated on an exhibition that explores the principles of "architecture and urbanism calls to action”. Titled "Agir", the exhibition is open to the public since June 9th, in the connected spaces of the ArchiLib Gallery and MVRDV’s Paris office. The exhibition takes its name from the French verb meaning “act”, and examines the activist works of MVRDV and The Why Factory, revealing its capacity to address a wide variety of environmental and social challenges.
MVRDV and The Why Factory (Delft University of Technology) revealed “Le Grand Puzzle”, a book that holds ambitious ideas for Marseille, in the south of France. In fact, the study, made from 2018 to the start of 2020, “proposes a methodology, an agenda, and an analysis to portray today’s Marseille”.
.jpg?1550072614)
In 2020, the French city of Marseille is set to host Manifesta 13, the European Biennial of Contemporary Art. In preparation for the event, MVRDV has collaborated with thinktank The Why Factory (directed by MVRDV co-founder Winy Maas) in unveiling “The Grand Puzzle,” a 1200-page interdisciplinary pre-biennial research study of the urban potential for Marseille.
MVRDV produced the study through deep analyses of the city, such as interviews and spatial data, culminating in suggestions for possible urban interventions. As part of this engagement, the firm worked with The Why Factory, founded as “the think tank on the future city” at Technical University Delft, who collaborated with local architecture and design schools on the study. Having received overwhelmingly positive feedback, the work will now be “contextualized, analyzed, and refined as it becomes a tool for Marseillais to imagine possible futures for their city.” In addition, the study will serve as a point of inspiration for artistic and cultural interventions both before and during the Manifesta biennial.
Hoping to answer the question "what does the future city look like?" at Dutch Design Week, MVRDV (definitive design and construction drawings) and think tank The Why Factory (Research and concept design) have fabricated a multicolored, tetris-like hotel in Eindhoven. The future brings decreasing resources, increasing population, and climate change, reasons MVRDV, and with these limitations in mind, they believe futuristic architecture needs one important quality: flexibility.
Winy Maas is one of architecture’s most aggressive researchers. Through his office MVRDV and affiliations with universities in Europe and America, Maas produces a seemingly unstoppable stream of insights into the environments in which architects now operate. As an advisor to the educational program of the Strelka Institute in Moscow, the architect is currently contributing to the production of eleven radical visions of the future, based on extrapolating trends that shape contemporary life, in Russia and around the world. Maas recently sat with writer, curator, and Strelka faculty member Brendan McGetrick to discuss his unusual educational trajectory, learning from the conservationist Richard Leakey, facing death in Sudan, and the beauty of architects experimenting with algae.
By invitation of Director David Chipperfield, MVRDV and The Why Factory will participate in the 2012 Venice Biennale. The main contribution consists of the collaborative project ‘Freeland’ forming part of the single exhibition in the Central Pavilion at the Giardini. Further contribution is made by Winy Maas and The Why Factory with ‘Porous City’ to the EU CITY Program, initiated by the European Forum for Architectural Policies (EFAP) representing Europe for the first time at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
More details on the two exhibitions after the break.
Interesting study by MVRDV, The Why Factory and Stroom Den Haag.
.jpg?1655725729 "© Juan Jerez")
.jpg?1655725498 "© Juan Jerez")
.jpg?1598810187 "Courtesy of MVRDV")
