News

RELATIONS AT AEDES ARCHITECTURE FORUM

Relations
Platform for Architecture + Research / PAR

Aedes Architecture Forum
Curated by Kristin Feireiss and Beate Engelhorn
Christinenstraße 18-19, 10119 Berlin
9 September – 19 October 2017

An exhibition devoted to PAR’s work at the Aedes Architecture Forum in Berlin provides insight into our architectural approach through the presentation of nine recent projects.

From the curatorial statement:

The exhibition presents the work of American architects Platform for Architecture + Research / PAR, founded by Jennifer Marmon in Los Angeles. Questioning the role and limits of architecture today, Marmon, together with her collective team, are part of a new generation of architects exploring universal topics as a means to expand their discipline in new ways. The installation illustrates the various strategies used by the office to develop their specific design approach that aims to establish a dialogue with people as well as local conditions, resulting in their individual mode of architectural expression.

Providing an insight into their architectural universe, the exhibition presents nine recent works including the Wilshire Tower in Los Angeles/US, the AD18 Hotel in Los Angeles/US, the Taichung Cultural Center in Taichung/Taiwan, the Guggenheim Museum in Helsinki/Finland, the Bauhaus Art Museum in Dessau/Germany, the Lima Art Museum in Lima/Peru, as well as the Pavilion House, the Stacked House, and the View House all located in Los Angeles/US.

The featured projects range in scale from small houses to museum concepts. Drawings, models, and images reveal the diagrammatic thinking, exploration of form and connections to the urban fabric that link PAR’s projects. With its idea of a network of relationships, the exhibition reflects the essential architectural elements of organization, material and form that influence the office’s work to benefit living conditions, urban identity and integration with the local surroundings.

Opening Speakers:
Dr.h.c. Kristin Feireiss, Aedes Architecture Forum
Michael P. Steinberg, President, American Academy Berlin
Jennifer Marmon, AIA, Platform for Architecture + Research / PAR

Catalogue: Relations, Softcover, 48 pages
Press Contact: press@thisxthat.com
Photography: Erik Jan Ouwerkerk

Thank you to our sponsor and the Aedes partners: 
Lorin Industries
Zumtobel, Schindler/The PORT Technology, Carpet Concept

PAR JOINS VAN ALEN INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL

PAR has been invited to the Van Alen Institute International Council and participated in the fall 2016 meeting in Munich. The International Council is a platform for exchange among leading architects, designers, developers, and planners, representing practices across more than 17 cities and ten countries. The council meets twice annually to identify and investigate issues facing cities around the world, and to guide the impact of the Institute’s public programming, research, and design competitions. Council members also convene with local policymakers, developers, researchers, and designers, investigating topics with potential for deeper exploration with Van Alen’s international audience.

WILSHIRE TOWER WINS AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE AWARD

Our Wilshire Tower proposal has won a 2016 American Architecture Award from the Chicago Athenaeum and European Centre for Architecture. The proposal was developed for the Architecture + Design Museum as part of Shelter, an exhibition that questioned how new forms of housing can respond to changes in the cultural fabric and physical landscape of Los Angeles. With Wilshire Tower, we were interested in reimagining the skyscraper for a future, denser Los Angeles and explored how individuality and nature, two qualities emblematic of Los Angeles living, could be integrated vertically in the sky.

“The American Architecture Awards program,” states Chrisian Narkiewicz-Laine, President of The Chicago Athenaeum, “showcases the best of new American building design and urban design-oriented research by the nation’s foremost visionary designers.” In December 2016, an exhibition of the winning projects entitled New American Architecture, opens in Athens, Greece. A catalogue will accompany the exhibition.

With special thanks to BuroHappold Engineering.

PAR SKETCH IN LA FORUM AUCTION

An Infinity sketch by PAR will be auctioned in the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design 2016 Fall Benefit, On the Block. Check out the online auction from October 28th to November 15th and bid to support the critical dialogs, exhibitions and publications of the LAForum.org.

Study for Infinity, 2015
Ink on paper
11 x 8 in (27.94 x 20.32 cm)
Framed
Courtesy of the artist
Signed

AIA|LA AWARDS JURY

The American Institute of Architects has invited Jennifer to join the 2016 AIA Los Angeles Design Awards Jury. A distinguished jury including Ma Yansong, Christopher Hawthorne and Tom Wiscombe will commence on September 23rd and the winners will be announced at the AIA|LA Design Awards Ceremony on October 24, 2016.

AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE PRIZE JURY

Jennifer joins an international jury of architects, educators and cultural leaders to judge the 2016 American Architecture Prize. A distinguished jury including Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Ben van Berkel, Špela Videčnik and Clément Blanchet will commence in September and winners will be announced at an awards event at the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum on October 25, 2016.

INFINITY at VENICE BIENNALE

Exploring ideas of lightness and perception, PAR has created an interactive installation for the exhibition Time Space Existence at the 2016 Venice Biennale. Through materiality and light, the installation engages fundamental architectural themes of space and existence; its reflective forms changing according to the surroundings. The extraordinarily thin, suspended aluminum structure offers an undulating field for interaction where people can come together during events at Palazzo Mora.

Curated by Global Art Affairs Foundation
Vernissage on 26 to 27 May 2016 from 18.00 to 22.00
Exhibition from 28 May to 27 November 2016

With special thanks to Arup for their in-kind engineering and Lorin for their generous fabrication and sponsorship.

WAN FUTURE PROJECTS AWARDS JURY

Jennifer will be one of the judges for the 2016 World Architecture News’ Future Project Awards. These awards recognize concepts that have pushed their specific typology forward and proven a holistic and effective approach. The jury will commence in London in January 2017 and the winner will be announced on March 14, 2017. Entries across seven core sectors: Transport, Education, Healthcare, Civic Buildings, Urban Design, Residential and Commercial are open until September 30, 2016.

HILLSIDE HOUSES

PAR is designing a collection of hillside houses for Los Angeles developer Richard Loring. The first house is characterized by a series of pavilions that integrate with the landscape, creating a fragmented domestic space that allows for access to natural light and outdoor terraces. Each volume rotates according to topography and views and is connected by transparent halls that function as interstitial spaces. The varied, shed roof forms further distinguish each pavilion while expressing a softer roofline against the hillside.

LUNAR RESORT at 5×5 EXHIBITION

5×5 Participatory Provocations 
Curated by Kevin Erickson, Julia van den Hout & Kyle May
On view from February 15 to March 4, 2016

The avant-garde in architecture has for decades captured its imaginations via two-dimensional representations, but this exhibit asked twenty-five American architects to be just as provocative in three dimensions. The curators posed five prompts for offices to explore through physical models.

PAR proposed a Lunar Resort sited at the south pole with a horizon of near perpetual sunlight and proximity to ice water. The building is comprised of inflatable polyhedron modules that can be transported by space rocket, assembled onsite and reinforced with protective shells of rover printed, radiated regolith. The resort is organized as a gathering of soft volumes of varying sizes and undulating orientations that reflect programmatic uses while creating a porous geometry that allows both sunlight and views to permeate the structure. The volumes lightly intersect with one another leading to a collection of spaces for lunar exploration, leisure and sleeping.