One of the more delirious possibilities and quandaries offered up by the digital architectural practices are the endless design iterations or “solutions”–usually volumetric in nature–from which the architect may choose. While the rationale governing the genesis of each of these is rigorously consistent, influenced only by a series of formulated operations, the “choosing” can’t help but be arbitrary, contingent as it is on one’s subjective aesthetics that actively undermine the legitimacy of the process. So, then, how does one choose?

That query is at the heart of Winy Maas (of MVRDV) and The Why Factory‘s”Porous City”, a collection of 676 LEGO towers set at 1:1000 scale which will be exhibited at the launch of the EU City Program. The white towers are spaced at intervals so as to comprise a gridded carpet of miniature sculptures, each more formally exuberant or complex than the last. The work recalls the visual cacophony of Rem Koolhaas and Madelon Vriesendorp’s “City of the Captive Globe“, though the former reveals itself as a study exclusively situated in the realm of design (and not of politics, technology, and utopias referenced in the latter). Continue.

Photos: MVRDV

“Porous City” is a satellite display of the collaborative’s main exhibition at the 13th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice. “Freeland” is an animated documentary that explores the “complete liberation of urban planning”, whereby the last vestiges of classical urbanism has been done away with, usurped by the virality and spontaneity of the self-organizing city. This movement is catalyzed by the “Common Ground” among us–the theme of this year’s biennale–and which is shared by inhabitants and collectively cultivated for agriculture and respite, for infrastructure and architecture.

[via designboom]

by Samuel Medina

posted in Uncategorized

tagged 13th International Architecture Exhibition, freeland, mvrdv, porous city, the why factory, venice biennale, winy maas

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