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Thomas Nicolai-AAA, Daisy.World mechanism, drawing detail. Image courtesy of Thomas Nicolai, Erfurt, Germany.
A few Fridays ago, we sat down with Jasmin Aber, curator of InterActive: New Technologies in Contemporary Architecture, which opens tonight at the Sheldon Art Galleries and runs through January 24.
Aber, an architect educated in England and licensed in Germany, as well as a researcher and consultant, is one of the founders of Berkeley’s Shrinking Cities International Research Group (SCIRN), a coalition of architects, urban planning experts and academics who are studying why cities decline and shrink, and what can and should be done to reverse that trend. Aber’s own research within the group focuses on emerging strategies of revitalization that advantage of the indigenous cultural and creative resources, make them accessible to people in visionary, creative ways, and you create an environment that naturally attracts people ... and inspires them to stay.
One way of creating welcoming, exciting cities is to harness the potentials of cutting-edge architecture: for example, using digital technology to create buildings that respond and interact with users/passers by and to the environment. . This is what InterActive is all about, and includes photographs, blueprints and video footage—with many of these projects, you really do need to see the building in motion to understand exactly what it is and what it does—from around the world.
Organizations included in the exhbit include ART+COM (Berlin, Germany); Blipcreative (London, England); Experientiae Electricae (Osserain-Rivareyte, France); Simone Giostra and Partners (Brooklyn, New York); Greyworld (London, England); LAb[au] Laboratory for Architecture and Urbanism (Brussels, Belgium); Modulorbeat (Münster, Germany); Thomas Nicolai-AAA (Erfurt, Germany); and realities:united GmbH (Berlin, Germany). The Sheldon Art Galleries are located at 3648 Washington, and the opening reception runs from 5–7 p.m. tonight. —Stefene Russell
For a preview of the projects, click here; and read our Q & A with Jasmin Aber here.
(And in full disclosure: Aber is the partner of our new Editor-at-Large, Malcolm Gay; even if this were not the case, we would feel that this exhibit is too important not to cover!)
