Plastique Fantastique‘s pneumatic structures were originally conceived in 1999 through necessity: “The fact that we used plastic was just due to the fact that we had no money,” explains the firm’s founder Marco Canevacci. “So, plastic was just the cheapest material we could imagine, and you can join parts very easily and you can create very simple architectures. By using a hot air blower, those architectures become warm places to stay.” By using warm air to inflate the structures, their office became a landscape of heated pods in an otherwise cold space. However, through their continued experiments over almost two decades, Plastique Fantastique’s pneumatic interventions have now come to make the case for an ephemeral, temporary, and whimsical architecture. Their work now continues a lineage started by the experimental utopian group Haus-Rucker-Co, whose own pneumatic structures of the 1960s were disposable, free-wheeling creations which both literally and metaphorically played with the boundaries of a world they saw as staid, rigid, and dull.
Last year, Plastique Fantastique was invited to the 180 Creative Camp held by Canal 180 in Abrantes, Portugal, where their giant, inhabitable Strawberry Ice Cream Cone took over a public place to provide a unique and fun spatial experience. To mark this event, Canal 180 produced a short film highlighting some key recent projects by the firm and documenting the construction of their latest work. Watch the video above, and read on to see more images of the installation in Abrantes.
MVRDV’s design for the Dutch exhibition “Hola Holanda” at the Book Fair of Bogotá (FILBO) features a modular system of crates that will be repurposed as neighbourhood libraries after the Book Fair ends. Avoiding the waste of resources created by one-time pavilions, the Dutch firm has introduced a playful element of sustainability to the fair, maintaining its spirit even after the event ends.
FILBO, is one of Latin America’s most important trade events, partnering with a guest country each year to host a main pavilion. This year, the Netherlands and Colombia partook in an exchange of knowledge and culture, with an exhibition designed by Dutch designer Irma Boom and the Dutch Embassy in Colombia.
At the center of this activity, MVRDV’s pavilion circumvents the common problem of pavilions and exhibitions disappearing after an event, rather than benefiting surrounding communities. The pavilions within the Dutch exhibition were designed as a collection of over one thousand “vividly coloured” wooden creates, which can be easily deconstructed and re-assembled.
Each unit uses standardised wooden panels, leaving little waste material, and allowing “unlimited possibilities for reconstruction throughout their lifetime.” After the event, the pavilions will be distributed throughout Bogotá as libraries, and social and education spaces.
“Our design is a village, an accessible, democratic design for all, executed in the best Dutch spirit with some fun,” says MVRDV founding partner Jacob van Rijs. “But it was important also to comment on the trade fair system. Instead of trashing an expensive pavilion after a short use we wanted it to be reused adding long term value to the city.”
The exhibition will be open until May 2.
Photographing a morning in this spot, watching night turn to day, had me feeling like a kid again – immersed in some fable, some fantasy tale of heroes and knights and good battling evil.
I spent a couple days in December in this stunning wonder of Slovenia. Even as the world’s worst morning person, I managed to make it up for sunrises like this – though after saying a prayer to the Red Bull god. Good thing I did. There’s something magical about being up this early, feeling like you’re the only person that exists on this planet, and watching a golden fable unfold.
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Sig Nordal 