[C]space

For the 10th anniversary of the AA's Design Research Laboratory, a competition was held for a small pavillion to be erected on Bedford Square in London. The competition was open to all students and graduates of the DRL - and more or less the only given was that the competitors should make innovative use of Fibre C (glass fibre reinforced concrete).

And the design that won the competition (designed by the architects Alan Dempsey and Alvin Huang) does just what one would expect from a competition entry by someone from the AA: it's all computer graphics, double curved, and smooth rendered elegant shape. Sure, there's a bit more to it, but I could never really been bothered with this kind of spectacular architecture for the sake of it. It means nothing, it just looks good...

I couldn't be bothered until I saw that the project is actually under construction. The two designers set up a blog about the project, on which they document the entire production. And I must say: in reality it looks amazing. It's still just showing off, but it's really beautifully done - one can just see that the architects pushed themselves as far as they could to realize the qualities of the virtual image. Just lovely.