Hasta La Ideas

Beijing Design Week 2011: London designer Paul Cocksedge installed giant pages of poetry made from rolled steel sheets outside the China Millennium Monument during Beijing Design Week.

Both Chinese and English poems were inscribed onto the curled sheets of the 20 metre-high metre-wide sculpture, entitled Manuscript.

Visitors could sit or lie down on the individual pages.

Paul Cocksedge showed another new project at the recent London Design Festival – see our story about vinyl records warped into amplifiers for smartphones here and see more projects by the designer here.

See all our projects from Beijing Design Week here, including our roundup of highlights, and see our snapshots from the festival on our Facebook page.

Photography is by Mark Cocksedge.

Here’s some more information about the project from Paul Cocksedge Studio:

Manuscript -­ An installation by Paul Cocksedge Studio for Beijing Design Week

Paul Cocksedge Studio has been selected by 2011 Beijing Design Week and the First Beijing International Design Triennial to exhibit a major installation set to be a key highlight of the festival which this year features London as its guest city.

Entitled ‘Manuscript (Seats of Poetry)’, Paul Cocksedge Studio’s sculptural design celebrates a wonderful Chinese invention, manuscript paper, the foundation of global literature and communication. It follows Cocksedge’s ongoing interest in this inspirational material, and his investigations into its morphological potential.

At 20 metres long by 6.7 metres high, the sculpture’s impressive scale also presents itself as a monument to the industrial capability of China. The individual sheets making up this complex structure are precisely fabricated and assembled by local manufacturers.

Upon closer inspection the piece is made up of rolled steel pages inscribed with poems carefully curated from Chinese and English sources. ‘Manuscript’ is about the exchange of words, poetry and knowledge between Beijing and London.

Sited on Chang’An Avenue, the main east-­‐west axis of the city, this temporary piece has been designed to be explored visually and physically by visitors to the China Millennium Monument, a cultural and events complex built to celebrate the turn of the millennium. Passers-­‐by can sit and rest on the curved sheets and absorb the pages of poetry in one of the world’s most impressive public spaces.

Aric Chen, creative director of Beijing Design Week, said of the selection process:
‘In cooperation with the British Council, we solicited nominations that were narrowed down to three very talented London designers and firms who were invited to submit proposals for the installation. While all of their concepts were strong, Paul’s brilliantly combined poetry -­‐and not just in the literal sense -­‐ with technical confidence in a way that truly celebrates design.’

Paul Cocksedge said : ‘I am very honoured to have been able to contribute this work, ‘Manuscript’, to the 2011 Beijing Design Week. This structure speaks to so many different aspects of Chinese and British history and culture: poetry and writing, the power and beauty of nature, and, of course, man-­‐made engineering and design. At heart, though, ‘Manuscript’ is simply meant to inspire people to look, listen, and make new discoveries…’

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A Gust of Wind by Paul Cocksedge	Veil by Paul Cocksedge	Drop by Paul Cocksedge

French architect Serge Salat has designed an infinite labyrinth of shapes and colours for a touring exhibition in China.

Visitors to Beyond the Infinity amble though a series of enclosed rooms, each lined with mirrors and illuminated by an assortment of brightly coloured lights.

Three-dimensional timber grids spread across the walls and ceilings of the spaces and are endlessly reflected in the mirrors.

Perforated panels of anodized aluminium wrap some timber frames to create a square honeycomb of boxes, which glow beneath ultraviolet lighting.

The exhibition began in Shanghai and will be exhibited in 10 different Chinese cities for 3 days at a time.

Another interior recently featured on Dezeen also uses mirrors to create the illusion of an infinite room – see the project here and see all our stories about mirrors here.

Here are some more details from Salat:

Serge Salat – “Beyond the Infinity”

French artist Serge Salat’s multi sensory installation “Beyond the Infinity” reveals new and astounding cosmic visions to the audience. The artwork will travel 10 cities of China, including Shanghai and Beijing, from September to November 2011. General Motors China sponsors the tour exhibition.

Inspiration

Since 1988, Serge Salat has built multi-sensory art spaces interweaving virtual reality and fractal art.
The installations are full-scale rooms, closed private cosmos in which the audience penetrates and participates to a mystical journey through its physical and emotional stimulations.

Serge Salat’s work blends Eastern Chinese philosophy and cosmic visions with advanced contemporary techniques. His inspiration has deep roots in Chinese Taoist philosophy, Western Renaissance, Neo Platonism and in the most advanced art thinking of the XXth century about the fourth dimension such as Duchamp, Malevich and Klee’s.

The installations bring in a single whole electronic art, music, sculpture and architecture. The manipulations of space and time go beyond traditional manipulations, with a skilful use of fourth dimensional cubic geometries. It confronts the audience with a media world in a moving pattern of change.

The Journey – Beyond the Infinity

The journey into the art space evolves in deep layers of dreams endlessly nested in each other, in which the visitor progresses into reflected layers.

The work layout uses spatial techniques of Suzhou gardens in order to create a mystical journey in an abstract version of the world of Chinese courtyards, interconnected by infinite galleries: still visions and vision in movement, borrowed sceneries, framing. But also and in particular, the collapse of a whole cosmos in an enclosed space is explored through manipulations of the space and time of the audience’s experience.

Constant transformation and mutation is one of the strong themes of the work: in this perspective the objects are two yin/yang faces of the same concept but shapes and colors are reversed.
The main pattern is the trigram of the Yi King that is framed in three dimensions and organizes the whole space.

Salat said: “Entering the work is also entering the world of the dream of the red mansion transposed to the 21st century”.

Beyond the Infinity constitutes an encounter between creativity and a world in the middle of its mutation. It mixes past and future and it creates a dialogue between real and virtual worlds.

This is probably a strong message of hope: the possibility in the contemporary world to create new beauty and dream through a fusion of classical culture and innovation.

The exhibition was launched in Jinan, China, by August 28, 2011 and it will travel 10 Chinese cities in three months:
Jinan (08/28) – Suzhou (09/09) – Shanghai (09/16) – Beijing (09/23) – Chengdu (10/01) – Dalian (10/14) – Xi’An (10/21) – Zhengzhou (10/28) – Shenzhen (11/04) – Hangzhou (TBC).

The artwork will be exhibited 3 days in each city.

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Zuo Corp by Super Super and Inside/Outside	LN-CC by Gary Card	Master Designer’s Garden by Martha Schwartz Partners

Beijing’s underground rock powerhouse returns to the States

A standout in Beijing’s underground rock scene (learn more about it from our story on five other bands) returns to the U.S. this month for a few shows in NYC before swinging through the South.
Hedgehog, formed in 2005, is one of the most notorious and popular groups to come out of China in recent years. The country’s indie rock movement gained steam in Beijing in the early part of the last decade, continuing to grow nationally and abroad. Like the birth of punk, raw, energetic tunes primarily make up this now preteen movement.

Represented by Modern Sky, one of China’s only indie labels, Hedgehog’s meteoric rise to the forefront of alternative Chinese music in 2007 came after a slow start on the scene. The bands defacto leader Atom, featured on the cover of the 2009 book Sound Kapital: Beijing’s Music Underground, is stout in stature but fierce on the drums. She brings an enchanting energy to their performances and, while the driving melodies are hypnotic, she’s undeniably the center of attention.

The band’s music is difficult to define because it includes a broad spectrum of sounds. Indie pop with a twist of punk feels like an almost adequate description, but so few words for such a dynamic group seems unfair. Already at the top of the underground game in Beijing, their second trip to America will include the recording of a new album with Russell Simmons (of Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) and Coco Rosie’s John Grew. Touring with Xiu Xiu and Kindest Lines,
catch the badass Beijing youth all along the Eastern Seaboard through September.

Zaha Hadid Architects have released new renders of a 200-metre-high commercial complex designed for Beijing.

The Wangjing Soho complex will comprise three large pebble-shaped buildings overlooking a road that leads to Beijing Capital Airport.

A three-storey retail podium will occupy the basement, ground and first floors of the buildings, while up to 37 floors of offices will be located above.

Three underground floors will provide car parking.

We recently featured Zaha Hadid’s Aquatics Centre for the London 2012 Olympics on Dezeen – see all our stories about Zaha Hadid Architects here.

Here are a few more details from the architects:

Wangjing Soho
Beijing, China

The Wangjing Soho building complex is a beacon along the way to Beijing’s modern gateway, the Capital Airport, and the journey of transition to and from the city.

The project acts as a welcoming post to the city and a gesture of farewell when departing Beijing. The buildings achieve this by reading differently when transitioning in either direction, leaving distinctly different impressions on those who pass by.

Like Chinese Fans, the volumes appear to move around each other in an intricate dance, each embracing the other from a continuously changing angle. This interplay creates a vibrant architectural complex that is enhanced by an equally dynamic external skin, which continuously varies in density creating a shimmering, exciting presence.

Program: Commerical Offi ce & Retail Complex
Client: SOHO China Ltd.
Architect: Zaha Hadid Architects

Design: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Project Director: Satoshi Ohashi
Associate: Cristiano Ceccato
Project Manager: Raymond Lau
Project Architect: Armando Solano
Project Team: Bianca Cheung, Yu Du, Ed Gaskin, Sally Harris, Chao-Ching Wang, Feng Lin, Yikai Lin, Oliver Malm, Rashiq Muhamadali Matthew Richardson, Yichi Zhang, Yan Guangyuan, Ma Xinyue Zhang Zhe
Competition Team: Ceyhun Baskin, Inanc Eray, Chikara Inamura, Michael Grau, Hoda Nobakhati, Michal Treder, Yevgeniya Pozigun

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Riverside Museum by Zaha Hadid Architects	Evelyn Grace Academy by Zaha Hadid Architects	Jesolo Magica, Italy by Zaha Hadid Architects

Reed-like steel columns surround another stadium designed by German studio GMP Architekten for the World University Games in Shenzhen.

The green stems support the circular roof of the Bao’an Stadium, which is hosting football matches during the Universiade games.

The suspended membrane roof is stretched across arched supports to create a bubbled surface.

The stadium seats up to 40,000 spectators and will be used for athletics once the games are over.

The closing ceremony for the games takes place on the 23 August.

GMP Architekten also designed a trio of faceted glass stadiums for these games, as illustrated in our earlier story – see all our stories about stadiums by GMP Architekten here.

Photography is by Christian Gahl.

Here are some more details from GMP:

2011 Universiade in Shenzhen

Inauguration of the Sports Center and Bao’an Stadium

To mark the occasion of the Universiade, which will take place from 12th to 23rd August 2011, the Universiade sports center and Bao’an stadium will be opened tomorrow in Shenzhen, southern China. The international com- petitions to come up with a design for the buildings were won in 2006 and 2007 by the designs of architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners (gmp). The Universiade sports center consists of a stadium, a multifunctional hall and a swimming pool. The stadium in the Bao’an district is designed as an athletics stadium. However, during the 2011 Universiade, it is being used for football matches.

Universiades are World Games for students and are held every other year in winter and summer, hosted by the International University Sports Federation, the Fédération Internationale du Sport Universitaire (FISU). Going by the number of athletes participating, the summer Universiade is the second largest multi-sport event in the world after the Summer Olympics. It was announced in January 2007 that the 26th summer Universiade 2011 was to take place in Shenzhen.

Bao’an stadium

The extensive bamboo forests of southern China were the inspiration for the design, whose slim stanchions carry the weight of the stands and the wide-span roof structure. Visitors pass through the forest of steel supports into the first circulating area of the stadium, and thence go either up the steps to the upper tier or straight on to the lower tier. The image of a bamboo forest is created by the double row of steel supports, where every other in the inner row is connected with the concrete structure of the undulating upper tier, thus carrying the vertical loads of the specta- tor seating. The steel tubes, which are up to 32 m in length, range from 55 cm to 80 cm, varying in accordance with their differing static loads.

A membrane roof suspended from an outer frame was selected to cover the seating areas. With a diameter of 230 m and cantilevering of 54 m on each side of the stands, the roof is carried by 36 pairs of cables whose pre- tensioning is brought together via a circular double tension ring of strand-bundle cables above the pitch. The stadium is designed to hold a capacity of 40,000 spectators.

Competition: 2007 – 1st prize
Design: Meinhard von Gerkan and Stephan Schütz with David Schenke
Project leaders: David Schenke, Li Ran
Staff (design): Jennifer Heckenlaible, Daniela Franz, Zhang Xi, Yin Chao Jie, Zhou Bin, Anna Bulanda-Jansen, Cai Qing, Xu Ji
Staff (execution): Matthias Grünewald, Cai Yu, Wang Le, Wang Li, Zhang Xi, Lucas Gallardo, Zhang Xiao Guang, Sebastian Linack, Li Zheng, Pan Xin, Martin Schulte-Frohlinde
Structural engineering: schlaich bergermann und partner – Sven Plieninger with Wei Chen
Lighting Design: Schlotfeld Licht, Berlin

Chinese partner practice: SCUT South China University of Technology
Client: The Sports Bureau of Bao’an District
Seats: 40,050
Length of the stadium: 245.80 m
Width of the stadium: 245.80 m
Height of the stadium: 39.65 m
Construction period: 2009–2011

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Kindergarten Sighartstein by Kadawittfeldarchitektur	Stade Bordeaux Atlantique by Herzog & de Meuron	Pharmacy in Koukaki by KLab Architecture