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AABL 2014 – Berlin Take Away

Berlin2014

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Marianne Mueller and Olaf Kneer, temporary structure, Paris 2013. Photo by Valerie Bennett

Berlin Take Away – Building Laboratory

at the UdK, University of the Arts Berlin

 

1. – 9. August 2014

Berlin is a transformed city. For several years in a row, AA Berlin Laboratory has been documenting the changing landscape of Berlin and its relation to the experiment, indentifying Berlin’s special status as a city of extraordinary conditions, a heterotopia’ or counter-site.

In 2014, AA Berlin Laboratory will move on. We will say ‘good bye’ to reflection and embrace projection and real life experimentation. This time, we will construct our own temporary utopia: 25 students from 25 different back-grounds, 25 ideas for a temporary space, 1 physical structure to be built in 9 days and 9 nights.

In a colloborative, interactive and open ended building process we will construct a 1:1 prototype in the public spaces of the University of the Arts. A mock-up or physical structure, a type of folly or Merzbau. A sketch for a space developed through a speedy competition. A construction process that will take time and negotiation. An ongoing building laboratory.
The structure will exist in a series of temporary states, house events and support the public programme. It will subsequently be dismantled and taken away by its participants. Both construction and dismenteling process form integral part of the design.

We will collaborate with Norbert Palz (http://www.arch.udk-berlin.de/palz/index.php), professor in Digital and Experimental Design at the University of the Arts Berlin, one of Germany’s leading art schools.
The workshop will be led by AA and Berlin-based tutors and hosted by the University of the Arts Berlin. A public programme of lectures and seminars with speakers from architecture and art will provide an extended stage for a debate on experimental design / construction.

The course is directed by Marianne Mueller and Olaf Kneer, AA Graduates, fomer unit masters and research cluster curators. Olaf and Marianne are directors of Casper Mueller Kneer Architects based in London and Berlin.(www.caspermuellerkneer.com)
Recent projects include the galleries for White Cube in Bermondsey, London and commissions for fashion house Celine in Paris. Marianne has held a guest professorship at the Technical University in Berlin, leading the chair of Design and Construction.