Blueprint Awards 2016: The winners
Best Design Innovation Project
Winner: Baumgartner +Uriu, USA
Apertures, Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, Los Angeles, USA
Judge’s Comment
‘Innovative use of new materials and fabrication systems’ Chris Wilkinson
Apertures is an immersive, experiential installation, installed in Los Angeles Municipal Gallery, that is designed to engage the visitor through sensors and sound feedback loops to experience their own ‘biorhythms’. The installation focuses on the symbiotic relationship between nature, building morphologies and material expression.
The 5m-tall shell structure, made of over 200 uniquely shaped panels, was designed to rely solely on its extremely thin surface for support. Structure and surface are collapsed into a single component supported by its shape, various sinuous, creased surfaces and its material strength. Each panel is CNC-milled from polyurethane foam, heat formed out of thermoplastic polymer resin and then laminated together into a single object. Various apertures allow visitors to crawl inside and inhabit the hollow structure.
Say Baumgartner+Uriu: ‘This project is the proposal of a building as organism, challenging how architecture can interface with its users and its environment in a much more intuitive way. This entails both the use of technology to augment its performance and a design aesthetic that is incongruous and can incorporate analogue features into a digital design process.’
Commended
Hayhurst and Co, UK
Garden House, London, UKImage: Kilian O’Sullivan
i29 interior architects, The Netherlands
Room of the Roof, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
SoHo+Co, UK
Paper Sake Bar, various locations
Finalists
Giorgio Borruso Design, USA
WithMe, Chicago, USA
Graven Images, UK and Carlson Rezidor Hotel Group
Radisson RED, Brussels, Belgium
Haron Robson & Lightmatters, Australia
Central Plaza One ground floor lobby, Brisbane, Australia
Ian Ritchie Architects, UK
Sainsbury Wellcome Centre for Neural Circuits and Behaviour, UCL, London, UK
Oney Architecture, Turkey
Euro Gida Factory, Izmir, Turkey
Zaha Hadid Architects, UK
Investcorp Building, Oxford, UK