Title of PAM Public Lectures: THE BIG SHUFFLE
- NING JIA CHENG 1001436861
- Mar 21, 2016
- 4 min read
Maarten Gielen is a founding member of the collective Rotor where he currently works as designer, manager and researcher. He started his career at the age of 15, selling decorative items and objects found at scrap merchants and flea markets to fashion stores and florists.
In 2002, he set up BSF to offer technical assistance using salvaged materials to small cultural organizations.
In 2004, the association merged with the organizations of Zinneke Parade, where Maarten set up a program for the reuse of industrial waste.
In 2012, he was appointed visiting professor in the HEAD in Geneva.
In 2013, he was curator of the Oslo Architecture Triennale,Behind the Green Door-architecture and the desire for sustainability.
In 2014, he curated together with Lionel Devlieger the Oslo Architecture Triennale. In 2015, he was awarded with the Rotterdam-Maaskant prize.
Together with Lionel Devlieger, Maarten Gielen was curator of the 2013 Oslo Architecture Triennale, Behind the Green Door – architecture and the desire for sustainability.
ROTOR, founded in 2005
Website : http://rotordb.org/
Rotor is a collective of people with a common interest in the material flows in industry and construction.
On a practical level :
Rotor handles the conception and realization of design and architectural projects.
On a theoretical level :
Rotor develops critical positions on design, material resources, and waste through research, exhibitions, writings and conferences.
THE BIG SHUFFLE
During the lecture, Maarten Gielen showing us some of his famous project and present the projects by the ROTOR group which engages and practices architecture from a research. He present his viewpoints from the green industry and the lessons from the rubbish bins of Architecture during PAM Lecture.
"Relocation" as a design strategy
Case 1:
Belgian pavilion at the 2010 Venice Architecture Biennale
The project explored wear as a reaction to use in architecture.The Rotor collect all unused material as banisters with chipped paint, stained carpets, tired stairs, plastic chairs, door handles and windows from public buildings in Belgium. After the collection, they hang those unused material to exhibition wall and transform it become a piece of artwork in the pavilion.
With wear and tear, the material gains a new dimension that is both physical and situational.
The unused carpet from a building transform into a piece artwork and attach to the wall of pavilion.
Case 2:
Experiment
A group of students collected some unsued materials from buildings and put those materials at the side of the pedestrian walkway. After those unused material are place orderliness at the pedestrian walkway, that walkway suddenly become an art street, many people are attracted by those unused material and treat it as an artwork. A lot of people would like to take those "artwork" back and reused those unused material. This is a solution of reuse reborn those unused materials.
Case 3 :
Cultural Centre Bomel, Namur
In this project Rotor acted as matchmakers between a building and its occupants.
The building was a freshly renovated 1940’s former slaughterhouse, in Bomel, a rather underprivileged neighborhood of Namur. Rotor used a lot of reused materials that found on site.
Case 4 :
Rotor Deconstruction
This project will become a separate cooperative company, dismantles and sells reusable materials from quality buildings undergoing transformation or demolition.
Rotor Deconstruction sells two categories of materials.
On the one hand generic construction elements such as doors, windows, lowered ceilings and lighting divises.
On the other hand more exceptional batches of materials from landmark buildings.
"The "generics" are sold of straight from the deconstruction site. Before starting the dismanteling, an inventory of the available materials is made and send to potential clients in a newsletter. The listings allow clients to select the materials they are most interested in. Once the reserved elements are dismantled and duly packaged, clients are invited to come and pick them up or transport is arranged. This method reduces the cost of transporting and stocking materials and makes it possible for us to provide quality construction elements at very competitive prices, typically 20 to 50% of new value." by The Rotor.
Personal Review
As an architect student, i agree with the idea of Maarten Gielen about "Relocation" as a design strategy. Every material in the Earth is valuable and we should not waste the resources of nature. The solution of reused material that done by Rotor is awesome and inspired me. We should protect our natural environment, our future.
Besides reused and refunction material resources, I have an idea that reduce the usage of material in a construction of architecture, which can save environment and eco-friendly. The idea is using 3D Hologram light illusion to design the interior space in the future. This idea is not only to save material and eco- friendly, which are also save construction cost and times.
Just imagine there are no more menu on the table, all are created by 3D illusion.
Materials are limited, we should study about our nature before we use the natural resources. Material should be reused wisely and create sustainable architecture.
Q & A
Question:
Buildings account for approximately 40% of energy consumed, therefore it should be given extra attention to architects in discourse around sustainability. Yet as you've pointed out, a lot of what is stated on the topic of sustainability is pretty shallow. Do you think architecture's role in this discourse has been irreparably compromised?
Answer from Maarten Gielen:
We are making a critique, or trying to take some distance from the subject in order to observe it more clearly. We're not nuking sustainability - we are sincerely interested in the architectural discourse with regard to this topic. Obviously, asking the question whether sustainability can be taken seriously as a concept is controversial in itself, and it is sufficiently controversial so that we can use quite nuanced answers. We don't want to push it to the other extreme either, because there is enough promotion already, but we are not acting as terrorists on this issue. We find all the projects we include in our research genuinely interesting in some way.
