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BIENNALE ARCHITECTTURA 2018

JUNE 2018

Biennale Architecttura 2018

The 2018 Venice Biennale opened to the public on the 26th May. This year’s theme “focuses on architecture’s ability to provide free and additional spatial gifts to those who use it and on its ability to address the unspoken wishes of strangers”.

Our contribution is a collection of six large-scale models, each representing a hall for gathering that the practice has designed. These models are placed upon a rotating table which is a calendar and a cosmic machine. Each hall has a different purpose yet they all bring people together in a rhythmic and cyclical fashion daily, weekly and annually. The specific uses of each building are regulated by a calendar of events, rituals and times of congregation. Their calendars are inscribed on the outer rim of a turning table. The table can be rotated by hand. When you turn it, varying light falls upon the models representing the passage of the sun through the day from dawn to dusk. It is a manual and mechanical process.

The intention of presenting these models in this way is to emphasise the relationship between the enduring frames of the buildings and the endless procession of fugitive elements that pass through them periodically.

JESUS COLLEGE TOPPING OUT

JANUARY 2017

Jesus College Topping out

On the 11th January Jesus College held a topping out ceremony to celebrate the laying of the final stone on the roof of its West Court development. The project provides state-of-the-art conference and lecture facilities, hotel and student accommodation, and social spaces including a new café and bar.

Professor Ian White who led the ceremony said: “We are delighted that the chance has arisen to restore the college site to its original boundaries and excited by the opportunity it brings to take the facilities we can offer to students, fellows, alumni and the wider world to a new level of excellence. Our West Court Development has an outstanding selection of spaces and accommodation, suitable for a wide range of different uses”

The below image shows the Managing Director of Cocksedge Building Contractors Steve Nugent, the Estates Burser Christopher Pratt and Professor Ian White at the topping out ceremony.