Michan Architecture: Material articulations
One of six installations for the digital exhibition by winners of the 2020 League Prize.
Our initial proposal for the League Prize exhibition was a series of iterative models exploring particular material qualities. It was designed around twelve objects with specific formal attributes; they were not scale models or building parts per se, but design strategies that could adapt to specific environments.
Due to the shift to a digital exhibition, our installation now consists of a short film focused on three projects of different scales and programs: Z53, Wooden Restaurant, and Boolean Totem.
- Z53, a low-cost housing project in Mexico City, is built with masonry brick walls that blur structure and ornament.
- Wooden Restaurant, a Japanese restaurant in Mexico City, explores the use of a wooden element that peels and bends. A poché wall hosts the restaurant’s services, including bar, kitchen, sushi bar, and restrooms.
- Boolean Totem was designed as one of twelve models for the exhibition planned before the Covid-19 pandemic. An object with no defined scale or function, it is rather a speculation around carving, form, and figure. Although its most obvious function could be as a fair-faced concrete column, it is intended to have multiple readings.
Traveling through matter and form, texture and ornament, we try to show the conceptual drivers of our work and the unexpected expressions that develop as a result.