CHART Art Fair announces architecture competition finalists

'Adapt' by Harry Clover, Jack Cripps, Sebastian Gatz and Fabrian Puller.

(Image credit: Courtesy of Chart Art Fair)

last updated 25 October 2022

Chart Art Fair’s architectural initiative, Chart Architecture, is hosting a competition to attract hot young Nordic architects, and their fresh ideas around the issues of sustainable urbanisation and renewable resources.

Aiming to inspire experimentation between the realms of art and architecture, the challenge – open to students and graduates of Nordic schools as well as young architecture studios – was to design a pavilion to house the gastronomy partners and Space10, a research lab for wellbeing, which will be installed for the duration of the art fair in September.

Within the theme of ‘The Living City’, the brief encouraged entries to address the open source paradigm, as well as the relevance of upcycling and recycling materials. The five finalists selected showed interest in community engagement as well as innovation fabrication methods.

‘Stick Box’ by Miki Morita, Suguru Kobayashi and Keita Shishijima

Sustainable and recyclable materials were a key focus the projects. The ‘Stick Box’ makes use of leftover wood from lumbering and the ‘Paper Pavilion’ is designed to last a week for its purpose at Chart, while ‘Sunday Temple’ is constructed of repurposed blue IKEA bags.

Plant processes were a direct reference for two of the finalists. The ‘Algae Dome’ is a pavilion follows the design and function of a photo-bioreactor through filling a tubular system with algae, while ‘Adapt’ is a kinetic pavilion with a sensitive cooling system that naturally reacts to temperature like a plant.

The finalists will be judged by a star panel of professionals including Bjarke Ingels, architect and founder of BIG; Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, co-founder of SUPERFLEX; Claus Andersen, owner of Andersen’s Contemporary; Débora Mesa, architect and principal of Ensamble Studio; architect Dorte Foss; Klaus Kastbjerg, CEO and director of Union Holding A/S; and Simon Frommenwiler, architect and co-founder of HHF Architects. Announced during Chart in September 2017, the winner will received a professional mentorship from an architect, construction expert and a developer.

Sunday Temple by Mia Frykholm And Astrid Gabrielsson — 'Sunday Temple' by Mia Frykholm And Astrid Gabrielsson

Paper Pavilion by Kazumasa Takada Yuriko Yagi and Yohei Tomioka — 'Paper Pavilion' by Kazumasa Takada, Yuriko Yagi and Yohei Tomioka

Algae Dome by Aleksander Wadas, Rafal Wroblewski and Anna Stempniewicz — 'Algae Dome' by Aleksander Wadas, Rafal Wroblewski, and Anna Stempniewicz

INFORMATION

For more information, visit the Chart Art Fair website

Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.