Artists interested in science know that the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) has got a dedicated programme focusing on artists' residences (Collide) and research (Accelerate), plus a wide range of other projects exploring the possibilities of particle physics and the arts.
So far different artists, fashion designers and musicians benefited from such programmes, but there have also been architects among the professional figures getting inspired by scientific research.
Accelerate Austria winning artists, Sandra Manninger and Matias del Campo from the Vienna-based SPAN Architects office, spent indeed their one-month residency at CERN in May this year.
They showed at the beginning of July the results of their research - "Particle Hut" - an installation for the "Digital Future" event hosted by the College of Architecture and Urban Planning (CAUP) at Tongji University in Shanghai, China.
The main theme of this year's event was "Diagrammatic Thinking in Digital Fabrication", and featured conferences and lectures (one of the keynote speakers at such events was experimental German architect Achim Menges, the designer of the Elytra Filament Pavilion together with Moritz Dörstelmann, structural engineer Jan Knippers and climate engineer Thomas Auer) and workshop exhibitions.
Before the event opened, over 200 international students divided in different groups led by lecturers and instructors from various universities, built a series of intriguing structures using the most disparate materials and techniques.
Manninger and del Campo's team - comprising also Andreas Ruhland, Martin Kleindienst, Koho Lin and students from the Tongji University - focused on the "Particle Hut", the futuristic metallic structure Manninger and del Campo devised as Accelerate winning artists.
The architects' vision in this case was based on Baroque geometries filtered through other disciplines, including biology and science. The two architects also applied to their design an algorithm driven approach.
The resulting "Particle Hut" is a construction based on explorations of nature combined with cutting edge technologies and will be on show till the end of August at Tongji Caup, Shanghai, China.
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