55°40'47.8"N 12°35'16.6"E
Kunsthal Charlottenborg, København, Denmark
Photo: Niklas Adrian Vindelev
As the world is becoming a more fundamentally interconnected place, the role of open-source information sharing has become a major driver in contemporary society. Culture itself is an emergent open-source phenomenon: individuals within a community share and communicate thoughts, ideas and knowledge that furthers the identity of the group and creates something bigger than the sum of its parts. This sensation has exploded in the last two decades with the arrival of the internet. Open and crowd-sourced ideas, knowledge and products are freely shared over this global network. Anyone, regardless of their participation in the enterprise can access and benefit from the collective output of the community. All this data is stored in a proverbial cloud infinite in size and in possibilities.
Photo: Niklas Adrian Vindelev
Built for the 2018 CHART Art Fair, the Sum of Us pavilion is a captured instance of this cloud made manifest. The organic form moulded by collective human endeavour is suspended in a digital matrix, acting to rationalise and rasterize these thoughts, and storing them for future development and utilisation. An interactive light and sound installation tracks individual visitors entering the pavilion, generating personalised audial-visual experiences that accumulate over time — the communal output of which will be experienced by all.
Traditional vernacular architecture and craftmanship can be thought of as “open-source” in that specialised techniques were passed on person-to-person and from generation-to-generation. Designs would evolve and develop as new technologies emerged, as influences came from further afield, and as separate disciplines intertwined. Reflected in the architecture of Sum of Us is an evolution of traditional carpentry techniques from across the world: the lattice frame joints are based on a common Japanese puzzle knot; and the cloud’s structure is formed by Asian basket-weave traditions combined with Islamic tiling logics. Held within the hyperrational machined grid is cloud sculpted by human artistic expression. This symbiosis is indicative of how our contemporary global culture operates — organic human ideas spreading and flourishing on a world-wide machine.
Photo: Niklas Adrian Vindelev
Sum of Us was made in collaboration with SPACE10 — a future living lab based in Copenhagen. The interactive installation was designed by Andreas Refsgaard, Bo Thorning and Lasse Munk. CHART Architecture is a competition for young architects and interdisciplinary teams. Chosen by an international jury from 51 competition entries 5 finalists have been selected to build their proposal during CHART. The finalist unfold this year’s theme ‘open source’ in unique and surprising ways, presenting new proposals investigating how form, materials and artistic cross disciplinary methods can create new innovative and sustainable solutions.
The pavilion was published on DesignBoom, URdesign. Architectural Digest and KÅRK Issue 34.
© Sean Lyon 2023