Damn26boisbuchet by Gala Fernandez

DAMn° magazine # 26 / BOISBUCHET

The End of Summer A Change of Season at Boisbuchet The French countryside might not be the obvious place for an adventure playground in the fields of design and architecture, but over the last couple of decades, the summer workshops initiated by Alexander von Vegesack have attracted some of the brightest names in the business and given students attending an experience that brings them from the lab of ideas to the communal dining table.

text & images WALTER BETTENS

It’s a beautiful mid-September day at the Domaine de Boisbuchet, where the last flock of swallows is about to return home - and so is the last bunch of eager students. This year’s summer camp ‘dans la France profonde’ has been creatively fruitful with a 30 workshop’ cycle on offer, centred around three basic themes: ‘materials as inspiration and challenge’, ‘sensitising the perception’ and ‘questions of sustainability’. The last months have seen a refreshing breeze of creativity passing through its barns and stables, with a little help from a gaggle of young instructors including Max Lamb, Maarten Baas, Big Game, Moritz Waldemeyer, Raw-Edges, Sylvain Willenz and Jerszy Seymour, to name but a few. Live, work & learn

Boisbuchet is the brainchild of Alexander von Vegesack - aka the founding director of the Vitra Design Museum - who initiated the workshop idea some 20 years ago, establishing one of his creative playgrounds here at this 150 ha idyllic country estate in the heart of the French Poitou-Charentes region and transforming it into an experimental ground for design and architecture. Over the years, the format of the Boisbuchet summer workshops have gained in recognition, engag-

ing various players from the creative industries to support and cooperate: cultural institutions like the Centre Pompidou in Paris or the Vitra Design Museum in Weil am Rhein, schools and universities such as the Pratt Institute in New York, Keio University in Tokyo, the ENSA in Limoges, the UNAM and UAM universities in Mexico City or manufacturers like Kvadrat, Vitra, IKEA and Bernardaud. Not to mention its countless course leaders from the design world; they’ve all passed through Boisbuchet’s gate.

Humberto and Fernando Campana with their handcrafted ties presenting the results from the workshop

It’s the last day of the penultimate week of this year’s programme, with two simultaneous workshops on its premises, one conducted by the Estudio Campana, the other by Smart-man Dan Formosa. The participants are finalising their ‘installations’ crafted during the five-day workshop and which they are about to present to each other later that night around and about a long dining table - the regular food for thought. As Tine Kromer, responsible for the Summer Workshop Programme, explains: ‘Boisbuchet offers the rare opportunity to work and learn from internationally known designers, architects and artists within the duration of a week, and actually live with them, having dinner and dis-

DAMn° magazine # 26 / BOISBUCHET

Clockwise: Shigeru Ban’s Paper Pavilion by the vegetable garden Interior view of Shigeru Ban’s Paper Pavilion Wooden Sculpture from last year’s Estudio Campana workshop remaining at the lake A participant from Dan Formosa’s workshop ‘Design, ergonomics, body, mind and artistic accomplishment’ demonstrating his work Saturday is laundry day at Boisbuchet The ties that bind: Fernando Campana, Dan Formosa and Humberto Campana The lattice structure dome by Jörg Schlaich, one of the many pavilions across the estate

Chandeliers & Shelters

cussions on a personal level that is otherwise not accessible for most of the participants. The wide range of nationalities and the strong cultural diversity enriches the discussions and broadens the experience.’ At the end of the beautiful day, the workshop of the Campanas resulted in some funky proposals, mainly perishable chandeliers, vases and tableware crafted from the many gathered ‘natures trouvées’ from the estate’s colourful fauna and flora, all impregnated with ‘a strong Estudio Campana aroma’. But as a playground for creativity, as far removed as the dreams of Boisbuchet’s woods may be from the realities of the São Paulo favelas, the workshops’ intentions are equally remote from the creation of the ‘perfect’ product. The whole educational idea of the workshops is not about how to deliver a ready-made production piece, but rather about providing its participants with broader insights into different design processes, emphasising practice-based creative work from a broad range of design areas, including

architecture, art and photography. A new idea for next year is to bring not only more disciplinary diversity into the programme, but also adding a ‘Master’s degree’, an upgrade more oriented to design graduates. Gala Fernandez, responsible for the soon to be presented Summer Master Programme: ‘Boisbuchet’s main challenge is to be a reference point for quality training. Next season we will enlarge the educational offer with a new Summer Master programme and the dissemination of design and culture collaborating with institutions, companies, schools and universities on a local and an international level.’

But Boisbuchet has some more ideas and challenges for the next years, according to von Vegesack: ‘Boisbuchet is about transferring and enlarging your knowledge, through the workshops, the collection & exhibitions and the library. It’s about enjoying the estate and its nature, working together in little workshop groups and sharing life-experience with other people. Each year we try to improve the level of the educational programme, bringing a larger diversity of subjects and a greater mix of disciplines working on the projects. Besides the individual workshops, we have more and more requests from universities and design-oriented companies for a combination of workshops mixed with other activities here on the estate. We also want to develop a closer collaboration with a diversity of companies in our workshops – both as financial partners and/or as providers of instructors and materials. This way we hope to autofinance the projects more and thus being completely independent in the future.’ And while it’s time for us to move on, the little bus is bringing in the last group of participants for the season, straight from the Limoges station. Israeli de-

signer and teacher Ezri Tarazi will be the last man this season to close Boisbuchet’s gate behind him. During his workshop ‘Shelter for Boisbuchet’, together with the participants he will work on various features and prototypes of his mud-plastic shelter concept, using a plastic skeleton (of a tool shed) in combination with applied mud on its walls, an idea to create strong and durable structures for natural disaster-struck areas. So you see, it’s all here in Boisbuchet: from chandeliers to emergency shelters. We’ll have to come back to see the results when the grass is green. #

‘Staff only’ bike and view on Boisbuchet’s haunted castle (top) Participants to the Estudio Campana workshop ‘Recycling Nature’ in action (above, both images)