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Axo | Structural diagram ‘Garage’, founded by Dasha Zhukova in 2008, is a major arts project based in Moscow, dedicated to exploring and developing contemporary culture. At the beginning of 2012 year, Garage moved from its original home in the Bakhmetevsky Bus Garage to Gorky Park in Moscow (central park of leisure and culture). In July Garage started new summer program to mark its’ presence in the Park. A new temporary wooden pavilion was designed to house the summer program exhibitions and shows. The new pavilion is an architectural
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Axo | Massing diagram homage to the Hexahedron – classical Soviet pavilion by Ivan Zholtovsky which is situated 100 m away from the new structure and is partially ruined now (in 2013 it will be renovated by OMA). The new structure is a sequence of 6 white cubes carefully placed between the existing trees and bushes in the park in order to fit in to the landscape and preserve all the greenery on the site. The cubes are connected with several semioutdoor courtyards thus a visitor has to go in and out every time he enters the next space.
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Garage Centre for Contemporary Arts Pavilion
“KOSMOS” Nikolay Martynov, Artem Kitaev, Artem Staborovskiy, Leonid Slonimskiy, Maxim Spivakov Comission | 2012
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The material of the buildings’ skin represents the impermanence of the pavilion. Usage of ‘construction safety net’ (which is used for covering the construction sites) shows the ephemeral verge between the construction and demolition of the new pavilion.
Touch the Music exhibition is a gigantic open air mobile orchestra, it presents 30 major installations from the famous Mobiles Musik Museum (Dusseldorf) collection.
Rectangular geometry of the exhibition cubes is wrapped with soft, double-curved surfaces of the exterior skin – translucent white net. Layers of net blur the shape of the pavilion and create ‘moiré’ effect.
‘Touch the Music’
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Plan
Sections
of the pavilion: the structure looks more opaque or more transparent, depending on the angle. Pavilion “Garage” is not declaratively anonymous. It contains, in the right proportions literate and witty quote of the “Hexagon” pavilion by the architect Zholtovsky and an
elegant interpretation of temporary structures, beautiful curves, and professional attitude to non-professional material building fabric. Interestingly, after construction many people began to call the fabric - the gauze - it is an interesting example of the work with different scales. The interaction of the pavilion with the light and the weather outside and the
Michel Gondry’s Home Movie Factory offers Garage’s visitors the opportunity and resources to create their own short film within only three hours. Gondry’s idea is to enable people to experience filmmaking first-hand and make it open and accessible to everyone, by giving them a chance to be creative.
Rectangular geometry of the exhibition cubes is wrapped with soft, double-curved surfaces of the exterior skin – translucent white net. Layers of net blur the shape of the pavilion and create ‘moiré’ effect. Acting as a diffusion layer, the net transforms the image
inside contents of the exhibition - it is almost a perfect function of the cell membrane, tuned to a derivation of the information. Double layer fabric distributes direct sunlight, while still dispels it, but not enough to completely eliminate glare, which introduce additional reflected light in the exhibition space. Exhibits shine out just enough to interest the viewer, but not to allow direct interaction. In cloudy weather pavilion dissolves and sinks in the environment, and this solution is as natural as the twilight illumination.
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Skolkovo D4 residential District
*Project-Meganom* | Stefano Boeri Architetti Architects: Yuri Grigorian, Nikolay Martynov, Artem Staborovskiy, Elena Uglovskaya, Ruben Arakelyan, Mikhail Beilin Comission | 2011
The Skolkovo initiative tackles an array of themes that refer to both the past and, above all, the future of urban planning: how to design a new urban environment, how to create a city dedicated entirely to top quality education, training and scientific research, how to transform the image of a future city into a laboratory for innovation and a model and point of world reference for urban sustainability. An initial competition phase selected the Masterplan designed by AREP; a project that foresees the development of districts with a strong and singular identity. Added to a series of
programmatically characterized areas (the central district by Kazujo Sejima, a guest zone by OMA, a technopark designed by Valode & Pistre and the university campus by Herzog & De Meuron) are two mixed use zones, one to the east and one to the west, that include residential functions for 27.000 inhabitants, civic services, shoppping areas, office spaces and facilities for the business that will be created after the initial start up of the technopark. The zone towards the east was jointly commissioned to Stefano Boeri Architetti and the Moscow-based studio Project Meganom.
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The recycling rates for plastic cups is so small, it is considered negligible, and after any given event in New York City, hundreds of cups are disposed of and left to sit in landfills.
The Governor’s Cup 2014
Nikolay Martynov, Ekaterina Zavyalova, Tiffany Jin, Evenia Melnikova, Varvara Domnenko
Section
CDR studio | Figment | Arts @ Renaissance | Women in Architecture | In the Theater Basement Company International Competition | 2013 - 2014 1st Prize
Plan
Facade
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Isometry
Governor’s Cup merges computational scripting with hand-made crochet techniques. Here cups are used to represent a process whereby one stitch at a time is used to create a larger pattern, following a specifi c sequence and set of rules.
We have adapted the formal arrangement of tape lace to generate the design and structure of the pavilion: a continuous loop (the tape) acts as both structural member and a figural outline of the pattern while a different sequence of cups is used to create a loose infill which joins the tape together. Density and more open areas allow for framed views in and around the installation. As an alternative construction of three-dimensional space, here decoration operates as an active work of spatial construction.
The canopy allows for deformation while the tested structural tape remained strong and held off wind and rain. Segmentation will allow easy transport and systemic installation on Governor’s Island.
Installation on Governor’s Island.
We are proposing a canopy of a series of ‘hammocks’ hung by using padded strapping to connect to the trees. Governor’s Cup is a stage, a backdrop, a place to linger. It is site specific and culled from many different inhabitations and locales with our city. A light touch but also very resilient, we see it as a step to prototyping shade structures for much less fortunate situations.
On the northern side of the Parade Ground, The Governor’s Cup Pavilion hovers in a cluster of trees and touches the earth at four points. Recycled plastic cups, sourced and discarded throughout the city, are supported by zip-ties from overhead cables, forming a dense knitted structure unspooling from the branches. Strapping and turn-buckled cabling leave the trees unscathed. A more scattered network of cups infills the areas between the undulated tape structure and branches, creating an airborne topography and shadow play. The crocheted lace-
inspired configuration forms an outdoor room: part canopy and part inhabitable tree-like member. The holes that puncture through the plastic serves a practical purpose of rain drainage, but also lets the ever-changing color of the sky pass right through - unfiltered. The translucent yet reflective nature of all the materials used catches the light and redirects your eye to try and trace the continuous outline of the tape structure. After the 2014 Summer City of Dream installation, Greenpoint nonprofit Arts@Renaissance will claim the Pavilion for their courtyard gallery space.
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Queens Billboards QueensWay Connection: Elevating the Public Realm
Nikolay Martynov, Ekaterina Zavyalova
Sports (elevated) ground, a vertical community garden, a space for the street art, children (elevated) playground or a city lounge.
International Competition | 2013 - 2014 2nd Prize
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Billboards of New York with its structural grids of huge letters floating in the sky are iconic symbols of New York boroughs. Some of the billboards become historical landmarks, whereas the object of their advertisement can be gone from the market for a long time. Local community needs neighborhood attractors, without being able to afford expensive solutions. The project of programmatically filled billboards becomes a useful, cheap and elegant solution. The new objects are iconic but easy to construct. Entrance to the elevated park is always sharing space with the function. Free structural greed which allows the community to use it flexibly, depending on its particular needs. The billboard always serves several functions: Infrastructural - it is containing the means of vertical communication, e.g. lifts, ladders, elevators, escalators, stairs, ramps, slides. Social - the billboard serves as one of local community’s
attractors. Depending on the needs of the local community, it is a sports (elevated) ground, a vertical community garden, a space for the street art, children (elevated) playground, city lounge, drivein cinema etc. Spaces under the arches of queensway are used for commercial functions, related to the billboard’s use above them. Different incline of the surface leads to different interaction of the person and the “ground”: flat ramp offers a long, tranquil and easy way up, whereas a vertical elevator brings up in seconds without any effort. The project brings together different means of vertical communication combined with specific functions, thus connecting the ground with the elevated Queensway. The new billboards appear in the eventless grid of the neighborhood, along the Queensway site. Urban strategy is to create the landmarks, visible from different directions by placing billboards on the intersections of avenues and streets.
Grid
Function
Ramp
Queensway
Ramp Conceptual Diagram
Queensway Interventions
Elevated path isometry Aviary
Program typology
Queens Billboard Isometriv Diagram
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INVERTING THE PERIPHERY
Nikolay Martynov, Betty Fan, Ryan King International Competition | 2014 Think Space Programme | Zagreb | Croatia 1st Prize
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Inverting the periphery As enclaves of wealth have formatted the cityscapes of Middle East, influx of immigrants to informal arrival slums have paralleled these development. As the difference between global and the local has been flattened, spatially isolated communities have became empowered to developed global identities and local markets for exchange. As resistance to external market forces novel parallel modes of exchange have overwhelmed these logics. Subtraction Coin is a commodity backed crypto currency designed for the Boulaq al Dakrour material market of collection, transportation and transaction of glass, plastic, stone and metals. The informal neighborhood of Boulaq al Dakrour, on the outskirts of Cairo, is known for its rich history of trading materials and generating internal value. While the neighborhood was once spatially isolated from the rest of the city it is worth reflecting on the source of
spotlight within worldwide markets. The changes the neighborhood has seen is due to an architectural initiative, known as Substraction Coin, that was layered over the historic informal material markets to enable a local currency for global exchange. This project is a retrospect of past urban situations in Cairo as well as a brief overview of how the currency works. While the first generation of cryptocurrencies were volatile in price, a class of material asset backed coins have emerged to ensure a stable price floor, giving trust to the market and a foundation for appreciation in value. Thus, Subtraction Coin can be traded on the open market. It is a clichĂŠ by now to say that the bitcoin protocol had upended conventional notions of value through thinking in blockchains. The blockchain as a mode of thought allowed any flow of information, change in space or market transaction to be recorded on
a trustless public ledger. While bitcoin applied this logic to currency, numerous forks of the protocol have allowed for distributed autonomous corporations to conduct services such as issuing stocks, trading deeds and executing contracts as a decentralized phenomenon. All coins are a finite resource and coins are minted and enter circulation through the act of mining. Miners are responsible for publishing the public ledger and recording all transactions within the network. The publication serves as a proof of their mining work and miners are paid in blocks, which hold a random value of coins. Subtraction Coin was pre-mined. This means a certain number of coins were mined before mining was available to the public. These coins were set aside to be distributed to the residents of Boulaq al Dakrour who wished to participate. This form distribution is known as an ‘‘air drop’’. When cryptocurrency miners around the world begin mining the remaining amount and trading the coin on exchanges the value appreciated. As the date of the airdrop neared speculation and excitement drove the price to unfathomable levels. By circumventing the centralized fiat currency of Egyptian pound, subject to volatility by International Monetary decree, value was distributed to the residents of Boulaq al Dakrour for free. Subtraction Coin is used locally, but owned and traded globally. More than a means of tracing material exchange, Subtraction Coin allows holders to also send anonymous votes through the system to affect the flow of material towards desired urban projects. This has allowed direct participation in urban change.
The process of subtraction starts with acupuncture like interventions around the neighborhood, opening space on pressure points. The process is spread around through informal collaboration through word of mouth and rumors.
JUROR COMMENT Keller Easterling: “This is an admirable project speculating about subtraction as generative of parallel markets—one of the coordinates of the competition theme. The project is also very valuable when it recognizes physical/spatial/ material/urban components, rather than abstract econometrics, as variables in this parallel market. It perhaps understandably allows itself a bit of fiction or “faction.”
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Money is situated in-between the complex relationship of the social production of space and the social production of knowledge.
Honorable mention
International Competition | 2014 Think Space Programme | Zagreb | Croatia
Nikolay Martynov, Ryan King
CULTURE & SOCIETY Competition
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#bit .TOTEM
By occupying the middle voice, bit.Totem forces the question: whose idea was it, architect or user?
bit.Totem, a spatial protocol unfolding over time in Bushwick Inlet Park, enables the architect to initiate and design for active agents of a communal cultural exchange platform. The architectural expression of bit. Totem manifests an appreciation of real space as embodied networked space. Participants pay a tribute to bit.Totem in the form of digital content, in exchange for a download from bit.Totems archive. While uploading, users are looking up at themselves looking down on bit. Totems massive screen. As a darkent, bit.Totems content is site specific, unable to be found on the world wide web. The financial incentive to upload valuable original digital content is the potential that the content will become fashionable through circulation. The more hits a users content receives, the more download credits they are allowed. bit.Totem does not aim to establish a common ground for users, but instead allows each participants ground to be offered as exchange.
bit.Totem’s form is active by extending imaginative sensory experiences to its embodied participants. Uploaded content with mass-market appeal will attract buzz and provoke qualitative changes through a density of connections.
Bushwick Inlet, in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was once a major tributary of the East River, flowing far inland; long ago filled in to adapt the shoreline for the once abundant oil and gas industries. In 2005, the Williamsburg waterfront was historically rezoned, reflecting the loss of industry by making way for inundating luxury condominium towers. To appease those already living in the neighborhood, 28 acres of land surrounding Bushwick Inlet was rezoned to be Bushwick Inlet Park. As of 2014, only two small parcels of land are owned by the city and one has been developed on. There are no funds or plans to move forward with the park, while conventional forms of activism have been unsuccessful in transforming the land. Since 2005 the experience of the city has been noticeably altered, with the network becoming the dominant cultural logic. Yet, Bushwick Inlet Park has been subject to uneven growth. Might the architect benefit from leveraging the network to forge an immanent new reality?
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The Giardini: A Relational Choreography
Ryan King
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