Jul 8, 2010

Visioning Integration

8 July 2010,

German born architect Chris Bosse has gone over the top and through the mountains creating an impact on both the realm of design and architecture.

That would be a very bold statement to make considering the fact that there are many other architects such as Dr. Kenneth Yeang that has placed Malaysia on the map with regards to architecture in Malaysia. Do not get that statement wrong, I am not saying how one is greater than the other. But let’s get on with the matter.

Chris Bosse is the co founder and director of L.A.V.A. (the laboratory of visionary architecture) which was developed in year 2007, prior to the development he has worked on many high-profiled international projects in China, Japan, Vietnam and Dubai, since 2002. “I am very proud of all the projects, because it is all related to one another; like the aquatic center in Beijing..and then there are things like the green void”.

Origami Tigers – are inspired by “zhezhi”, a Chinese term for paper folding, more popularly known by its Japanese name “origami”. The tigers are the size of a truck at 2.5 meters high and 7 meters long yet weigh only 200kgs and use fully recyclable materials, aluminum and barrisol. Even two full-grown men can carry the tigers.

His interest lies “in new technologies and in light weight materials that derived from nature. The aquatics of the material are very light material and it weighs only one percent of the weight of glass.” Unlike your traditional architects who have all their plans sought after even before the construction of the base, he simple believes that a “designer has his role of not predetermining the final outcome but letting the final outcome happen.”

“When you go to a forest that makes you aware that a forest is more beautiful than a city. But you always wonder why, in the forest, you have the same spatial condition that you have in a city, they have like a park, the cranes and the people walk and you have the assortments of plazas and canopies, you have covered spaces and open spaces, the dark spaces and the elevations like those of I a rainforest…There are a lot of similarities between nature and the civilized world.”

The Green Void is a structure created in 2008 by using specially treated high-tech nylon. “When you look at our work, you would see that there are two different types of organic design, one of which is based on the idea of minimal surfaces; which is surface tension. As you look at the plants it is always of different shape because they follow a natural growth pattern”

MOËT Marquee was designed for the MelbourneCup 2005; he used the latest digital technology to create a sparkling and surreal atmosphere in the name of “Bubble-ism”. The space is filled with a three-dimensional lightweight structure, based on the concept of minimal surface tension, freely stretching between the wall, ceiling and floor. The pavilion is transportable in a sports-bag to any place in the world; can be assembled in less than one hour, and is fully reusable.

However, he does not regard himself as an environmentalist – there are those who believe in the conservation of everything that Mother Nature has awarded us with and there are those who look at the importance of technology, and that nature has already had its run, now it is time for machines to take on that role – instead he insisted that each project that has been completed is a progression of concepts and integration between nature and technology, as he sees that “these two things can actually co-exist and interrelate with each another. At the same time we cannot deny progress, so progress and the environment has to merge together in a seamless way, and in a more symbiotic way.”

‘MTV’ installation was built specifically for the MTV Awards in 2009. It is being suspended in the Sydney Convention Centre, spanning 35m to 24m; the sculpture provides an intense visual environment for the global TV show. The installation was made from specially treated high-tech nylon and it took five weeks and three hours for installation.

2010 marks the year of the tiger in Chinese calendar and it also mark the year of Bosse’s introduction of the Origami Tiger to Malaysia during the Kuala Lumpur Design Week 2010. “These tiger is the idea of animal conservation. It has a distinct, extinct animal – which is going through extinction. And this tiger for the year 2010 is the symbol for protection of nature in the animal would and as I was designing it to bring to the people in the design way…” And he proudly displays the tigers in this concrete jungle to create the awareness, as he believes that “in the future – nature and technology would be more seamlessly integrated. The natural world and the world that we live in becomes one.”