Hasta La Motion!

Over the last year or so, we’ve seen a lot projects involving the projection of video onto architectural structures. The most interesting of these are films that actually take the contours of the building into account, creating perceptual tricks of scale and encouraging viewers to think of the buildings as malleable structures.

To get the full effect, it helps to think about the experience of being a visitor to one of these structures—rather than simply viewing them as web video. Go full-screen, if you can.

555 KUBIK

Ubranscreen teamed up with art director Daniel Rossa to create whimsical deconstructions of the Hamburg Kunsthalle.

Tetragram for Enlargment

Collective Apparati Effimeri took a minimal approach to their projection on the Malatesta Castle Verucchio.

EasyWeb Building Projection Reel

French studio EasyWeb shows off three years of their playful interaction with architectural forms.

Mint Plaza

Obscura Digital was commissioned by McAfee to liven up Mint Plaza in downtown San Fransisco.

Phyletic Museum

Robert Seidel applies his unique approach to abstract CG imagery to the Phyletic Museum in Germany.

Puma “Lift”

Dreamed up by agency Droga5 for Puma, “Lift” turns the model inside-out, creating a dynamic performance space.

Quadrature

More minimal animation in this a/v performance by Alican Aktürk and Refik Anadol, a.k.a. Griduo.

Posted on Motionographer

We used to be able to write the things off that we didn’t like with just one word: hippy. But now, these hippies at Ball – Nogues Studio are doing really cool stuff that we can’t easily dismiss with a blanket generalization. So check out the amazing architectural anarchy these hips are churning out of their environmental design sweatshop. 

“Ball-Nogues Studio is an integrated design and fabrication practice that creates experimental built environments to enhance and celebrate the potential for social interaction through sensation, spectacle and physical engagement while striving to infuse the matter of the built environment with a downstream purpose. To achieve these results, we work with unusual materials, develop new digital tools, and apply architectural techniques in unorthodox ways. We share an enthusiasm for the fabrication process as it relates to the built object both physically and poetically by letting the properties, limitations, and economic scenarios associated with a material guide a structure’s ultimate form while developing methods to extend the intertwined boundaries of a material’s aesthetics, physical potential and lifecycle.” – Ball Nogues Studio

If you haven’t seen Ogilvy & Mather Paris’ Perrier “Melting” spot on the interw3bs yet, you will. It’s one of those projects destined for viral stardom. And for good reason.

Frédéric Planchon (Academy Films) did a great job directing the project towards a satisfying finish.

I’m not sure who handled the vfx, but they’re spot on. (Any help with further credits would be great.) La Maison did a beautiful job on the CG. Thanks to Todd Akita in the comments for this link, which sheds a little light on the fluid simulations at work in the spot.

Red Bee: “House of Saddam”

I can’t help but also share an earlier project here, a promo from agency Red Bee for the BBC “House of Saddam” series.

The vfx (handled by Finish) for “House of Saddam” are much less ambitious and on a smaller scale, but they serve the spot well enough.

It’s the application of the melting concept in the second spot that wins me over, though. It perfectly encapsulates the rise and fall of Saddam’s empire—from stately confidence to embarrassing meltdown. The house of wax metaphor sticks with you well beyond the last frame.

Thanks to Denny Tu for bringing “House of Saddam” to my attention.

Posted on Motionographer

In theory, it would be AMAZING to work from a 2001 style hobbit villa. For sure. Until, at about 3pm, you realized you couldn’t get any more coffee without taking a zipline from your pastoral forest back to civilization. At this point you’d be all like “no thanks”. But maybe it’s different for Spanish architect, Selgas Cano. 

“Modern life demands, and is waiting for, a new kind of plan, both for the house and the city.” – Le Corbusier; architect, painter, designer, writer, and urbanist.

Architect Le Corbusier studying architectural plans & small model of building in his office.

Newly built modern Punjab High Court building, designed by Le Corbusier, in the new capital city of Punjab, 1958.

Punjab High Court building, zig-zag ramps instead of stairways, Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru (C, white cap), inspecting building, designed by Le Corbusier, in the new capital city of Punjab.

Entrance to Punjab High Court building, designed by Le Corbusier, in the new capital city of Punjab.

“It is a question of building which is at the root of the social unrest of today: architecture or revolution.” – Le Corbusier.