Full scholarships: Workshop Shadows and Whispers 2024 with Philip Beesley and Gorbet Design
The Living Architecture Systems Group (LASG) and Domaine de Boisbuchet are pleased to announce a unique opportunity for architecture, art, and design students around the globe. Through cooperation with LASG and Boisbuchet, we have arranged a small fund to allow a select three students to participate in the workshop led by Philip Beesley and the LASG in collaboration with Gorbet Design: Shadows and Whispers 2024, from August 18 to 24. Stipends awarded will cover full registration and accommodation fees for three students.
How to apply:
Interested students should provide a sample of their work and a brief cover letter indicating interest to Guillermo Gil Fernández at guillermo.gil@boisbuchet.org, copying Philip Beesley pbeesley@uwaterloo.ca by August 4, 2024. To help guide the selection of students, we would like to understand why this workshop is of interest to you and how this might benefit your own development. This program seeks to support students who would otherwise not have the means to support their participation in this workshop. We kindly ask that only students in need of this support apply.
Following the completion of this workshop, awarded students will be required to document their work. This documentation should take the form of a short individual blog, including a collection of images and texts. The blog should provide an account of the week, detailing the activities undertaken and the results achieved.
For more information, please visit: https://www.boisbuchet.org/workshop/shadows-and-whispers-2024/
The Workshop – Shadows and Whispers
August 18 – 24, 2024
The workshop is about natural and human-made light, shadows, sound, and whispers. Nature and technology can seem like different worlds. However, could these worlds cross over and combine into new forms? Could the subtle boundaries between artificial and natural worlds hold keys to new kinds of harmony in our expanded, turbulent world? What can we learn from the patterns of nature? In reverse, what can we offer nature?
In an installation that seeks new conversations with the world of nature we’ll experiment and create a hybrid light and soundscape. A series of talks and explorations will reflect on some of the deep connections and transitions that can be found in the natural and technical world. This will be about listening and watching carefully, understanding and answering. We hope to create a deeply interwoven new world, supported by technical devices and installed within Boisbuchet’s unique architecture and nature.
To equip students for the workshop, Philip Beesley’s Toronto-based sculpture studio, working with collaborating partners Gorbet Design and researchers of the Living Architecture Systems Group, is preparing kits of geometric connection parts, very simple sound recorders, and lights for creating shadows. Each participant will be given a kit of parts which shall be used to explore the boundaries between sound, light, and hand-operated motion. Individual exploration will follow an introductory day where we follow kit patterns that introduce some specialised ways of working; parts of these kits can be extended by using materials you’ll find within the grounds of the Domaine.
In the last days of the workshop, we will draw our explorations together into a collective installation and performance. We will create fields of new space by using artificially created shadows and projections and by making sounds and tones. Within glimmering shadows, dream-like worlds might be seen; within whispering sounds, new voices might be heard.
Domaine de Boisbuchet
Boisbuchet was the dream of a design enthusiast and expert: Alexander von Vegesack, founding director of the Vitra Design Museum. He envisioned a place where design meets education, in the broadest sense. Approximately 35 years ago, he acquired the 150-hectare Domaine de Boisbuchet. Since then, professionals and students come every year to experience how internationally successful professionals structure their work and approach design challenges. Each year, we invite the most inspiring architects and designers from around the world to lead a week-long workshop at the Domaine de Boisbuchet in South-West France. Every tutor considers the inspiring natural environment and crafts a theme for participants to develop. Each workshop offers a unique hands-on experience, with the assurance of learning by doing using materials and tools provided by Boisbuchet. Throughout the week, participants gain insights into the processes and techniques of renowned designers and have the opportunity to connect with like-minded, passionate people. https://www.boisbuchet.org/
Living Architecture Systems Group
Led by Philip Beesley and Rob Gorbet from the University of Waterloo, the Living Architecture Systems Group brings together researchers and industry partners in a multidisciplinary research cluster dedicated to developing built environments with qualities that come close to life— environments that can move, respond, and learn, with metabolisms that can exchange and renew their environments, and which are adaptive and empathic towards their inhabitants. Supported by Waterloo, Canada’s Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and contributions from numerous partners, LAS is focused on developing innovative technologies, new critical aesthetics, and integrative design working methods, helping equip a new generation of designers with critical next-generation skills and critical perspectives for working with complex environments. https://livingarchitecturesystems.com/
Gorbet Design
Gorbet Design is an interdisciplinary experience design collaborative focused on innovative experiential art and design installations that transform and invigorate environments. From restaurants and retail to airports and museums, on hotels and hilltops, inventive forms of interactivity bring audiences surprise and delight. From the intimate to the architectural, Susan LK Gorbet, Rob Gorbet and Matt Gorbet create experiences that connect people with ideas. We collect inspiration and innovations in art, technology, design, architecture, psychology, and materials. Blending this knowledge with the ability to work with people as our medium, we twist technology to enable the unexpected and the unforgettable. https://www.gorbetdesign.com