10% For What We Love
In our workplace, we strongly believe that life doesn’t revolve around work - and we’re saddened by the idea that day-to-day work life leaves little time for personal passions. So, we’re exploring ways to integrate some of this time into business hours. There might be a workshop you’ve always wanted to take, but it’s during the day - or perhaps you need a small break to invest in another creative outlet, that would give your week the boost it deserves. We’re calling this prototype “10% For What We Love” - and Matt in the office is our guinea pig!
Matt, along with a small group of friends and acquaintances, organises and runs an arts and music festival every year in Hampshire. Although it’s very DIY in nature, the logistics of setting up an event of this scale requires approaches that align with our professional outlook as architects - how do we manage a project’s design and construction with adequate risk management, and within budget? With a few hours a week to organise design decks, material schedules, and site maps in the office, Matt and his friends have managed to put on a successful festival.
The festival prides itself on its design, and installations and temporary structures have become a more prominent feature each year. Matt’s current work-in-progress is his installation, known as “The Cube.” Here’s how Matt explains it:
“The concept for the cube installation was designed and created as an immersive gathering space within the woods, with the intention of providing attendees with an area to enjoy audiovisual shows and screenings.
The approach was to use projection mapping, achieved through collaboration with visual artists and musicians. For its first iteration - two projectors, mounted perpendicularly to the structure, were secured in waterproof housing on trees, each displaying an image on two of the cube’s faces. The top cube is wrapped in translucent nylon fabric to serve as a canvas for the visuals, while also allowing the image to pass through to the opposite face. This created a captivating layering of perspective and imagery on all sides of the performance space. The remaining CLS timber frame was kept bare to enhance the views through the installation and maintain the focus on the visual performance.
The installation’s second iteration sought to address issues identified in the first. It needed to be more robust, promote rebuild-ability, and use materials that would allow for a larger structure. This year’s design incorporated freestanding projection towers for greater flexibility in location, removing the dependency on trees.
I opted to use scaffolding, drawing inspiration from the sculptural structures created by temporary works.”
After a successful introduction, we plan to roll this opportunity out to the rest of the office. We can’t wait to see what others will take on!