Installations at Hello Wood Festival in Argentina discuss the theme ‘superposition’

The Argentinean edition of the Hello Wood Festival was recently held in Ceibas, 160 kilometers from Buenos Aires. Led by Budapest-based Hello Wood Studio, which is owned by Andras Huszar, Peter Pozsar, David Raday and Krisztian Toth, this architecture festival promotes the construction process as a platform for discussion, innovation and exchanging knowledge. Since its establishment in 2010, the Hello Wood Summer Schools and Festivals have attracted the attention of popular architects such as Urban Think-Tank from Zürich, and Kengo Kuma from Japan.

In Argentina, for the last four years, the Hungarian model is being replicated by a design agency called Mandarina and Tacadi architecture studio, which is led by Bea Palacio, Mercedes Palacio, Jerónimo Fanelli and Marcos Llerena.   

Led by workshop leaders from Argentina, Brazil, the Netherlands, Paraguay and Uruguay, the one-week community experience instigates future generations to adapt the learning-by-doing methodology. This year, a total of 11 installations were built under the theme ‘Superpositions’, i.e. ‘overlaps’, guided by architects and designers who conceptualised, designed and aided the execution of the work. The programme provides a unique opportunity to connect generations of architects from different professional and cultural backgrounds through construction, knowledge sharing and innovative thinking.

Here are the projects that were part of the Hello Wood Argentina 2020:-

1. Jenga

Workshop leaders: Horacio Cherniavsky, Viviana Pozzoli and Roque Fanego, Equipo de Arquitectura, Paraguay

The versatility of the Jenga installation lies in its functional and formal flexibility. The large roof creates shade as well as a double height space. The arrangement of the elements was configured to create a meeting space - for rest, interaction, meeting, reading or contemplation. The design opened possibilities of generating a space similar to an open-air theatre or an auditorium, where a large number of people could congregate for talks, concerts or any other kind of event. This made it possible to demonstrate the structural capacity of the superposition of the elements.

2. Palimpsesto (Palimpsest)

Workshop leaders: Martin Pronczuk and Santiago Saettone, MASA, Argentina and Anibal Bizzotto, Uruguay

Palimpsest ‘Recorded Again’ is a manuscript that preserves the traces of another earlier writing on the same surface, expressly erased to make room for the one that now exists. The installation is a platform that interprets the condition of superimposing pieces that work mainly in compression in order to confine a space for interior use. The final product is to act as a shelter and a refuge for reflection that serve as spaces for rest and seating and invite conversations between various users.

3. Interfaz (Interface)

Workshop leaders: Damián E. Basalo, Emiliano González and Ignacio Tau, 2001 Studio, Argentina

The installation is an attempt to create a zone of communication or action of one system over another, a place for interaction. The designers sought to use the idea of ‘spontaneity’ with the help of natural and intuitive use of the environment. The final product urges to avoid spatial hierarchies and pre-established interlocutions.

4. Chispa (Spark)

Workshop leaders: Leticia Paschetta and José Cavallero, Paschetta + Cavallero Arquitectos, Argentina

The Chispa installation uses fire and architecture to ignite sparks superimposed on the filigree of an ephemeral, light architecture of diffused and changing forms. Human action becomes a part of the installation, with traversing landscape that seeks to dilute the limits. Chispa explores the tension and contrast of different material logics; a modular triangular base construction system with a reticular tendency (context), a prism formed from planes (containment) and a folding surface that supports experiences (contact).

5. Carpa Itinerante (Traveling Tent)

Workshop leaders: Gabriel Huarte and Fabrizio Pugliese, Huarte Pugliese Arquitectos, Argentina

The Carpa Itinerante was conceived as a simple architectural intervention for a travelling community from a systemic overlay that allows to assemble a space of 11 meters in diameter in a short time, to meet, play, contemplate a musical band, a fair, a talk, or simply a refuge from shade.

6. Cubo³ (Cube³)

Workshop leaders: Fernando Álvarez De Toledo, Ate Studio, Argentina

Cube3 is an object that mediates between the sculptural and the architectural. The concept seeks to be simple and clear in its organisation scheme, with three superimposed wooden cubes, which in their spatial arrangement materialise a series of cubic spaces. Cube3 seeks to create different user experiences that happen at the same time, where people can meet, drink, rest and reflect to enhance the framework of community life.

7. K-Áureo (K-Golden)

Workshop leaders: Ralph Tomas Bravo Nieto and Ramiro Gutierrez Corvalan, Argentina

The proposal understands superposition as a way of visualising what happens at the limits of light and darkness or the overlap between time and space. The concept of the golden rectangle being composed as a superposition of squares has been exploited to the maximum in this project. The idea of light has been further explored referring to the works of famous architect Louis I. Kahn who manifests light in unique ways in his works. The project is a reinterpretation of the atmosphere inside one of Kahn’s works – the Phillips Exeter Library, based on proportion and lighting.

8. Benching

Workshop leader: Daniel Stroomer, Nasepop, Holland

The use of the word ‘benching’ in the graffiti culture is referred to 'sitting on a bench at a train station' for the sole purpose of watching painted creations pass by. Taking inspiration from the local art scene, the objective was to create a space where people can choose to connect or isolate themselves from the world.

9. Ginga

Workshop leaders: Giovanna Taques, Guilherme Schmitt and Victor Escorsin, Brazil

Ginga is an abstract installation that emphasises on the idea of humans being bound by means of the Cartesian plans or geographical coordinates, either in the road structures of the cities we inhabit or in the structural grids of the buildings that surround us. The work focuses on how the surroundings have their own influences, which represent a unique set of overlays and human interaction promotes clashes to help us evolve.

10. Vintersol (Winter sun)

Workshop leaders: Agustina Alaines and Max Gabriel Pinto, Argentina

The project takes inspiration from the movement of a ribbon, similar to a scarf, which unfolds in the sun, converses with its surroundings and generates shadow games through the superposition of its different wefts. The Moiré effect works as inspiration in the construction and projection of its lines, both straight (artificial) and organic (natural). The ribbon is presented as a flexible fabric capable of superimposing itself as an open system materialised, both in its physical and conceptual properties.

11. Eco-sistema (Ecosystem) (Satellite Project)

Workshop leaders: Lucas Yael Ibarra and Ramiro Carro, Ibarra + Carro, Argentina