Daniels Instructor and architect Anna Ulak (MArch 2011) co-hosted a workshop at the Media Architecture Biennale in Aarhus, Denmark in November. As part of the workshop, she and interaction designer and software developer Philipp Rahlenbeck — Ulak’s partner in the design practice openconstructs — lead a team in building a pavilion inspired by a desire to find “a new way to look at the interweaving of the natural world and urban life through the use of new media and architecture.”

The pavilion was recently featured online in domus. Writes Ulak:

Rather than trying to manage the relationship between the natural and built environment with computation (and its metaphors) this project sets out to augment the natural world. Thus creating artificial environments that evokes the organic. An architecture that  
artificially amplifies the experiences of nature that is diminishing in the urban context.

This was done by reproducing the affect of nature in a new abstract manner via VVVV programming and projecting this onto a public pavilion. Here the affect produced and its experiential qualities is the goal of the project. The result is a new type of public  
pavilion/infrastructure for cities.

The Pavilion was the result of a workshop at the Media Architecture Biennale 2014 in Aarhus Denmark. Participants put together the blocks to shape the pavilion as they wanted. Pathways throughout the pavilion were created to offer a variety of ways to circulate and experience the spatial qualities of the pavilion and its projections. Participants also programmed their own affects that were projected onto the pavilion.

The team behind the pavilion included: Alya Grishko, Marcus Foth, Cristina R.Maier,Piotr Celewicz, Meletis Stathis, Urs Basteck, Giulia Panadisi, Michelangelo Vallicelli, Jeanette Falk Olesen, FLORES Thomas, Lloyd Emelle, Ana Moutinho, Winnie Soon, Tasos Varoudis, and Hanna Schneider.

Ulak was also invited to join a panel discussion at the Media Biennale to talk about the role of DIY in media architecture.

For more information on the Biennale, visit: http://mab14.mediaarchitecture.org/