Based on the winning scheme for the SCI-Arc Café and Board Room Competition held in 2003, the installation objective is to construct its foremost prototypical “element”, a fluid composite object-surface that articulates a highly sculptural spatial transition engendering sensual and tactile effects. Casually extruding and deflecting the library stacks into the café originating a sequential and fluid emergence of seating booths, tables, and furniture pieces within the same system, the installation attempts to create a playful micro-architecture that operates in close proximity with the systems and forces that give shape and rhythm material life.

An element is a fuse constituent of a larger system, an essential physical and behavioral component of a complex entity. But The ELEMENT is the system itself, a fluid composite of variant surfaces modulating and rhythmitizing space.

Conceptually, The ELEMENT could be described as a social interface, a composite contact surface supporting thresholds between adjacent regions, bodies, materials, and substances; a segmented space at which independent systems and diverse social groups interact. Situated between sculpture and architecture [Tony Cragg and Richard Deacon] The ELEMENT requires closer scrutiny by sensing its visual and tactile aspects.

Specifically, The ELEMENT consists of a monolithic MDF grid-shell armature clad with ABS white plastic skin panels, embedded plastics seating booths and fibber glass monocoque tables that generate a complex spatial transition from a regular library stack system into a branching bending array of continuous furniture.

Team:
Marcelo Spina
Georgina Huljich
Eric Yin Cheong
Hunter Knight
James Vincent
Chris Arntzen
Peter Matthews
Jason Mah
Jeremy Stoddart

Consultants: 
Stacey Thomas
Orrin Anderson Photography