Five Sights at the London Festival of Architecture
Hairywood in Covent Garden Piazza
The celebrated collaboration between 6a Architects and fashion designers Eley Kishimoto has been reconstructed for 2008 and placed in London's busiest public square. The decorative tower (above left), inspired by both Rapunzel and Jaques Tati, created a buzz in 2005 when it appeared peeping over Old Street. Take some time out to rise above the chaos, go sit in the tower and watch the London go by.
Road Trip to the Moon
This amazing installation, using steam bent hardwood (above right), is the first solo outing for Charlie Whinney, previously of Sixixis. Together with Metropolitan Workshop, Charlie Whinney Associates have created a sculptural exploration of sustainable growth, which discusses road use in urban areas. The exhibition's title refers to the fact that, "if all public UK roads were laid end to end they could span to the moon and beyond."
Storefront London
After popping up in LA and Milan, the New York Gallery, the Storefront for Art and Architecture, traveled on to London to set up shop for a month with the exhibition CPH Experiment showing projects and models by Danish architects BIG/Bjarke Ingels Group.
The highlight of the show is surely their Mountain Dwellings project model made out of 250,000 LEGO bricks. On 4 July, Geoff Manaugh, founder of BLDGBLOG and senior editor of Dwell magazine, will host a day long event at Storefront.
Street Gallery
As an encouragement for Londoners and bustling tourists to stop rushing around the city with their heads down or buried in a map most of the time, the LAF's Street Gallery provides markers around town highlighting significant buildings, construction sites and landscapes. Look out for the pink boards tied to railings and take a moment to stop, appreciate and learn something new about your built environment.
Architectural Jelly Banquet
Potentially one of the most surreal events of the festival, the Jelly Banquet, hosted by food brand Bompas & Parr, will see over 1000 architectural jellys exhibited during the evening. Models of St. Paul's, the Eden Project and other British landmarks will be dramatically uplit alongside "wobbling soundscapes," before being devoured at the end of the night.
Architectural Jelly Banquet
4 July 2008, 8pm-3am
University College London
Gower Street, WC1E 6BT map
