LAVA's raises the BAR AT DESIGNEX

LAVA have designed the new Australian Institute of Architects Bar at designex in Sydney 22-24 April 2010.

The bar design is conceived as a "facade mock up" of Tower Skin, LAVA's innovative and award winning "Re-skinning" of the UTS Tower in Broadway.

The speculative proposal recently won a prize in the United Nations partnered 2010 ZEROprize Re-Skinning Awards competition in Rio and showcased in the Sydney Morning Herald and on ABCTV.

Tower Skin featured in 'they got us under their skin' by The Independent newspaper UK architecture critic Jay Merrrick today http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/condom-architecture-1949391.html

The bar showcases new technologies in outdoor membrane facades and incorporates new lighting concepts developed in collaboration with Mary-Anne Kyriakou, ERCO and Color Kinetics.

The Australian Institute of Architects Bar is located in the centre of Form & Function, and is the place to network at the 2010 National Architecture Conference.

The bar highlights LAVA's commitment to architectural culture and to building more with less. More architecture with less material, less energy and less money.

Following a spectacular series of indoor membrane installations such as the MOET marquee 2005, the Entry Paradise Pavilion 2006, the Poloxygen Pavilion and the Green VOID 2008, the MTV stage and the DOHA Tennis Lounge in 2009, the AIA bar explores membranes as an outdoor material, replacing traditional building façade systems.

Developed by MaK Max Australia, the steel substructure can be attached to a building with minimal intervention and the membrane shape follows the flow of forces within geometry.

LAVA's membrane designs merge digital design and fabrication technologies with formfinding in nature, popularized by Frei Otto with his Munich Olympic Stadium 1972. Chris Bosse was instrumental in the design of the Watercube Beijing 2008, a membrane clad lightweight structure, ( PTW ARUP CSCEC) which won the Venice Architecture Biennale award in 2006 for its “deliberate morphing of molecular science, architecture and phenomenology.”

more info and images:

www.l-a-v-a.net/press/lava RAIA bar mockup.zip

www.makmax.com.au http://www.makproductions.com.au http://www.erco.com http://www.colorkinetics.com/

http://www.designex.info/architectsbar.php