18/04/2016

X = PLACE

The 2nd year design class AA2 at the NMMU Department of Architecture has put together an installation for the AfrikaBurn arts festival.  The project aims to offer students to experience a hands on approach towards the learning of architecture and exposure to the SA arts culture. The architectural content explores the issue of separation and place in architecture.

The installation consists of a dividing wall (made from hessian and Manila rope), which separates a forest of papertubes. When the artefact is burnt the wall falls, selected papertubes burn and finally the remainder of the forest is illuminated, revealing a circular space concerned with gathering and unity. What was once a condition of separation becomes a condition place through the process of burning.........X marks the spot. 

A tensile approach was selected because of its portabiliy and structural efficiency. The materials when then further informed by cost, environmental impact, expression and "burnability". In the detailing process of the project it was decided to produce a steel-less construction (no bolts, no nuts, no washers, no screws) which creates a structure that is entirely burnable, with the intention of leaving no trace.  

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our sponsors, that without none of this would be possible.

NMMU School of Architecture

NMMU School of Architecture Data Centre

Justin Manthe from Pick 'n Pay distribution

Johan Stander from Creative Flavors

Michael Finnemore

 

Lecturer: John Andrews