VISIONAREALITY

Its a long way from vision to reality for young architects. The award-winning practice, LAVA, explore that journey, from patterns to details, from vision to reality, in a new exhibition ‘VISIONAREALITY’ at the Architektur Galerie in Munich from 20 January 2015 – 14 February 2015. A desert campus with conditioned outside spaces. A Martian writing centre for kids. A solar powered electric car recharging station. And an iconic office building achieved through a smart façade. The buildings featured in the exhibition are in varied states of construction, and range from innovative small-scale projects in Australia and Germany, facade prototypes for high-rises in China, to a new generation of hostels in Germany. The exhibition gives visitors an opportunity to experience LAVA’s vision for the world of the future, a vision where three elements, man, nature and technology, merge. LAVA is a young, digitally educated generation of architects based in Germany and Australia. The main exhibition room is wallpapered with inverted white patterns that emanate from these projects that are built or under construction. Technical drawings and diagrams of these current buildings illustrate LAVA’s parametric design process - from pattern to details. Besides insights into individual projects, the display showcases the effects of LAVA’s parametric design process, developed to implement its visionary ideas. A sound installation featuring the sounds at offices and construction sites reflects the spatial arrangements. Five youth hostel concepts are showcased in the second exhibition room. The German Youth Hostel Association (Bavaria) and LAVA have been working on a new approach to the typology of the youth hostel to meet the needs of the savvy young traveller. Following LAVA’s renovation of the 1930s Berchtesgaden Youth Hostel in 2011, an innovative generation of new hostels, aiming for a contemporary, functional and aesthetically sophisticated reinterpretation of the traditional hostel, is now under way. LAVA's Bayreuth Hostel is the first new prototype under construction and will be opened late in 2016. In the third room, LAVA invites visitors to actively participate and explore two projects in virtual reality: the central headquarters of the King Abdullah City of Science and Technology and the Bayreuth Youth Sports Hostel. Visitors immerse themselves in LAVA’s virtual reality, prefiguring the actual implementation of these projects. The building information modeling (BIM) can be experienced in a dynamic way illustrating the workflow and spatial qualities of the projects.