architecture, - criticalspace

a - some of our architectural work

WORK-REST-STORE

An intervention within a double height industrial space to carve out an ever changing multi-purpose piece. Playing with natural and artificial light, sliding and imbricating walls, the architecture continuously surprises and fosters both a sense of calm and a dynamic relationship with the users.

UK, 2017, private commission.

TWO BEDROOM POD

Inspired by the traditional lits clos and self standing in a high ceiling fifty square meter multi functional room of a warehouse conversion, this monolith hides two minimalist, cosy bedrooms with all the necessary bookshelf, desk, cupboard and very intricate lighting.

UK, 2008, private commission.

UWCEA

Set on the untouched Olchoro Onyore ridge in the East African Rift Valley, a college to shape the world of tomorrow, where the arrangement of spaces and buildings subtly respond to the site’s specific physical conditions, provide a range of scales and degrees of exposure to the wider landscape, a place where ideas can flourish, whether through heighten cultural, political and social exchanges, or retreat and quiet study.

Kenya, 2007, for John McAslan + Partners.

REVIEWS:

Jim Merrick, The Independent’s architecture correspondent:
“The buildings are informed by the environment, mitigating the harshness of the site and exploring how to gather the earth’s scarce resources. The slope, strong prevailing winds, and the equatorial sun-path produce an architecture that is physically rational, yet educationally and socially fertile (…) At UWCEA, teaching, learning and social conditions emphasise simplicity, sustainability and self-reliance. And so the masterplan creates important spatial and natural connections between students, staff, and the environment. The architecture is well-grounded and distinct, providing an inspiring scenography of landscape and horizon that mirrors the relationship between human diversity and biodiversity”.

LEAMOUTH BRIDGE

Built out of twenty-four millimeters thick corten plates and made of two sections sliding inside each other by means of rack and pinion assembly and an arrangement of guide wheels, this radically modern pedestrian bridge projecting fifty-two meters across the river Lea celebrates the industrial heritage of the site.

UK, 2003, with Ian Ritchie Architects.

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b - some of our scenographic work

LE CONCERT, OU L’IMPOSSIBLE AUDIENCE

This is an interactive filmic installation piece, a « mise en abyme », a true algorithmic fiction where real actors – a singer and a pianist – react in real time and in a logical way to what happens in front of the screen.

The concert abundantly explores new cinematographic possibilities where the audience takes an active part in the fiction … unintentionally.

developped as part of LILLE 3000 – FANTASTIC, in the Maison Folie Hospice d’Havré, FRANCE, and premiered at the Opéra de Lille, FRANCE, in 2016. produced by Acnot in association with criticalspace, Pictanovo, the Opéra de Lille, and with the support of Lille, ville d’Arts du Futur, University College, London, the Conseil Régional des Hauts de France and the CNC.

REVIEWS:

Vincent Décaudin from Nord Eclair:
“Au moindre mouvement dans la salle d’exposition plongée dans le noir, ils réagissent. Le pianiste s’arrête, la chanteuse s’énerve, voire quitte la scène. Mieux encore : si un spectateur tousse, elle tousse aussi ! Grâce à un système très complexe, différents scénarios sont mis en place nous rendant malgré nous acteurs de ce concert… raté. Parfois assez dérangeant mais franchement bluffant”.

EYES, LIES & ILLUSIONS

A ground breaking, hugely successful show on the origin of the moving image.

Each section naturally bled into the next and through multiple changes in scale and physical relationship between display and visitor, it constantly refreshed our intellectual engagement. The pre-cinematic devices were presented in such a way that our experience of them was very close to how it was when these were first ever shown: phantasmagorias gave an uncomfortable thrill and we could only be fascinated by the moving images coming from magic lanterns. The scenography was such that despite ourselves, we were physically involved with the objects and in the projections, to our great pleasure.

This work features in Exhibition Design, David Dernie, 2006, Simulated Experience, pp 98-99, Laurence King Publishing Ltd.

Hayward Gallery, London, 2004, collection Werner Nekes – photographs by Marcus Leigh – video piece by Ann Veronica Janssens, Scrub Colors 2, 2002.

REVIEWS:

Laura Cumming from The Observer:
“The dour old Hayward has been magically transformed to the point where regulars may lose their way in darkness”.

Waldemar Januszczak from the Sunday Times:
“You walk into darkness and a spooky circle of silhouettes dances around you and above you. Some of these shadows are cast by other visitors to the show, who, with a simple trick of the light are made to seem like a race of giants stomping about the Hayward”.

Camelia Gupta from Culture 24:
“Eyes, Lies and Illusions is a beautifully designed show. Consistent with its subject, the exhibition is itself a dazzling spectacle. We’re allowed behind the scenes of individual illusions but not of the show itself”.

SONIC BOOM

An exhibition of sound art curated by David Toop and presenting the works of twenty six artists.

The exhibition architecture created a quirky visual and spatial experience as well as one of sound in which the visitor becomes immersed. It drew on the exciting opportunities offered by the constraints of the existing gallery space and the nature of the pieces themselves and played with carefully planned sound spills and sound overlaps to generate an unexpected scenography.

Hayward Gallery, London, 2000, with Ian Ritchie Architects – photographs by Nicola Levinsky.

REVIEWS:

Jeff Noon from The Independent on Sunday wrote about it:
“The continuum of noises interacts with the usually whispered atmosphere of the gallery, turning it into a more physical place, and people respond accordingly, talking, enjoying themselves, and getting as close as possible to the work”.

William Packer from the Financial Times wrote:
“Sonic Boom which now fills the entire Hayward Gallery with a comparatively orderly cacophony of competing sounds and visual effects is in a way a most enjoyable exhibition, striking and intriguing at every turn”.

BRUCE NAUMAN

A retrospective of the American artist voted by Time Out readers as one of the most stunning exhibitions of the last decade.

The works were here positioned and the sound balanced in such a way that they would interact with each other: in front of a piece, you could experience it fully, but as soon as your attention drifted away, you were subliminally drawn in further to the next one. The exhibition architecture was on the verge of absence.

Hayward Gallery, London, 1998, with Ian Ritchie Architects – photograph: Bruce Nauman, Consummate Mask of Rock, 1975 © ARS, NY and DACS, London 2008.

REVIEWS:

Wlademar Januszczak from the Sunday Times wrote about it:
“This a tough show, difficult to read, scratchy and irritating, a stuck record. But since I saw it, it has stubbornly refused to exit my thoughts. It’s there now: weird, bellicose, loud. Such tenacity by an art experience is rare”.

Richard Cork from The Times wrote:
“Sounds of a bellowing man pull our attention away, and we find images of the artist’s own head confronting us in a darkened room (…) the longer we stay, the more disconcerting the show becomes”.