First day. Monday, the 13th of July 2009.The summer school started.Today, we are chosing our tutors. There are 8 groups, each with 2 up to 4 tutors.

At the very beginning we were given bags containing a book with info on the tutors themselves and about the issues we are going to work on. After that we met in the AA school's cantine.
There was a lot of people, I think somewhere between 60 to 80 persons. We say hello to each other. Some of them are smiling, some of them are nervoused - what you can see by looking at their pale faces.

The presentation starts. At first you could hear a few of words from Shumon Basar and Natasha Sandmeier - Directors of the summer school.

Unit 1: "Domesti-city" presentation - tutors are Adam Furman and Marie de Monseignat - they showed a movie about the current situation across the UK. The issue was that people live on the streets and they need to transform it because all property was officially repossessed by the World Bank. If we were to choose Unit 1, we would be filming a movie about the situation - how people survive and transform the space. The tutors were AA students - they also taught AA summer school in 2008 (I will make a longer presentation about them in next post).

Unit 2: "Three square metres of London". The tutors are Steve Bates, an artist, musician and audio technician; Joshua Bonnetta,a multi-discplinary artist working with sound and moving image; and Douglas Moffat, a landscape architect. All three live in Motreal, Quebec. The workshops focus on applied skills/technologies - field recording, microphones, transmitters, video and audio editing. The analog is often celebrated over the digital.

Unit 3: "The archi-tective": "Their story begins on ground level, with footsteps. They are myriad, but do not compose a series. They cannot be counted because each unit has a qualitative character:  a style of tactile apprehension and kinesthetic appropriation. Their swarming mass is an innumerable collection of singularities" M. De Certeau (quotes taken from their presentation). The workshops are about creating "incidental urbanism" and making Diorama - a popular device to present the megatropolis. The tutors: Julika Gittner, an artist and an architect from London; Sarah Entwistle, graduated from AA in 2006, lives in London; Geraldine Dening, a qualified architect, lives in London.

Unit 4: "SUB_PLAN". The workshops focus on making a booklet about 'how to' exploit urban laws in the following steps:
1. Standards: questioning the rules;
2. Specifics: Applying the rules;
3. Speculations: Expanding the rules.

The tutors: David Knight, a designer, lecturer and researcher based in London; EUROPA - a group formed in 2007 by four graphic designers: Mia Frostner, Robert Sollis, Paul Tisdell and Rasmus Troelsen; Finn Williams, a planner based in London; and Ulf Hackauf, an independent architect based in Rotterdam.

Unit 5. "We are interested in investigating the forgotten, the incidental and the unseen...
...in exploring the large scale consequences of small things.(...)"
Small scale, large consequences - a monument to the miniature - this is the main idea of this Unit. The tutors: Inigo Minns, an architect from London and Onkar Kular who currently runs an experimental design unit at the College of Art, teaches architecture and spatial design at LMU and lectures worldwide.

Unit 6 covers making body installations - conetemporary urban fashion outfits. The preliminary construction strategies include: structure and skin, deconstruction and reconstruction, silhouette and volume manipulation, and suspension cantilevering. The tutors: Noam Andrews, graduated from AA, based in London; Rene Barownick, Director of Wunderkammer, an architecture and space consultancy based in Berlin and London; and Yeena Yoon, AA grad, currently works for Zaha Hadid Architects.

Announcing the units

I chose Unit 1 because it fits the current situation across the world. I thought: "Yeah! Let's make a footage!". But the first words of the tutors were: "You will work very hard during the three weeks - including Saturdays and Sundays." Hmm...

In the last days of August, the final act of this year's Trimo Urban Crash took place. An interactive workshop, attended by the short-listed students was held in Hostel Celica in Ljubljana, Wednesday August 26th through Saturday August 29th. Students from Poland, Czech Republic, Italy, Croatia, Serbia and Slovenia visited the Slovenian sights, got to know some of the recognizable Slovenian architecture and created projects in the workshop led by Daan Roosegaarde, Dutch architect and a visual artist.

Daan in the Hostel Celica window

On Wednesday, the participants went on an excursion: they visited the most successful creations in the field of Slovenian living architecture. After seeing the Tetris residential complex by OFIS arhitekti group, students visited the new student housing complex Poljane. The visit was moderated by Matija Bevk of the Bevk-Peroviè bureau, authors of said housing complex. A visit to the Trimo company followed where they were introduced to the production line, the company itself and its newest products. As the city of Novo mesto was just around the corner, they later visited its historic center, Tuš Center Novo mesto shopping mall, the photogenic valley of the river Krka and concluded their trip with a visit to the business complex of the successful family enterprise Akrapoviè.

Housing Poljane

Pretorian - a modern sports complex in Novo mesto

Shopping centre in Novo mesto

Group photo with Slavojka and Igor Akrapoviè

Thursday was all about studying. Daan Roosegaarde presented examples and shared his thoughts on the most successful projects of Studio Roosegaarde and lectured on the subject of interactivity. The students then received a task in which they could express their interpretation of interactivity in connection with the architecture of Ljubljana. After visiting the medieval Ljubljana and scouting for locations, students returned to Celica to start working on their group concepts.

Scouting in the center of Ljubljana

Working on the projects continued throughout Friday, as the ideas and concepts were formed into final presentations. In the afternoon, members of the three groups presented their works to the commitee, comprised of Daan, Miloš Ebner (R&D Director, Trimo) and myself. The works (see below) demonstrated a high degree of quality and opened some new questions regarding interactivity. If time permitted, we would gladly explore all of those ideas.

Group work

On the last day of the workshop, architectural guide Sašo Jankoviè joined the students and together they visited some of the most recognizable examples of architecture in northern Slovenia: Slovenian Chamber of Commerce, Brdo Congress Centre, medieval city of Radovljica, city of Bled, IEDC Business School (work of Vojteh Ravnikar) and the city of Kranjska Gora. 

In Novo mesto, on Kandijski bridge

Inside Lectar, a traditional restaurant in Radovljica. "Lect" is similar to a honey cake.

Inside Brdo Congress Centre

IEDC Business School

The results of this year's workshop are three quality interpretations of relations between architecture and interactivity. The most successful project, made by Croatian and Italian students was awarded while all three projects are posted below for your viewing and commentary. And we are anxiously awaiting the next Trimo Urban Crash competition in 2011, which will surely offer some even more exciting locations and challenges.

Group 1 – interaction by touch


Everyone leaves tracks behind. By putting a substance on the city streets (in this case, flour) we can observe where people went, the way they walked, what shoes they wore – if any, etc. This intervention also involved many passers-by who, worried that the flour might soil their shoes, engaged in a conversation with the authors. Success!






Group 2 – interaction by sight


The sunlight casts different shadows during the day. Architecture can be used in a sophisticated manner by shaping the buildings’ exteriors so that they produce shadows in different shapes throughout the day, always surprising the observer. This project was recognized and awarded as the best of the three.








Group 3 – interaction by sound

In the era of various social media where people communicate intensively through the internet, this project suggests going out and trying to communicate in real life. Since talking to strangers is not as easy as through the computer, special pipes are introduced (as some kind of a materialization of the web). On each side of the pipes, there are microphones and loudspeakers attached. The pipes connect specific sounds of the city - bring voices from main squares to places far away, bring sounds of zoo to the city center, etc., thusly creating “United sounds of Ljubljana”.





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Mitja Vovko is an architect and R&D consultant for Trimo.
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No rest for the graffiti artists on Metelkova. In one of our visits we noticed something different about our stage, but couldn't quite put our collective finger on it…

We're still trying to find out if this was a part of a performance by a band which our grandmothers would describe as »those darn hairy kids with their loud non-music« or if this colour was more suitable in the eyes of a particularly meticulous artist. I have to say it fits great in the newly painted surroundings, don't you?



I love the distraction on the hoop board. Who wouldn't start thinking of sugary goodness when concentrating on a throw? And oh, does it start blinking when cops are nearby? Kidding, sure (my own Evil Twin made me!), but seriously – kudos for making a great effort!

It's alive! Our stage is starting to fit in nicely with the rest of Metelkova as first couple of graffiti already appeared on it. They are pretty much scribbled around the sides and on the back but this is in my opinion the best angle:

The nights are getting warmer so I'm looking forward to seeing some colourful artwork on it soon. Volunteers?

Metelkova mesto finally has its new member - the stage now proudly stands on the platform, inviting inspired performers and graffiti artists alike.

Photo: Miran Kambiè

It was introduced during an event last Thursday in which Trimo Urban Crash and Trimo Architectural Awards were presented. The event officially introduced the biennial Trimo Architectural Days. The formal event took place in the Old Power Station in Ljubljana while the closing »afterparty« was held in Metelkova. Let's go through the pictures, shall we?

Photo: Borut Peterlin

The event was quite well-visited. Trimo representatives, nominees for Trimo Architectural Awards, architects, city representatives and Trimo Urban Crash winners - everybody mingled at the informal meeting in front of the hall.


Drummers from the group »Bobnars United« invited the guests to take their seats and performed a somewhat dramatic intro to the awards ceremony. Indeed we felt like a tribe.

Photo: Borut Peterlin

After Tatjana Fink (Trimo General Manager) and Miloš Ebner (Trimo R&D Director) welcomed the guests with their speeches, it was time to present the Trimo Urban Crash awards. The projects were presented and described and the winners received their diplomas. From the left: Miloš Ebner, Tatjana Fink, Matej Mejak, Aleš Peternel, Francesca Bellina, Chiara Agosti, Alicja Chola and Jan Ledwon.

Photo: Borut Peterlin

Now it was the grown-ups' turn. Trimo Architectural Awards were presented to architects from Denmark, Hungary, Macedonia, Poland, Slovenia, Serbia, Spain and Turkey who demonstrated examples of excellent architectural solutions performed with Trimo products. 114 projects from 14 countries arrived this year and 9 works were awarded.

Photo: Borut Peterlin

It were not only the architects who went home with something. Tomaž Furlan, representative of Metelkova mesto received a symbolic gift - a bucket filled with spray cans. For the purposes of creating new grafitti, of course. The guy in the picture wearing TAA shirt is Goran Medjugorac, the event's MC.


After some musical numbers by Boštjan Gombaè and Janez Dovè the MC announced it's time for the informal part with some refreshment. The back curtain behind the projection screen opened and revealed tables with goodies, prompting many »ooohs« and »aaaahs«.


A yummy close-up. Kinda hard (and improper) to talk to so many people with your mouth full but hey, everybody was doing it :)


Before leaving for Metelkova, we admired the exhibition of the shortlisted Trimo Urban Crash proposals and Trimo Architectural Awards projects. The entire exhibition consisted of aluminium plates with the visuals printed onto them.


The last part of the event took place in Metelkova. Boštjan Gombaè and Janez Dovè »christened« the stage with their performance - a mix of different music styles and songs. They whistled, played the accordion, clarinet, flute, saw, you name it. The atmosphere was quite magical. I recorded some of it, the paparazzo I am, and I will upload it as soon as possible.


Chiara and Francesca posed for us during the concert. Bellissimo! ;)


When the concert was over, Alicja and Jan sprung into action. Since the whiteness of the stage is so provoking, it is bound to be covered in graffiti eventually. Naturally, the authors can have the right to spray their work first.


»They made us do it, we swear!«


Trimo Architectural Days finished the next day on Ljubljana Castle. The morning activities started with a lecture by dr. Petra Èeferin who discussed affirming architecture. After a break, a round table followed, in which the architects Doc. MSc. Tadej Glažar, Aljoša Dekleva, Aljoša Kolenc, Miloš Ebner and industrial designer Nika Zupanc discussed the envelope as integral architectural component. Especially Mr Kolenc was responsible for some amusing moments with relevant opinions that went something like this: »If you don't mind, I would like to tell a joke. A ship went down in the ocean. An American, an Englishman and a Thai were the only survivors and they were stranded on a desert island. The American says: »Well, we need to get organized if we want to be saved. I am proficient in constructing radio equipment so I will build us a radio station. You, Englishman, build us a shelter. And you, Thai, take care of the supplies.« And so they started working. In two days, a decent radio was built, as well as a stable shelter. But the Thai never returned from the jungle. The American and the Englishman were worried so they went in the jungle as well, looking for him. They wandered the jungle the entire day but could not find him. So they turned around to return to their shelter. Just as they were getting out of the jungle, the Thai suddenly jumped in front of them from a nearby branch and yelled: »Supplies!!!« After the general laughter ceased, Mr Kolenc added: »Well, I don't know how exactly this is connected to the subject.«

After the round table, the afternoon activities like the tour of Ljubljana, calligraphy workshops etc. followed, but I cannot give you the inside scoop since it was high time for me to hit the old office again (where, apparently, I have been putting together this lenghty post until this very moment). But I hear the folk had quite a time despite the bad weather. All I can say is - hope the next Architectural Days are also as interesting as this year's.

On Monday the construction of the stage started on location. After the prototype passed with flying colours the hard-working Trimo men erected the stage on the Metelkova platform.

And I mean hard-working, since the entire thing was finished in three days. »Wawa-wiwa!«, as Borat would've put it so eloquently. Here's how it went down:

It's still naked, avert ye eyes!

Sparkling whiteness amidst lively colours

Men at work




Put your hands together for Cleansing Fluid & Vitamin Drink

If all goes well, we can expect the first musical performance this evening. I will keep you posted if you do me a favor and restrain your urge to do the rain dance until tomorrow.

You've seen it here first: the first glimpses of the prototype stage that is currently being constructed in the Trimo facilities.

*sniff* They grow up so fast...

The magnificent photo below is a »group portrait« of this year's silver medalists Aleš and Matej with their Trimo Trojan Horse. Of course, it's obviously photoshopped since the shadows are all wrong and I'm pretty sure there were no miniature gummibear people casually strolling around the last time I was on Metelkova.

Thanks guys, I had to share it since I fell out of the chair laughing upon seeing it! Or »FOOCL« in internet-talk, probably. NOTE: It is! =D

And because it's Towel Day (congratulations to all my fellow geeks out there!) we felt it was an opportunity to reveal a special surprise: we will not only include the short list in this year's catalogue, but also 6 extra projects. Whee! The extra projects were selected by individual jury members who noticed some creative ideas that had the potential of making the shortlist but were in the end replaced by other projects. Without further ado, the selected extra catalogue projects are:

code 09n21,
code 2elle,
code 81020,
code 85530,
code JTB84 and
code JW226.
 
Congrats to the authors! When the catalogue is finished we'll link the PDF version to the site so you'll be able to download it. Until then, excuse me, I'll be in my room eating gummibears and googling for weird internet abbreviatons. The power of self-suggestion truly is strong in this one...

At long last, after what seems to be an epoche of biting nails and knitting fan scarves (well not me... but if anyone did, do send me one) we finally have the results. But that's not really news. I bet you're much more interested in the winners. So, without further ado, ta-daaa:

Alicja and Jan with a model of their winning proposal

See, blonde people are good at designing too ;) Seriously now, congratulations to both of you guys and thanks again for the photo. Hope you are able to sleep now that the big rush is all over.  

Otherwise, it was very nice to put the cherry on top of the final results with contacting the best authors and hearing/reading all the »woo-hoos«, »omg«-s and »really«-s. Now that the application forms are open, we can also see how students from different countries managed. We were especially taken aback by Czech Republic and Slovenia with five shortlisted projects each from the total of 14 (Czech Republic) and 20 (Slovenia) submitted. Nice work. Another interesting thing was a little less surprising – the student, registered in Japan was actually Bojan, who studies in Tokyo. As we say, go anywhere in the world and you're bound to bump into a Serbian :) Other countries did well too, as the nominations also went to Italy, United Kingdom, Croatia, Serbia and of course Poland.

So, now begins the last part of the competition with the most interesting part of course being the construction of the »white dancer« and its grand opening. We're also in talks about the summer workshop, but cannot yet announce what the main theme is going to be. But worry not, everything will be revealed in time. Oooh, mysterious. I like it :)

I'm pleased to show you guys a project we received from one of the students who made a project for Trimo Urban Crash but didn't complete it in time. It falls in the category of »Off - Trimo Urban Crash«, if you will, that can be displayed on our blog.

Without further ado, Goce Cavkoski, architecture student from Skopje, Macedonia, writes:

»Deriving from the given space, required dimensions and the entire surrounding of Metelkova, I soon found the concept of Rubik's cube to be the perfect solution. Following the instructions I included some interior space and levels, hoping it would be both functional and successfully integrated into the surrounding. I think I managed to achieve all that but unfortunately I didn't manage to complete and submit the project in time. All in all, I was happy this year's task could also be chosen for a final project at our faculty as I got a 10 for it in the end :) «

General plans

Structure proposal

Interior design proposal

Exterior design proposal

General plans – the cube is made with Aglas panels and Trimo Raster sandwich panels

Nice work, Goce. Congrats on the 10 you've earned, we hope this will prove as a good start for your future practice!

And to all you out there: got a project you didn't submit but want to show it anyway? Share your idea with others by e-mailing us!

You read this because of the yellow-print title, haven't you? You naughty person. Well, sorry, no embarassing »page six« pics today, just a few post-evaluation impressions from the jury members.

Jury members: one for the scrapbook  

Miloš Florijanèiè took the role of the competition curator again and was extremely pleased with the results: "The surprise was already immense while we were following the arrival of the project solutions. Their number and origin completely “derailed” us. Who knew that Trimo Urban Crash would prove to be such a challenge. The jury members, arriving from five different countries and to whom I am once again offering thanks, had a difficult job. Although there was only one location, determining some satisfactory criteria applicable to all the submitted proposals was difficult, due to the sheer number of submissions.”

And what did the jury evaluate? “We decided on five evaluation points, common to all the submissions: corresponding content, relation to place, adequate body, flashing, and technical and safety measurements. We were looking for floor, perhaps walls or roof, a “non-house” definition, light-heavy ratio, open-closed ratio, not as much an object, more of a “subject”, ” explains Florijanèiè.

The task encouraged creativity and yet, apparently, a trend emerged after all. Daan Roosegaarde offers: “The majority of the submitted projects was quite modernistic, focused largely on the visual aspect of the proposed installation, while some interesting applications of Trimo products were proposed.”

After the jury session some of the visiting members stayed in Slovenia, getting to know it a little better. Jelena even dropped by our office before leaving and she couldn’t have picked a better timing, since we were just preparing to stuff our faces with goodies in honour of our colleague Tjaša’s graduation (Tjaša pictured on the right).

Cheese! No, we mean it. Grab the freakin' cheese and drop the camera.

So Jelena and some of our Trimo Urban Crash team members finally met in person. Our impression? Lovely girl. Her impression? »Participating in Trimo Urban Crash was definitely a great experience and also a future reference. It was really interesting, being first in the role of the participant and then the jury member. We didn't have an easy task selecting the short list and I'm curious to see the final result realized in Metelkova.«   

Borrowing a Battlestar Galactica quote at this point: So say we all.

p.s.: More »behind-the-scenes« pics now on our Facebook page!

It's been a productive weekend in Trebnje as the jury members met and selected the short-listed projects of this year's competition. The jury experienced a slight casting change at the last minute, as Graeme Feechan of Manchester's 3D Reid office jumped in the spot of his colleague Tom. So let's take a look at what exactly it was they were doing, shall we?

You guys surely haven't made the work easy with all the submissions but we managed to squeeze all the stuff in one hall. Behold:

Nice huh? After satisfying all the architect's daily needs for caffeine (insert barrel-related joke here) and chat in the outside hallway, our group started with the evaluation. First, they got familiar with all the projects by viewing them on-screen.


Next, the so-called »sticker method« followed. Every jury member got a set of stickers he/she put on a project he/she liked. That made the preliminary evaluation much easier as the projects without stickers were eliminated on the go. Some of the projects involved extra material like presentational movies (kudos for the effort, guys!) so they viewed them at the end.



On Saturday the final round started. Well, the semi-final, as you the public still have to vote. Anyhoo, Saturday's session involved selection of the short list and a discussion about the selection. Luckily, the votes were quite unanimous so there was no need for chair-breaking and first aid kits.



The results? You'll be able to see them on our website tomorrow and contribute to the final say, as the overall winner also needs your vote. Let the rating begin!

Whew, last two weeks were really something. We were busy counting all your submitted projects, ironing out the last of the wrinkles, evaluating the fruits of our work and, in general, preparing for the so-called round two. Ladies and gentelmen, allow me to invite you into the room where we keep all your projects in:

»Jinkies!«, as Velma would say. Your response surprised as all, as around 140 projects came in from 17 countries (as far as what we can tell from the postmarks). Overall, we're really glad about the good news travelling fast as visitors from 47 countries were visiting our site regularly.

So you guys deserve a big shout-out for all your hard work and dedication. Great job! Keep your fingers crossed in end-March when the jury ends their session and the short-listed projects are known. And yes, don't worry, we'll keep you posted all along :)

In the last week two presentations of Trimo Urban Crash were held on architecture faculties in  Bosnia, one in Banja Luka and one in Sarajevo. Both were attended by 50-70 students. I think.. no, I'm sure the interest and positive response can be attributed to the fact there are no international competitions of this sort in Bosnia so participating in such competition is of great value and importance to young architects.

Through the presentation students and professors got familiar with the competition itself as well as Trimo materials. I must say I was taken aback in Sarajevo a bit when I saw how enthusiastic some of the students already were, discussing the innovative possibilities of their projects, from general ideas to implementation of various materials. In my opinion, students from both faculties are ready to aim high this year, showing optimistic and competitive spirit and willingness to prove their creativity and knowledge to their foreign peers.

Students attending the presentation in Sarajevo - is the winner among them?

The competition is a great opportunity for these young talents to be what they are, or better yet, what they would like to become in their profession. There should really be more  competitions of this sort so the future designers of our urban environment could display their vision and ideas. After all, they dedicated their future to their work and their endeavor to make our lives better and more interesting. Let's help them do it! And have fun while doing it! :)