For the second year in a row, Architektūros fondas’ mentorship programme for creative architectural ideas, continues to support emerging talents in various fields of spatial practice and invites eager creatives to respond to the open call until 13 May and join the Experiments’ Platform! 

Experiments’ Platform expands the architectural field and strives to discover new and unprecedented ways to explore topics that go beyond the fundamental knowledge of the discipline. This year, the Platform entangles itself in a triad of questions: “What do we need? What do we have? What do we want?”, which provide three interconnected paths for the participants’ explorations and the Platfoms’ programme. 

THE THEME OF THREE QUESTIONS

The direction of this year’s Experiments’ Platform is guided by three aforementioned questions. The first question “What do we have?” is an invitation to look into the existing resources, establish ecological and geopolitical awareness and investigate functional and dysfunctional “now”. The following question “What do we need?” leads to actions that could be taken right now to have tomorrow, and solutions for the primary needs and global problems. And finally, the question “What do we want?” invokes daydreaming about a speculative future, personal cravings and sometimes the act of self-reflection, moving away from the role of the architect as a liberator.

The main focus falls on the expression of thoughts on these questions as a creative individual or a group. Having three different, at some point even opposite, yet equally important directions, participants are expected to focus on individual paths of exploration, investigate contradictions and engage in collective debates thus expanding the understanding of spatial questions entangled within wider contexts. The aim of the programme is strongly tied to clarifying an actual purpose of an individual or a group by getting away from prescribed solutions and universal cures for the space and the environment. 

MENTORS OF THE PLATFORM

The second season of the Experiments platform will be joined by the following mentors:

Architecture uncomfortable workshop

It is a Budapest based architecture office led by Dénes Emil Ghyczy and Lukács Szederkényi. Besides planning they always try to make experiments in small case projects. One of the biggest motivations for them is the understanding of contemporary vernacular architecture. They are continuously looking for a situation, where comfort meets real human needs. They are currently teaching architecture at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics.

Erika Henriksson

Architect working on the borderland between architecture, art, craft and research. Her areas of expertise are practice-based enquiry, relational knowledge formation and low-impact building methods. Recurring themes in Erika’s work are ecology, social and material relations, care and questions that concern life itself.

Miodrag Kuč

Transdisciplinary artist, urban theorist and pedagogist, whose work researches complex relations between ephemeral structures, spatial appropriations and urban politics. Studied urban planning and urban sociology at the Bauhaus University Weimar and Tongji University Shanghai. Currently works as programme director of the hybrid cultural institution ZK/U Berlin (Centre for Arts and Urbanistics, Berlin), exploring the potentials of critical urban pedagogy (ZEDucation) and the role of grass-roots initiatives in trans-sectoral urban development (Haus der Statistik).

Millonaliu

Klodiana Millona (Albania) and Yuan Chun Liu (Taiwan) are spatial practitioners, researchers and educators based in Rotterdam. Their work focuses on the intersection between the politics of invisibility in space and invisibilized spatial practices within dominant narratives of the built environment. Their research interrogates spatial ecologies of ruptures through entangled readings of socio-political imaginaries mediated by spatial representation. Klodiana is currently a tutor at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague (KABK) and together with Yuan Chun they engage with different independent forms of pedagogy.

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMME DETAILS 

The programme of the Experiments’ Platform will start in June and end in late October. During these five months, participants will get involved in a series of lectures, social gatherings, open reading sessions and other common activities. Each participant, individual or group, will be guided by a mentor. The working language of the programme is English.

CALL DETAILS 

Architektūros fondas invites all ambitious students, young practitioners and enthusiasts to present their idea for an experiment and join the five-month programme of the Experiments’ Platform. Ideas can be presented by individuals or groups of up to 4 people. 

For the application you will need:

  • An idea that you want to develop further during the five months of the programme. It has to be presented on one A3 page, which can include text, photographs, sketches, or other media form that best suits your project idea. 
  • A motivational statement (up to 500 words, in English), where you outline your previous experiences and motivations for the development of the proposed idea in the framework of the Experiments’ Platform. 

The presentation of the idea and the motivational statement should be sent in a PDF format to experiments@archfondas.lt. 

The deadline for the application is 13 May. 

you will know whether your application was successful by the end of May.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at experiments@archfondas.lt.

Architektūros fondas is financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture. Media partner – Lithuanian National Radio and Television.