descours 2009 TOUR 13 New Orleans Night Garden.mov

Tour 13 DesCours PODCAST for "Night Garden" by Virginia San Fratello and Ronald Rael, part of DesCours 2009 Installation series sponsored by the New Orleans Chapter of the American Institute of Architects.

Concept:
The Night Garden installation will take place in a traditional New Orleans courtyard with historic ceramic masonry construction. The Spanish style brick courtyards of New Orleans were built after the fires of the 1780s and 90s and typically included a water fountain that could be used to exterminate future fires. The choice of ceramic masonry for construction meant that the courtyards would be safe havens and would not burn as they had in the past.
Borrowing from this rich history, The Night Garden is a new, vertical landscape built of glowing ceramic vessels. The vessels are built to hold water and blooming flowers, including evening primrose, moonflowers and brassavola. The flowers were chosen due to their fragrant nature and night blooming characteristic. The installation references the traditional construction material, the intentional placement of water, and the historic relevance of fire, all while highlighting the exotic plant life of New Orleans.

Bio:
Rael San Fratello Architects works at the intersection of architecture, art, culture, and environment and has won numerous awards for their work. VIRGINIA SAN FRATELLO is a licensed, practicing architect with over 10 years of professional and academic experience. She earned her Master of Architecture degree at Columbia University in the City of New York and holds a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from North Carolina State University. RONALD RAEL is an architect, author, and Assistant Professor at the University of California, Berkeley. He earned his Master of Architecture degree at Columbia University in the City of New York, and a Bachelor of Environmental Design degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of Earth Architecture (Princeton Architectural Press, 2008), which examines the contemporary history of the oldest and most widely used building material on the planet—dirt. The firm is currently WPA 2.0 finalist for their Border Wall as Architecture proposal, they recently won the Silver Prize in the Design Between East and West Competition for a flexible and deployable apartment interior in China, a First Place award in the SECCA Home/House Competition for HAY HOUSE, a seasonal response to agrarian production; and a Metropolis Next Generation Prize for the Hydro Wall, an advanced thermal wall building enclosure. Earthscraper, a project to reclaim dredged material from the Ports of New York/New Jersey, was exhibited at the 2000 Venice Biennale. Recent projects include "Prada Marfa" with artists Elmgreen and Dragset in Marfa, Texas; Hydro House, Tucson, Arizona; a labyrinth installation for El Santuario de los Pobladores in Conejos, Colorado and the Box Box house in Texas. They also currently have a collection of recently designed masonry units that hold vegetation on display in New York and are working with industry liaisons to bring them to market.

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• DesCours
• DesCours 2009
• AIA New Orleans
• Architecture
• Design
• Urbanism
• podcast