About Tomorrow – Solar Pavilion

15 July – 22 July 2022

The AA Visiting School Stuttgart brings architects, artists and researchers together to speculate about our life in the future – putting the responsibility for our future back into our own court. Can architecture / architects safe the world? With this question even more pressing in 2022, we continue to investigate the role of the architect in initiating change towards a climate positive future.

For this year’s topic “About Tomorrow – Solar Pavilion”, we will team up with “KulturRegion Stuttgart”, an interdisciplinary region-wide festival that invites artists, thinkers and local communities to address the crisis of nature, work and technology through artistic means and discourse and extent to the “Solar Biennale” in Rotterdam which presents a new and holistic perspective on the energy of the sun.

We will focus on designing a public pavilion that initiates and supports dialog and exchange about present climate challenges in the context of this regional festival and beyond. This pavilion or structure should serve as a prototype and statement for the systemic change urgently needed today and initiate participation and debate as a public platform. As a stage,  exhibition structure and living archive, it should allow audiences to engage and document this exchange of knowledge for future use. Initiating the act of talking about Tomorrow and providing a particular setting for these talks to take place, the structure should gather and accommodate various audiences during the festival – globally and locally in Stuttgart.

The design will be developed in collaboration with local artist Tobias Ruppert, input from renewable energy experts and the local community of Ostfildern, Stuttgart, where the journey will begin. Over the course of the festival, the structure will move from site to site, driving the debate across the region, a choreography that needs to be designed as part of this workshop and explored through field trips. Studio visits and expert lectures accompany this onsite event.

The pavilion will be fabricated by the ‘KulturRegion Stuttgart’ after the workshop. It is possible for students to take part in the fabrication process as an extension of the workshop. Accommodation will be provided for this phase. The pavilion will be presented at the ‘Solar Biennale’ in Rotterdam in autumn 2022.

“About Tomorrow – Solar Pavilion”, takes place on the campus of the State Academy of Art and Design Stuttgart (ABK), of one of the biggest and most vibrant art schools in Germany with access to specialist onsite workshops. It starts on the launch day of the annual end of year show, a three-day celebration of exhibitions and special events on ABK’s campus.

 

PROMINENT FEATURES OF THE WORKSHOP / SKILLS DEVELOPED

· On site workshop working with experimental design methods
· Design outcome of the workshop to be professionally fabricated
· Collaborative design process involving artists and the local community
· Input from material and renewable energy experts and solar specialists
· Input into urgent and vital material practices and topics in the age of climate crisis
· Developing an understanding the role and agency of architecture and design
· Developing an awareness of the culture, politics, economy, and ecology of multiple material practices in architecture and design
· Access to post-carbon material research conducted last year
· Working and communicating with experts and practitioners from other fields (art, science, industry)
· Guest lecturers and critics from different disciplinary fields
· Programme of visits