​It is always a bit of a challenge to persuade a client to invest in a full scale mockup. It seems to be a redundant and exuberant expense but sometimes it is indispensable part of the design process and in the end could actually accelerate the development process, and save the client money. Drawings and renderings in the 2D plane are very seductive but they do not have within them the forces of gravity nor embody the intrinsic structural qualities of the material. Not even the most realistic rendering could convey the real impact on the senses the built environment has. They do not convey the amount of skill and hard labor it takes to realize a built project, nor the cost.

In this digital age, we are bombarded by excessive amounts of images: highly stylized images and images completely severed from their context, images without stories. We judge them purely on the basis of instant visual appeal and style. Furthermore, incredible advances in modeling software and rendering engines make even the most ridiculous and out-of-touch-with-reality type designs, look hyper real. And if it looks real, it must feasible, right? So wrong.  Prototyping is the best way to focus and get deep into a design problem. 

For both the "Contemplation" pavilion (built in Arles, France) and "The Majlis" pavilion (to be assembled this year at the Biennale of Venice in Italy), we helped coordinate the production of full scale mockups with local Colombian craftsmen so that we could study the design, assembly and production process, and most importantly  have a real common ground on which we can have productive conversations with the client, their engineer as well as local builder. 

FIRST MOCKUP & PROOF OF CONCEPT:

       For the Caravane Village project we proposed to work with an alternative form of bamboo: laminated bamboo straps 5cm wide, and up to 6m long (we could go up to 9m, but were limited by the shipping container size). This was an exciting design challenge due to the technical novelty of this structural system and a lot of invention had to be done. There was a lot of theoretical work done already in developing the designs in 3D technical models and detail drawings, but we were really hungry to test the idea in reality. Gigagrass team decided to make a full scale mock up as a proof of concept, a test for ourselves. It was a crude version, built using low grade bamboo harvested from the garden outside the workshop and scrap metal. But it answered a lot of urgent questions we had about the structure. How much can the bamboo strap bend before it buckles? How do we cut and prepare the straps? How do we join them together in a larger assembly? How much weight can it hold? It was mostly a success in that it turned out so beautiful that we decided not to scrap it (in fact we will be assembling it as our new studio space), but it was not an export-ready version to be used publicly or by the client, Anyways that was not the purpose: the purpose was to learn. 

SECOND ITERATION:

The Caravane Foundation commissioned a second more refined iteration (the one eventually sent to Italy for the Venice Biennale) utilizing high quality metals (stainless steel), reforested and certified wood beams for the platform, and certified bamboo approved for exportation. Everything was much more precise. 

There were some unforeseen limitations of work space, so the crasftsmen responded by making the process of production even more efficient. The structure was lifted onto steel pipes and moved around, rotating and shuffling around, playing with every centimeter of space, as it was being built. It was an ironic, and kind of funny, test of the hypothesis that this is a nomadic structure. Well, it certainly did move. 

Written by Stefana Simic, Co-Founder Gigagrass

​​It all started with Lucy, our first dog child. She is a Rhodesian Ridgeback, with bloodline from Russia and Spain. Then came Maya, and Ali. Maya is Lucy´s sister from a different litter, and Ali is their nephew.

We have a long outdoor stair leading up from the garden to the third floor. There is a hallow space underneath that was used for storage of wood and garden tools. Lucy at the time was the only dog and she was sleeping in a guest room at the garden level that we kept open so she could go in and out as she pleased, and take care of the garden at night. It didn´t seem like the best solution for her. Even though it was very comfortable it was a bit isolated. One day as we were walking around in the garden, when we stopped in front of two lion statues that Simon had brought twenty or thirty years ago from Indonesia. It suddenly occurred to me what we should do. Rhodesian Ridgebacks are legendary lion hunters, they say. These statues were telling us where to put the new dog house. We decided then and there to make the dog house right behind the lions. We would open up two holes in the blue walls and frame it with stones that Simon had collected from a demolition site many years ago. We would lift the ground level to make an air gap separating the floor from the earth, therefore providing insulation from the cold as well as moisture. It was a 2-3 week doggie construction, with Lucy curiously looking on from time to time.

After we pulled out the last form work to cast the ceiling, Lucy proudly walked right inside, curled up and took a nap. It is a cave, which dogs love. It is also strategically positioned so that she could monitor all three entrances to the garden patio. It was a perfect fit. 

And with Maya and Ali now part of the clan, this is a dog den with more than enough space for all three of them (and more).

Written by Stefana Simic, Co-Founder Gigagrass

​The 2020 Architecture Biennale in Venice was postponed for 2021 due to the global COVID pandemic. It is now January 2021, and we are preparing for the exhibition, but still have some doubts as to whether or not it will happen. Lets see...

CARAVANE VILLAGE PROJECT:

       During the last months of 2019 and early 2020 we were working through the holidays to supervise the fabrication and exportation of a relatively lightweight but large scale bamboo pavilion, called "The Majlis," that would be assembled at the Biennale. With this, the larger  Caravane Village project would officially be launched and introduced to the world.  This Caravane Village is a nomadic & global art village, comprised of many different structures, where ancient & traditional craft and living would be practiced and honored. These pavilions will travel the world and manifest in different forms and configurations, sometimes existing as a lone pop up atelier/workshop, or a nomadic theater, or at times it will join together and form a congregate of 300 or more structures and exist as a seasonal village. In the village, hundreds of guests would live together and practice timeless crafts. The guests would co-live for some time before the village is again disassembled and transported to another location. The first site of the Caravane Village is planned to be in a beautiful and mystic location in Qatar: an isolated valley surrounded by soft white sand dunes, next to the sea. For more information about the project, click here.

A+U latest issue released this 2020 December was a wonderful collaboration and we couldn't be more happy with the result. It is the first time that A+U focuses one entire magazine on only one architect and it is the most comprehensive publication so far about our co-founder Simon Velez´s work, covering more then 50 years of architectural design. 

Stefana Simic moderated a conversation and interview between Simon Velez and architect Shigeru Ban. The transcript is inside. 

​au-magazine.com/shop/architecture-and-urbanism/au-202012/


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Written by Stefana Simic, Co-Founder Gigagrass

​In the summer of 2017, we were asked to design a 1400mt2 bamboo pavilion for the "Contemplation" exhibition to be shown at The Rencontres d’Arles photography festival in Arles, France in 2018. On display would be 40 photographs by buddhist monk Mathieu Ricard, each large format and beautifully printed on Japanese paper.

Due to constraints of time, money, space, and other logistics, we were forced to consider prefabrication at a scale never thought of before for a bamboo structure. Up to this point, our co-founder and architect (licensed in Colombia) Simon Velez, who is widely considered the pioneer in working with bamboo and has a deep experience spanning decades, has never embarked on a prefab project like this and never even thought to since he usually relied on bringing a skilled craftsmen team from Colombia wherever he went to craft and build each work on-site. Furthermore, most of the structures were designed to be permanent: all the joinery was usually fixed with cement and threaded rods, and the foundations were well anchored into the ground.