United_Bottle: Participate!
New York Prize Fellows Dirk Hebel and Jörg Stollmann
Opening Reception
Friday, March 28, 2008
7-9pm
Exhibition
March 28 - April 25, 2008
Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 12-5pm
Van Alen Institute
30 West 22nd Street, 6th Floor
New York, NY 10010
212-924-7000
Van Alen Institute is pleased to announce a public exhibition by New York Prize Fellows Dirk Hebel and Jörg Stollmann. Hebel and Stollmann's project, UNITED_BOTTLE, proposes a new form of plastic bottle designed to function as instant building material. The project's working hypothesis is that design should think beyond the product and consider the waste for future use. The intersection of local and global distribution and recycling circuits forms the basis of UNITED_BOTTLE—the form of newly designed PET/PP bottles can efficiently fit into standardized shipping boxes, and can be filled with found materials to be used as prefabricated building units for the construction of both temporary and permanent structures.
Full-scale testing and participatory involvement of prospective users is crucial to UNITED_BOTTLE's design development. During their spring 2008 fellowship term at Van Alen Institute, Hebel and Stollmann launched the "UNITED_BOTTLE Participate!" campaign, soliciting over twenty designers, architects, critics and prospective secondary users to imagine potential implementation concepts and design proposals for UNITED_BOTTLE.
The exhibition, opening Friday, March 28, 2008 and running through April 25, 2008, will include a full-scale bottle shelter that tests a range of building materials and construction methods, as well as all submissions to the "Participate!" campaign. Contributors include Ada Tolla and Giuseppe Lignano of lot/ek architecture in New York, Nasrine Seraji of Atelier Seraji in Paris, Teddy Cruz of Estudio Teddy Cruz in San Diego, Meron Kassahun and Tibebu Daniel Desta of Addis Ababa, and more.
