Fifteen international architecture studios have created installations from reused building materials and other found objects for an exhibition at artspace Laguna during Mexico City art week.
Located fittingly in Laguna, a factory that was transformed into a space for artists by architecture studio Productora, the Reuse: Architectures of Almost Nothing exhibition featured installations made founds objects such as windshields, tarps, barrels, and even a complete automobile.
Sam Chermayeff Office turned a car into a bench for Laguna’s Reuse exhibition
It “brings together an international group of practices that explore adaptive reuse and low-cost construction as critical positions in response to excess and demolition,” according to Laguna.Â
The exhibition was curated by Laguna’s curatorial director MarÃa Muñoz and New York-based architect and educator Edgar RodrÃguez and based off RodrÃguez’s essay Almost Nothing, which lays out a theoretical call for reuse, preservation and redefinition.
Ex-Soup and Parapase turned windshields into a pavilion
Otherwise, the curators said they did not foist many constraints on the participating architects.
“We asked them to design what we’re calling an architectural accessory,” RodrÃguez told Dezeen. “There were no constraints.”
Bangkok Tokyo used a culinary-style presentation to elevate construction materials
The majority of the works involved took a similar approach. They took “one object from the world and then resignified it through its redeployment,” said RodrÃguez.
Most of the exhibition was arranged on the second level of the lofty former factory, with two installations on the ground floor and two on the rooftop.
B+ had a space on the ground floor of the converted factory
On the ground floor, a full car blocked off by a metal railing to create a bench by Sam Chermayeff Office sits next to Laguna’s miniature cafe, while Berlin-based studio B+ created an artful installation of hanging fabric and stacked rocks in an indoor ground-level exhibition space.
Mexico studio Ex-Soup, which has gained a lot of attention in recent years, created a dome from the windshields of Volkswagen Beetles in collaboration with Spanish studio Parabase.
Equipo de 322A turned simple metal framing elements into a chandelier
Chilean studio Fail used an aggregate of found material to create a long table top supported by elements reused from bookshelves, with a light protruding at one end.
Suspended from the rafters was a large metal frame by Equipo de 322A, recontexualised with lights to become a chandelier.
TodoEverything Estudio created a shelter
Japanese studio Bangkok Tokyo took barrels, tubing, and brick, suspended them on the thing metal legs – in reference to a Japanese dining style where food is offered on toothpicks, thus elevating the objects in two senses.
Other objects on this main exhibition floor included a shelter by TodoEverything Estudio made from a tarp and ratchet straps and a series of local buildings mocked up in miniature by Switzerland’s Bessire Winter.
“Contrasts dissolve” in architectural Lanza Atelier furniture exhibition in Mexico
On the rooftop, Salazarsequeromedina created a billboard-like installation of steel and tyres with the word REUSO suspended at the top, acting as a sort of beacon for the exhibition in general.
Elsewhere, 8000 Agency created an array of blue motels of various debris objects, which popped against the red tile of the roof.
For RodrÃguez, the exhibition was unified by the clarity of construction of many of the pieces, where the parts can be seen while the whole, reconstructed object is clear.
8000 Agency turned everyday objects into a colourful installation
“They highlight the particle, the element, the part,” he said.
“And I think that attitude unites them. You can really read each element and each part that constitutes them.”
A metal sign by Salazarsequeromedina acted as a beacon on the roof
Other participating studios included Davidson Rafailidis, APRDELESP, ANY, Pihlmann Architects and 51N4E. Emilio Pérez carried out the graphic design.
Mexico City art week takes full advantage of the city’s architectural legacy, with an exhibition hosted in iconic buildings, such as Sabine Marcelis’s collaboration with CC-Tapis in ahouse by architect AgustÃn Hernández.
Lanza Atelier, designers of this year’s Serpentine Pavilion, put on a show of architectural furniture at AGO Projects.
The photography is by Arturo Arrieta and Samara Makdissy.
Reuse is on show at Laguna from 3 to 8 February. For more global exhibitions in architecture and design, visit Dezeen Events Guide.Â
