MAD Book: Foro Romano, Rome

The book was commissioned by the Museum of Art and Design (MAD) in New York for the SLASH: Paper under the knife Exhibition and Publication. The content of the book was a continuation of the project: Solar Topographies.

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The Palo Monte, Ritual Centre

Author: Sara Shafiei and Ben Cowd

Under the tuition of Shaun Murray and Dr Marjan Colletti

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The Project is a building design for a Palo Monte Ritual Centre, situated in the National Botanical Gardens, Havana, Cuba. The Palo Monte is a popular Cuban religion that originated in the Congo region of Central Africa.

Throughout the design process we worked hard to develop a language of architecture that could symbolically and spiritually represent the Palo Monte religion. We used drawings, collages and study models, built from natural and local materials to experiment with materiality, spirituality and spatial conditions. Oceanic art, architecture and pattern making inspired the form and organization of the building and resulted in an architectural language personal to the Palo Monte’s history, beliefs and culture. The reading of the building aims to educate visitors and tourists of the true practice of Palo Mote, unveil the mysteries behind the religion and lay to rest the common misconceptions and myths surrounding it.

We experimented with bamboo forming, bending and layering techniques to create the 7 spiritual ‘pods’ in the building. Each pod represents a specific god and responds to the very unique and functional, spiritual and symbolic requirements of the Palo Mote.

The building is hoped to be an opportunity for Cuba to experiment with this sustainable building material and learn and develop the various processing and construction techniques to enable them to use bamboo throughout Cuba.

Solar Topographies: Foro Romano, Rome

Inspired by cosmic diagrams of ancient civilizations, the project focuses on the theme of cosmology and sacred space. Mapping the paths and cycles of the sun and stars; the contoured surfaces can be read as astronomical clocks and calendars: steps representing days and months, stones representing minutes and lines attributed to seconds. The cartography of these studies is generated by a series of recessed laser-cut drawings and models. The final proposal of a public observatory and ticket office, placed in the complex historical context of the Foro Romano, interprets the formal intricacy, density and diversity of patterns found among the ruins.

tutors: Marcos Cruz & Marjan Colletti

.contoured embodiment

Author: Tobias Klein and Ben Cowd

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On a tectonic level, Contoured Embodiment is a reinterpretation and intervention of and within the Dome of Sir Christopher Wren’s St Pauls Cathedral in London. Crafted and manufactured digitally, the work combines laser-cut planar slices, articulating a traditional relationship of surface and boundary; with rapid prototyped convoluted spaces, proposing a new understanding of space defined by density and fields.
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On a conceptual level, the work is guided by a fascination of Catholic Iberian Baroque, an excess of ornament, organic spatial exuberance and the scale-less implementation and rhetoric of symbolism, allegory and narrative explored through the Sacred Heart.
Developed from MRI generated body data and inserted into St Paul’s Cathedral: Space is sculpted viscerally and digitally: Utilizing adjacent properties as constructive and symbolic interpretation; exaggerating sublime illumination and baroque illusion through the interruption of views and distortion of natural light by a complex layering of convoluted skins, veins and arteries. Suspended from the existing intermediate structural cone, the intervention is hung by an array of reinforced tendril structures hidden in the whispering gallery and existing cavities within the dome.
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The Sacred Heart amalgamates symbiotically and constructively the qualities of precise contoured geometries and historic spatial displacement of historic monumental architecture (Ben Cowd): With synthetic topographies, digital ornament and volumetric voluptuous embodiment of MRI generated organs (Tobias Klein). The result is a synthesis of ideas and themes, guided by the baroque but exploring and constructing a new understanding of space beyond complexity, boundaries and skins.

SLASH: Paper under the knife

Sara Shafiei and Ben Cowd exhibit new work at the Museum of Art and Design, New York

link to Museum of Art and Design (MAD)

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saraben>exhibition: architecture of Sara Shafiei and Ben Cowd

Dreamspace Gallery, London