Bamboo Lighting Installations
6 – 8 Jan 2021 // Joint Math Meetings 2021
by American Mathematical Society and Mathematical Association of America
Alessandro Zorzetto and Giacomo Mencarini
Architect and Engineer
PhD Student at Architecture Faculty of the Universidad de Sevilla
Venice and Florence, Italy
ale@architettureprecarie.net
jack@naturalbornbuilders.com
AZ: My research study is about the relationship between architecture, geometry and visual arts, according to a socio-political vision of the world in which these are created. Starting from the vitruvian paradigm utilitas, firmitas, venustas, wondering how this can become a current tool for defining architectures produced in a professional environment prey of constant destabilizing upheavals.
GM: My story is a journey through straw houses and bamboo sculpture-structures, on a voyage from Mexico to Australia via Austria and England. I founded two realities, Bambuseto and Natural Born Builders, which reflect this spirit, creating an international network of bamboo artisans and straw builders.
We wanted to build a large object that could challenge the rules of gravity and be evocative for the City of Venice.
We decided to use natural materials: bamboo coming from a wood in Tuscany and wood recovered from an installation of the last Biennale.
We activated a workshop to involve more people in the project, and the call was answered by citizens, students and professionals who wanted to learn how to use bamboo as a construction material.
Together we created and set up a work whose forms recall the elements of air and water, resembling a cloud, a fish or a flying vessel, but even of the earth, from which come the materials used to build it, and the light from which it is permeated during the day and night hours.
Suspended in the air, high in the space between the houses, two large luminescent creatures float from the abyss.
These luminous sculptures are the result of the work of a group of students and architects who participated to the self-construction workshop held by Precarious Architecture and Natural Born Builders in Maranola (Italy).
Photograpy by Lorenzo Lanni