Words by Francesca Perry
After a long wait following Covid-19 lockdowns, Making NUNO – an exhibition looking at the work of Japanese textile designer Sudō Reiko, design director of textile firm NUNO – has opened at Japan House London.
The exhibition, with art direction and installations by Saitō Seiichi of design and architecture firm Panoramatiks, shines a spotlight on Sudō and how she pushes the boundaries of textile production and champions new methods of sustainable manufacture.
The show includes five large-scale installations of Sudō’s work, using a variety of processes from washi (traditional Japanese paper) dyeing to chemical lace embroidery inspired by rolls of paper. Each installation is accompanied by drawings and sketches, alongside raw materials and design prototypes.
Words by Francesca Perry
In the Czech city of Brno, Chybik + Kristof Architects has restored and redesigned the Zvonarka Central Bus Terminal, a brutalist concrete and steel structure originally built in 1988. The project involved vital repairs of the bus station, which had been in a state of neglect and deterioration. Noticing its condition, the architects decided in 2011 that they wanted to save the building from degradation and reached out to the owners with a redesign proposal; funding for the project was eventually secured in 2015.
‘Demolitions are a global issue,’ explains practice co-founder Michal Kristof. ‘Our role as architects is to engage in these conversations and demonstrate that we no longer operate from a blank page. We need to consider and also work from existing architecture – and gradually shift the conversation from creation to transformation.’
Words by Francesca Perry
Babyn Yar, a wooded area in the west of Ukraine’s capital Kyiv, is the site of one of the worst massacres of the Nazi regime, which took place in 1941. As part of a long-term process to build The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (BYHMC) on the site, a ‘symbolic synagogue’ has been designed by Manuel Herz Architects to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar tragedy.
The Babyn Yar Symbolic Synagogue takes its design inspiration from pop-up books and from the historic wooden synagogues of Ukraine. When closed, the building is a flat structure that is manually opened, and then unfolds into a synagogue space.