The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) has selected You+Pea to create an installation at the RIBA's landmark HQ building in central London. The studio's proposal was selected from 75 submissions to an open call on the theme of 'Boundaries.'
You+Pea's installation, 'Playing the Picturesque,' will explore the movement between physical and virtual realms and asks whether such boundaries are now so fluid that we can consider virtual worlds as sites for realizing architecture in their own right. The installation will take the form of a series of scaled folly structures extracted from real picturesque landscapes, extended into interactive virtual game environments through digital projections. Twisting their traditional role as markers in the landscape, the follies become junctions between virtual and physical growing and changing in response to the movement of visitors through the gallery.
"The proposals for the 2019 Open Call tackled many pertinent issues facing our society, from international border politics to the psychological boundaries of inhabiting architecture," said Marie Bak Mortensen, RIBA Head of Exhibitions & Interpretation. "We were overwhelmed with the ambition, variety and standard of ideas with teams comprising architects, designers, artists, researchers and performers. The selected proposal by You+Pea presents a unique exploration of architectural space. Using videogaming it points towards future opportunities for designing across the boundaries of the real and virtual while providing visitors to the Architecture Gallery with an exciting, performative experience."
You+Pea's installation - a series of virtual and built follies - will be on show at the Architecture Gallery, RIBA, 66 Portland Place, London from June 4 through August 2019. The installation will be on display alongside a programme of talks and events, as part of the London Festival of Architecture (LFA).