Ateljé Sotamaa Art & Experimentation - Designing Human Experiences by Ateljé Sotamaa

AteljĂŠ Sotamaa

Designing Human Experiences

VOL07 ART & EXPERIMENTATION

Art & Experimentation

PUBLICATIONS IN THE SERIES VOL01 INTRODUCTION VOL02 ARCHITECTURE VOL03 INTERIORS VOL04 EXHIBITION ARCHITECTURE VOL05 FURNITURE & LIGHT VOL06 PRODUCTS VOL07 ART & EXPERIMENTATION

Content Mignon Bunny Fazerin Sininen Food Buddy Foxes Idea Tree Brainhow Brain Game Musphere Hybrids Tourbillons Dandelion Cricket Lamp Frozen Frozen Void Sirocco NYT Capsule Chamberworks Multiplicities Spanish Dancer Formations Flowers PS1 Intercities Latent Utopias

8 - 13 14 - 17 18 - 21 22 - 25 26 - 29 30 - 33 34 - 37 38 - 41 42 - 45 46 - 49 50 - 53 54 - 57 58 - 63 64 - 69 70 - 75 76 - 81 82 - 87 88 - 91 92 - 95 96 - 101 102 - 105 106 - 111 112 - 115

Art & Experimentation

Mignon Bunny Sculpture

Fazer opened an internationally noteworthy Visitor Centre on October 1st. It is aimed at offering experiences for all the senses and is a first of its kind in Finland. We had the pleasure of designing many of those experiences. The exhibition with its artworks, the shop, signage, clothing and even select tableware were designed by Ateljé Sotamaa in cooperation with Fazer employees. Every aspect with an impact on the visitor experience was created exclusively for Fazer. The aim was to create a total work of art and seamless visitor experience within the K2S designed building. The concept for the design of the exhibition is based on Aristoteles’ peripatetic school of philosophy where people walked and discussed the world through the objects they encountered. In the case of Fazer Visitor Centre, professional guides move through the building with people and use the artworks for story telling. The experience is based on powerful stories. We undertook the work by interviewing over 60 Fazer employees from management to production, from members of Fazer family to bakers, working at Fazer’s locations from Lahti to St. Petersburg. The interviews uncovered a treasure trove of stories and knowledge related to Fazer, which serve as the basis for the works in the visitor centre. Dozens of professionals, masters in their respective fields, have produced the artwork – from glassblower to coder and carpenter to composer.

Art & Experimentation

Technical Description Ateljé Sotamaa is Kivi Sotamaa & Tuuli Sotamaa – brother and sister – and an international staff of architects, designers, and artists based in Helsinki, Finland. Ateljé Sotamaa is driven by a fascination with sensation how people experience design. The studio combines experiential design with criticality and responsibility. In order to make experiences seamless the studio designs projects holistically - across scale and media. Ateljé Sotamaa has pioneered the use of advanced digital technologies in order to create unique design with an economy of means.

Mignon Bunny is a surreal inhabitant of the new Visitor Centre. It is a multiplicity where symbols of fertility and all things tender, white and round merge. The Bunny is 3.2 meters tall and covered by 9330 real egg shells - the same shells Fazer uses for its famous Mignon chocolate eggs. Mignon Egg - or the â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;eggeggâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;, as weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve nicknamed it, was unveiled at the opening ceremony by Nobel Price winner and president Martti Ahtisaari. It the symbol the birth of the Visitor Centre.

Fazerin Sininen Sculpture

Art & Experimentation

Fazerin Sininen is a golden sculpture is a deep blue space. It is inspired by the golden signature of Karl Fazer on the blue background. Nested in the sculpture are ten 3D prints, which tell the story of the Fazerin Sininen chocolate - the history of its recipe, the origins of cocoa, the making of chocolate, and sustainable cocoa production in collaboration with communities in Ecuador.

Food Buddy Interactive Installation

Art & Experimentation

Fazer Foxes Interactive Artwork

Art & Experimentation

The oldest of Fazer’s candies is a red and white marmalade with a fox on the package. In the Visitor Centre red and white foxes roam free. They play both the role of exhibits and imaginary animal visitors to the exhibition.

Idea Tree Interactive Artwork

Art & Experimentation

Idea Tree is where questions, conclusions and comments can be written down and hung like leaves. Little by little the tree acquires its foliage and become a register of the thoughts of the people who visit Fazer.

Brainhow Sculpture

Art & Experimentation

Uusi kaksiosainen Brainhow-teos on otettu käyttöön Fazer Experience -vierailukeskuksen näyttelyssä. Teospari muodostuu aivojen muotoisesta värikkäästä installaatiosta, joka kuvastaa aivojemme monimuotoisuutta ja mukautuvuutta sekä vierailijoiden tekemien valintojen mukaan muuttuvasta osallistavasta pelistä. Fazer Experience avattiin kolme vuotta sitten. Kävijämäärien kasvu osoittaa, että se on edelleen vahvistanut asemaansa ainutlaatuisena vierailukohteena. Keskus uudistuu jatkuvasti sen mukaan, mitä kaikkea Fazer tänä päivänä on. Jo parin viikon ajan Fazer Experiencen näyttelykävijöillä on ollut mahdollisuus sukeltaa syvemmälle Fazerin aivojen hyvinvointia tutkivan ohjelman, Fazer Brainhown maailmaan. Kuluneen kesän aikana vieraat ovat voineet seurata, kuinka Brainhow-teokset valmistuivat paikan päällä käsityönä. Installaation ohella vuorovaikutteinen peli kertoo Fazer Brainhowsta visuaalisesti ja konkreettisesti. Sen avulla voi havaita, miten omilla arkisilla valinnoillaan voi edistää aivojensa hyvinvointia.

Art & Experimentation

Brain Game Interactive Artwork

Art & Experimentation

Musphere BioArt

Art & Experimentation

Musphere is a part of our Biodesign Collection - objects merging together the manmade and the biological. They are black glass sculptures, which grow Oyster mushrooms from Helsieni in used coffee grains. The mushrooms fruit through small holes in the glass creating naturally emerging baroque artworks, which change every day, until they are harvested and cooked.

Hybrids Sculpture

Hybrids are 3D printed imaginary mashups of insects, crustaceans, plants and fruit, which were created for the Ultima restaurant in 2018. They are conceived to inspire re-evaluation of existing categories and conventions in a manner which is elegant and joyful.

Tourbillon Sculpture

Art & Experimentation

Details such as 3D printed napkin rings, sculptural objects for serving food and Bird in Space -glass sauce boats extend the fluid architectural geometries into the space of the table.The objects are always considered as a part of an environment, an experience and a service.

Dandelion Sculpture

Art & Experimentation

On the tallest wall in the space, there’s a large sculpture entitled Dandelion. It is made of the fragments of the broken Finnjävel dishes, kindred morphs of the leaves and dotted shadows surrounding them. The sculpture brings back memories of the previous restaurant we designed in this location for Alén and Tuominen. Finnjävel focused on the history of Finnish cuisine, and we designed every single object for it using innovating combinations of traditional and digital craft. ‘Without understanding the past you cannot invent the future’ Chef Alén has said on numerous occasions.

Cricket Lamp BioArt

Art & Experimentation

Sitting down their gaze first encounters strange lamps above the dining tables. Suddenly, something unexpectedly moves inside them. Shocked into a state of close attention people notice dozens of crickets happily singing and climbing around on 3D printed scaffolds, basking in the warmth of the lamp, enjoying drinking water and food from glass inserts perturbing the sphere. The crickets in the lamps create both an intriguing audiovisual spectacle, and an opportunity for the chefs to test how the feed influences their flavor. Inevitably, a conversation begins about crickets, food, food safely, culture, the future of food and so on. This is our intent, by design, and gives opportunity for discussion between the audience members and the staff at the restaurant. It is an opportunity for telling stories to people actively asking questions. It is the beginning of the process of seducing people into rethinking their conventions about food.

Frozen Sculpture

Art & Experimentation

Frozen sculptures where created in order to study the concept of the Frozen Void ice building -project. The project was a collaboration between Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa and Brazilian sculptor Ernesto Neto. The idea was to repeat a simple process which generates space inside a solid six times in order to create a series of objects, each of which is distinct due to the inherently random aspects of the process. The glass sculptures where made by hand blowing air into a mass of glass.

Frozen Void Sculpture

Art & Experimentation

Process A cylindrical steel reinforced plywood mold was sealed with a plastic tarmac and filled with 50 m3 of water from the Bay of Finland. The water was left to freeze for two weeks before the mold was opened. A solid monolith of ice was revealed. On its outside surface were traces of the folds and ripples of the plastic tarmac, the inside was filled with unfrozen water. As the entrance was cut, the water poured out, and the monolith gave birth to a naturally formed void. Inside, the massive solidity of the exterior was gone. The space was surreal, dreamlike, immaterial and weightless. It resulted simply from the interplay of the natural forces with the water contained by the walls of the mold. The temperatures of the different days were registered as ledges on the wall. The color of the surface changed as the color of the water pumped from the sea had varied. The thickness alternated according to the outside temperature and directions of the wind on the site. Some ice was white, almost like snow, some was so clear that you could see outside.

Frozen Void is an ice building realized in Kemi, Finland 2004 in collaboration between Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa and Brazilian sculptor Ernesto Neto. It was a cylindrical object of ice approximately 4 meters in height and diameter, and contained a naturally evolved void that people could enter. It was designed using a natural form finding process - freezing water:

Sirocco Sculpture

Art & Experimentation

Sirocco is a public pavilion/sculpture in Helsinki [Arabianranta] Finland. It was designed in collaboration between Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa. The project consists of 431 aluminum profiles painted in ten different reds, which are arranged to create nine curving surfaces. The surfaces warp around two central spaces creating two interlaced vortices.

Art & Experimentation

NYT Capsule Sculpture

In 1999 the New York Times organized an invited competition for the design of a Time Capsule required to last 1000 years. aDrift was an entry designed by Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa, Birger Sevaldson, Johan Bettum and Michael Hensel. The content of the capsule was to be specified by the readers of New York Times as a selection of items that would communicate our culture at the close of the 2nd millennium. Our scheme aimed at facilitating the design of an unlimited amount of variations on one generic design solution.

Each one of the designed capsules was to consist of an inner and an outer capsule and was configured around two inner chambers nested within the inner ceramic capsule, with the form of the chambers emerging around the specific set of items contained within. This was achieved by the use of a digital animation method that draped surfaces around each specific set of items, evolving in this way the form of the inner capsule. With each new set of contents a new form emerged that made each inner capsule highly individual while remaining part of the same family of derivations. The outer titanium shell was then draped around the inner capsule and its form adjusted for aqua-dynamic performance. In this way the capsules themselves would be carriers of information able to convey the co-related design sensibility and technological and material manufacturing capability of our culture. After their production the capsules would be transported to the Antarctic to be buried in the ice in different locations. The capsules would be contained in the ice until natural glacial movements and melting would dispatch them into the seawater. A monitoring system, which would register the movement of the capsules in the oceans, once they were released from the ice, would be installed in New York. Signals would be transmitted from the capsules by a system empowered by seawater batteries. The future of the capsules would depend on their possible release from their entombment in the ice and their respective journeys with the oceanic currents. Subjected to forces of transience and change, one could no longer predict the destiny of the capsules. Thus, while the scale of the receptacles is at the opposite end of that of a monument, the trajectory of each would be monumental in its vast trajectory of movement across space over time.

Chamberworks Installation

Art & Experimentation

Chamberworks was a temporary installation organised by Johan Bettum and designed by Kivi Sotamaa, Johan Bettum, Kim B Larsen, Birger Sevaldson, Markus Holmsten & Michael Hensel for a gallery in Oslo in June 98. The installation consisted of welded steel rods and tubes painted white; an motion-triggered, interactive light-scheme; a soundscape using 4 loud-speakers, one positioned in each corner of the room; and a video showing advanced 3D modelling of vortex phenomena. The continueous curved and linear steel elements were pre-formed and welded together in the gallery. The floor and walls of the gallery were painted white. The aim of the project was to create a space with complex and changing interaction between the visitor, the spatial frame of the gallery and the material, structural, and ambient constitutive systems in the installation. The overall product was seen to reflect, in a simple and microscopic fashion, the ever-changing intensities and flows of contemporary urban space.

Art & Experimentation

The project provided a space for the unfolding of a simple, dynamic relationship between visitor, spatial frame of the gallery and the material and ambient constitutive systems of the installation. The available space for the visitors’ movement was articulated as a knotted loop allowing for various routes through the installation. The ambient conditions produced by the motion-triggered light and sound systems resulted in changing virtual space characterised by varied intensities and distribution of light and sound relative to the visitors’ movement. A visitor’s choice of route through the installation was partly influenced by these ambient effects – again triggered by the co-presence of other visitors in the gallery. The choreography of the linear and curved physical elements produced perceivable inter-relations between sub-spaces in the gallery that changed from affiliate to non-congruent according to exact geometrical boundary conditions drawn by the tubes and rods. The bundle of linear and curved elements engendered a transparent topology of emergent forms.

Multiplicities Installation

Art & Experimentation

Multiplities installation was designed by Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa. The project explores ambiguity as a formal technique for producing sensation. The CNC milled foam panels are inserted into the existing wall of a space and covered with plaster and paint in order to make them appear as a continuous, permanent part of the building. The undulating form of the resulting wall surface is so subtle that it seems to hover between an optical illusion and a sculptural effect. The installation is a like cloud - the experience of it changes dramatically as the viewing angle and distance vary, producing a multiplicity of sensations.

Spanish Dancer Installation

Art & Experimentation

Spanish Dancer was designed in 2004 by Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa. The Spanish Dancer is a seducer, an exotic creature. Its turbulent dance and deep sounds lure people into the folds of its blood red skin. It draws them into its embrace, wrapping around their bodies, pulling them towards the interior where a sensation awaits. A white pearl reef. Clear crystalline voices and dunes of glowing white particles where the bodies of people can immerse themselves in. Spanish Dancer is made of curved aluminum tubes, pleated polycarbonate fabric, small white balls filled with micro beads and LED lights. The pleated fabric is translucent and has a rice-paper like texture. Its forms are generated through the natural material behavior, the same way the folds and curves of a Pleats Please Miyake dress would find their form. The construction team was not given elaborate drawings but a simple notations, the lengths of the tubes, the templates of the fabrics and control points in space. The complex form is a result of a simple choreography of materials in space. The seductive mood at the exterior of the pavilion is heightened with red light and deep “organic” base sounds generated by synthetic pulse. The synthetic pulse causes the sound to live, as it was the result of something organic, as opposed to a product of a machine. In the central area of the installation lies a white pool where sounds are suddenly clear, fresh and angelic and lighting bright white daylight. The “pearl reef” is created by covering the floor with 40 cm layer of small soft white balls filled with micro beads and LED lights. People can immerse themselves in this modern day Zen garden in order to rest, play or meditate.

Art & Experimentation

Formations Installation 96

Art & Experimentation

Formations is an architectural installation in the gallery of the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi designed by Kivi & Tuuli Sotamaa. It is a rich, abstract, ambiguous and openended environment which invites the visitor to play and explore its possibilities. The space of the installation is created by large horizontal panels suspended from the ceiling and distributed in a directional flow throughout the space. As the cloud of panels reaches the floor they become larger in their volume and their surface becomes deformed. The deformed surfaces create together a dune-like landscape which continues across the space, from element to element, as if a large object or force once had moved across the entire installation leaving a trace. This topographic landscape generates different kinds of possibilities for use without prescribing them, allowing them emerge real-time as the visitors engage and explore their surfaces. Embedded in the smooth landscape there are a series of smaller objects, both abstract and functional, which invite the exploration in a hand held scale much the way beautiful stones on a beach would do.

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Flowers PS1 Installation

Art & Experimentation

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Flowers Finalist entry by Kivi Sotamaa to the annual Young Architects Program Competition organized by PS1 and MoMA* The design is like a bouquet of flowers. There are four formations - Blaze, Golden Beauty, Party Girl and Love Potion - which generate dramatically different atmospheres within a coherent whole. Each one of the formations contains its own sensation created by a aqustics, color, pattern, light and shadow, the sensibility of the form, the movement it evokes and the possibilities it affords for use. The project draws not only on the expressionist powers of topological work in art and architecture but also on the impressionist ambitions of minimalism. The topological, abstract, formally articulated work has greater capacity for staging differences in intensity, and the minimalist impressionist work masters the use of light and material effects in the production of affect. The ambition of the design is to choreograph all these elements and produce a stage for the dramaturgy of contemporary urban life at PS1.

Intencities Installation

Art & Experimentation

The Intencities Installation [Helsinki, Finland, 2000] was designed by Kivi Sotamaa as part of the Helsinki Cultural Capital 2000 events. The site for the intervention was Makasiini, a 19th century u-shaped and single storey block of ex-railway depots, facing the Finnish House of Parliament and Kiasma - Stephen Hollâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Museum of Modern Art. The intervention incorporated elements of art, architecture, dance, music, media, and graphic design. The multi-disciplinary design team devised a loosely coupled choreographic layout in order to engender dynamic interactions between scheduled performances, formal, sonic, tactile, and material elements and emergent flows of movement and ambient effects across the site. The architectural component of the intervention comprised five geometrically differentiated structures made of steel tube, timber planks and plastic film. The structures made loose provision for programmatic arrangements, such as stages, seating or circulation areas, viewing platforms and bridges, while avoiding functional representation. These structures revealed their occupational potential only through the staging of events and artistic performances, as their usefulness emerged from spontaneous use by the performers, visitors and audiences.

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The construction and surfacing of the structures was undertaken over time, changing their appearance and presence in the site. Motion triggered light and sound systems were integrated into the structures and enabled a feedback relation between visitors and changing ambient effects of the intervention. In providing projection surface the structures configured an audiovisually animated landscape as well as both stage and backdrop for the different events and performances. The introduction of new media technology served to translate physical movement across the site into digital animations, which were projected onto the surfaces of the structures. The visitors could make use of both their actual movement and their mobile phones to manipulate the projected graphics and therefore the audiovisual appearance of the intervention.

Art & Experimentation

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Latent Utopias Installation

An installation at the Latent Utopias exhibition curated by Zaha Hadid & Patrick Schumacher in 2002.

Art & Experimentation

- Clients, Exhibitions, Publications, Contact

Selected Clients

Selected Exhibitions

IVA The Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering, Fazer, FinnjĂ¤vel, Muru Dining , Cafe Aalto, Hanaholmen Swedish Finnish Cultural Center, Finnish Sommelier Association, Grand Champagne, Finpro, Academic Bookstore , Stockmann, Aalto University, ADD Aalto Digital Design Laboratory, The Design Museum Helsinki, The Barbican Center, Fondazione Trussardi, 21 st Century Museum for Contemporary Art, Wexner Center for the Arts, Marimekko, Art and Design City Arabianranta, Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art.

Museum of Modern Art MoMA New York, The Venice Architecture Biennale, The Venice Art Biennale, Vitra Design Museum, Chicago Art Institute, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi, He Xiangning Art Museum, Kiasma, Henie Onstad Art Centre, Center for Architecture NY, 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art Kanazawa, San Jose Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan Biennale, Steirischer Herbst, National Building Museum Washington DC, Wexner Centre for Arts, Architecturverein Tirol, Forum Kultur und Wissenschaft Germany, American Museum of Natural History, Architectural Association, Henie Onstad Art Center, Artist Space NY, XIII Bienal de Santiago de Chile.

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Selected Publications

Ateljé Sotamaa

The New York Times, The London Times, Phaidon 10X10 Architects 1, Phaidon 10X10 Architects 2, International Design Yearbook, The Interview Magazine Ottagono, Domus, Interni, CA Press, PRAXIS 6, PEN Japan, AD Architectural Design, New Scandinavian Design, 40/40 Finnish Architects, Forum, L’ARCA, Hybrid Space, Blueprint, AA Files, Kauppalehti, Helsingin Sanomat, Muoto, Finnish Design Yearbook, LOG 13, Wood With A Difference catalogue, All Design Magazine, Pro Interior, Nexus Architecture and Mathematics, Innovation, Developing Digital Architecture, The Fashion of Architecture, Tank, Kenchiku Bunka, Archis.

Väinämöisenkatu 19 A 3 00100 Helsinki Finland www.ateljesotamaa.net

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