STUDIO ANNE HOLTROP

SITE, MATTER, GESTURE

The materiality of an architectural project is often understood as its construction and expression. My own association with material has shifted towards one that focuses on the process of working a material and the unique gestures dictated by a particular material, which I call material gesture. This shift of focus enables me to find form and an expression of architecture as a result of intervening in the process of making.

The MiSK Art Institute, Green Corner Building and Maison Margiela are examples of works where the main focus is on altering matter in its fluid state, before it sets and hardens. The way the material flows and forms against the boundaries of sand, textile, partial form work, all become aspects that express the change of the material state, define the form of the architecture, and unlock new potentials and possibilities for its application.

We work with craftsmen, specialists, engineers and researchers to develop these alternative methods of making. We look at the site from a geological perspective; how the landscape is formed, what the ground consists of, and how it is changing. We explore the soil, sand, stone, minerals, ash, as well as the crust, faults, cracks, hills and craters. Our interest is to gain a fundamental understanding of a territory by exploring its geological formations and its material consistence, and engaging in human practices that have build specific relationships with a specific place, in order to produce an architecture that is solely focused on the relationship between site, gesture and material.

source: Studio Anne Holtrop