Andreas Angelidakis’ Instant Architecture
Text by Pablo Leon de la Barra
Andreas Angelidakis is an architect based on the www. Of Greek-Norwegian origin, he has profiles on facebook, myspace, secondlife, flickr, gaydar, blogger, and other 40 internet applications. Saying this, his studio is located in a seventies apartment overlooking the sea in Paleo Faliro in Athens. From there, and in his computer screen he has been constructing a series of incredible architectures. C...But unlike architects who use computer technology to design pretentious computer blobs, Angelidakis, who is of greek-norwegian origin, uses technology to create simple yet amazing buildings - a combination of forms coming from nature and basic geometry, half intellectual, half beyond cool. Some of the pavillion-like structures were designed using FormZ or 3DMAX, while others were created directly on Second Life whose very basic 3D capabilities allow compositions of the most rudimentary Euclidean shapes like boxes, pyramids, spheres, cylinders. Until recently, most of Angelidakis constructions existed only virtually. But now with the help of zCorp printer and a company called Quickparts which with a 3D printing technique known as rapid prototyping, they are finally becoming "real." The process is simple, a file is downloaded to the printer, which spreads layer after layer of very fine powder, thus creating threedimensional shapes. 'If only we could print real buildings, we would have instant architecture!' says Andreas. It won't take him long to achieve it. In the meantime let’s tour the villas of Planet Angelidakis...
One of the earliest houses, Cloud House was inspired by the clouds in Rafael Rozendaal’s website Whywashesad.com and by Angelidakis’ memories of Greek Mediterranean landscapes full of semi-abandoned and unfinished concrete domino frames which reminded him of Le Corbusier’s houses on pilotis.
Idea House is a friend of the Cloud house but shaped instead like ideas. Maybe it is a house without any ideas yet, an empty structure waiting to be occupied…
Villa Angelo is a house for artist (and boyfriend) Angelo Plessas and is inspired on his website MeLookingAtYou.com where a face hides behind the website lines - the eyes, nose and mouth moving like a machine. The house is shaped like a lion head, to which you enter through a rainbow staircase. It is also like a birdcage where you can see what’s inside and Angelo can see you outside. Sometimes the lines make you dizzy…
Menir House is a project for a beach home. A house shaped like rock sitting under an umbrella that becomes a palm tree that becomes a fan. The rock/house is a portable vacuum-formed polyurethane shell that once filled with sea-water is embedded in the sand. While the water-filled shell provides weight and natural insulation, the photovoltaic umbrella is custom-made to fold-up, flip-up and become a wind turbine, serving basic energy needs and allowing the l house to live without the traditional energy grid.
Blue Wave House is built from the overlaying of blue wave modules. You can just walk up and down the curved ramps to test your walking skills. With the overlaying and occupation of the modules Angelidakis studies modes of temporary habitation such as the beach (put your towel down and claim your spot), and the squat (choose your room, stay for a few months).
Philosophy Hut is one of a series of furniture and structures inspired by Mai Ueda’s PhilosophyInTheBedroom.com. The geometric pattern is repeated to create the structure, the walls and the windows…
Polygon Housing. Polygon Housing is an apartment complex in downtown Athens for a new generation of inhabitant, a non-commital, D.I.Y. who likes-to-customize and works mostly from home or lives in the office. If people today form their social realities online, then websites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com are their apartment buildings. Polygon Housing.
Leopard House was the first house Angelidakis made in Second Life. Inspired by Ettore Sotsass/Memphis, Archizoom and Gaetano Pesche it is made of geometric forms covered by a leopard skin. The next-door neighbour hated the house so much because it didn’t look like a normal house that he started hacking Angelidakis’ avatar so he could not build anymore. Another of the neighbours built a high hedge so she wouldn’t see it at all!
Terraform House was also built on Second Life, on a piece of land on a small island with a beach. The architecture around it was so boring and conservative, as Angelidakis says, ‘not even the usual bad hacker video game addict gothic castle that you find on the internet, but mostly suburban French colonial shit’. Using a program called Land Flatter which works like a magnet for land and pulls the earth up, Angelidakis made a small habitable landscape of mountains and caves and plateaus. Some rooms were added on top that look like the striped balls that the seals in Sea World balance on their nose.
Tube House was also designed directly in Second Life. This is a house made of two rows of stacked cylinders connected by a system of ramps. The interior surfaces are also printed in leopard. As in Second Life there is no rain and it never gets cold, there are no windows, no furniture, no enclosures, and perhaps no future…
http://www.angelidakis.com
http://andreasangelidakis.blogspot.com/
http://www.zcorp.com/
http://www.quickparts.com
http://www.pinupmagazine.org/
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