Transparent City

“In the face of modernity, the North is losing its remoteness. Global warming is opening up international trade routes, the unique yet changing ecosystem brings scientists, tourists and protectionists, and prospects of natural resources bring the excavators. As humans are showing they can even colonize the North, the world is losing an ‘out there,’ a part of nature that seems stronger than us.”

Luxury of the North workshop was held by The Why Factory as a part of a bigger research project initiated by Droog Design in early 2010. The general aim of the workshop was to study how extreme cold conditions can affect the built environment as well as daily life. During this two-week exercise students were asked to define and explore the key qualities of the North and its extreme conditions in order to create new models for living.

A series of scenarios initiated during the workshop and further developed by The Why Factory will be presented in a form of visual essay at an exhibition in Toronto in fall 2011.

Tutors
Winy Maas, Pirjo Haikola, Felix Madrazo, Ania Molenda

Students
Louise Au, Anna Ingebirgtsen, Chrstian Lunde, Ruud Muller, Alexandra Vlasova, Huihua Chen, Tomas de Loo, Igor de Vetyemy, Alice Guarisco, Maria Laisi, EunYu Lee, Alberto Minero, Stefanie Winter, Julia Ting Yan Mok, Bo Zhou, Yilun (Allan) Pan, Gary Pitsaki, Philip van der Linden

Guest Critics
Cynthia Hathaway (leading designer Droog Lab Luxury of the North), Agata Jaworska (Droog)

Collaborators
Droog Design