'Abandon Architectures' was a design essay that articulated our interest in how structural residues are incorporated, re-used and re-interpreted within our culture; and the realisation that we find ourselves living victims of the residues and the structures that other people have thought for us, prompted us to imperatively search for new ways of thinking and materialising, focusing in the 'architecture' (the man made system) rather than simply the object.
 

'I feel that the balance between fiction and reality has changed significantly in the past decades. Increasingly their roles are reversed. We live in a world ruled by fictions of every kind – mass-merchandizing, advertising, politics conducted as a branch of advertising, the pre-empting of any original response to experience by the television screen. In the past we have always assumed that the external world around us has represented reality, however confusing or uncertain, and that the inner world of our minds, its dreams, hopes, ambitions, represented the realm of fantasy and the imagination. These roles, it seems to me, have been reversed. The most prudent and effective method of dealing with the world around us is to assume that it is a complete fiction- conversely, the one small node of reality left to us is inside our own heads'.

J.G. Ballard, introduction to Crash

'Abandon Architectures' was and, still, is the central theme informing our explorations of design. For this essay, we brought together works which we had been producing while living in Berlin (2006-2009) Line, Dialogue take 01, Hump, LOST, Electro-Track Graffiti and three commissioned works by the Marta Herford, Fractal 09, Nullpunkt table and Imaginary Architectures.

It was exhibited as part of NULLPUNKT Nieuwe German Gestaltung atMARTa Herford, an exhibition showcasing new design approaches in Germany curated by Max Borka.

'Abandon Architectures' was conceptually thought as a book, which was finally publish by [Name] after the show. The book played in the same structure, where the central discourse is articulated through a dialogue each individual piece. Pseudo-theoretical writings, stories, anecdotes, and graphic adaptations of existing pieces brought together our thinking and works.

Press
Designboom
Dezeen
DeTnk

Abandon Architectures

Exhibition
Nullpunkt
MARTa Herford, DE 2009

Curator
Max Borka

Book
[Name]

Editors
Gean Moreno
Ernesto Oroza

Book Layout Design
Sergio Feo

Photography
Mario Feo
EUG
Allison Dring

Thanks
Allison Dring
Sven Baumann
MARTa Herford team
Massimo Lunardon
Max Borka
Jerszy Seymour