Gustav Düsing

The Informal Studio // under construction

Technical University Braunschweig, completion 2020

The new build Study-Pavilion on the grounds of the Technical University Braunschweig is a open space concept designed to accommodate various student activities. The concept follows the principle of a super-structure which allows the user to change and re-configurate the layout of the building in order to meet the ever-changing requirements in a fast developing campus context. Through a high flexibly in layout, the Pavilion becomes ephemeral and thus responsive, ensuring a long lasting relevance as a new type of campus building.

La Tenda nel giardino di Villa Almone

*ongoing project

How much architecture do we really need in order to be sheltered? The pandemic has shown that interiors aren’t suitable for communal events. In fact, interiors are currently maybe even unhealthy for humans. What is the future scenario for social spaces? In order to react to the current environmental and health crisis, temporary light-weight structures can offer an alternative to closed up and air-conditioned interiors.

Fellow's Pavilion

Fellow’s Pavilion at the American Academy Berlin, 2014

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Team: Tobias Wenz (project architect), Gustav Düsing, Ulrich Fuchs, Annette Wagner
Photos © Stefan Müller © Simon Menges

Inspired by the history of the pavilion in the 20th century and from its own earlier prototypes, such as the “Loom Hyperbolic” installation for the Marrakech Biennale 2012 by Barkow Leibinger, a light glass and steel construction was designed for the garden of the villa. The main element of the building, which offers space for seven study rooms and a small kitchen, is a double-curved roof made of steel beams that seems to float above the rooms. The shape of the roof follows a regular geometry that produces four hyperbolic paraboloids from two-dimensionally offset and twisted straight lines.

Industry & Leisure

permanent Installation

Berlin, 2020

Team: Mariami Kurtishvili

The permanent installation on a roof between the industrial site Klingenberg and the nature reservoir Rummelsburger-Bucht serves as an elevated sundeck, allowing for unblocked views across the closed balustrade into the contrasting landscape. The galvanized steel-structure blends into the materials of modern roofsscapes with galvanized ventilators and lighting conductors. Integrated flowerpots with plants found on local wastelands puts one on the same level with the flora, like sitting in a dystopian park.

sunsight to sunclipse 2021

Kinetik Installation @ Villa Massimo // Deutsche Akademie in Rom

*ongoing project

The name ‘sunsight to sunclipse’ refers to the earth rotating around the sun, which means the sun does not rise, but rather becomes visible (sunsight) and darkens again to our sight in the evening (sunclipse). The atmosphere can ultimately be understood as a gigantic architectural shell, in which we live together with all other species. These terms were coined by Buckminster Fuller, who compares the earth to a spaceship in his book ‘Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth’.

Loom Hyperbolic

4th Marrakech Biennale, 2012

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Project Leader: Gustav Düsing
Photos: Johannes Förster

The project references the flat, horizontal tents of the Berbers, in which one moves bent over and sits on the floor. The hyperbolic geometry creates a series of spaces that, through the translucency of the surfaces, combine with the simple beauty of the environment whose repetitive arrangement captures the adaptive patterns and ornaments that are omnipresent in the Arab world.

Tent on Cuverville Island, 2017 Antarctic Biennale

Frozen Tent for the 2017 Antarctic Biennale,

Cuverville Island, Antarctica

The Antarctic Treaty of 1961 allows to visit the continent for research purposes only, which is why until today it has remained vastly untouched by civilization. Research, i.e. exploration of unknown territories is always a question of how well one is able to adapt to the conditions on the ground and advance further. Creating shelter from an absolute minimum of materials makes use of pragmatic technology while simultaneously appealing to one of the most primary instincts of man: satisfying his innate urge of discovery and settling on unspoiled land.

Notes on Fortnightism (2020), with Carson Chan

A scalable and transportable medical facility as a response to the 2020 corona pandemic, with Carson Chan

Production: Grau Visuals

Pathogens do not follow spatial or temporal boundaries, and neither should architecture’s response to disease outbreaks. ›Notes on Fortnightism‹ (2020) features the Responsive Care Center, easy set-up medical quarantine tents that pop-up around the world where needed. Easily stored and shipped, Responsive Care Centers are designed to mitigate disease spread, preventing epidemics from becoming pandemics that, as we know by now, can bring human activity to a grinding stop.

Thicket

Ticket @ HOW SOON IS NOW
Judin Gallery, Berlin, 2014

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Project Architect: Gustav Düsing
Photos: ©Ina Reinecke/Barkow Leibinger

Regarding a possible future of increasing material efficiencies as a result of material shortages this spatial installation is a tessellated thicket. By reducing the material of each structural member to an absolute minimum, space is only defined by the increasing and decreasing density of material. „Thicket“ also begs a comparison between our artificially contrived one and those found in nature as in: to be lost in a thicket, a kind of labyrinth.

The Productive Landscape

The Productive Landscape – Feasibility-Study for the revitalization of an inoperative airport, Long Island, NY, 2017
Team: Sonia Cohan Blake Villwock
Image by Grau

This large hangar like building is part of a revitalization program for a disused airport in Long Island, New York which deals with the question of what kind of industrial production uses the still intact infrastructures such as runways and production halls in an appropriate, modern and sustainable way. Long Island is well known for tourism as a get-away from New York City.

Roanoke Point

Earth-works for a hurricane site in Long Island, New York, 2018

Situated in the sandy dunes of the northern shore of Long Island, this private house is a negotiation between aspects of landscape, view and enclosure. Two dug-in, and stepped linear building volumes are intersecting in a common, inhabitable stairwell which serves as a mediator between the upper, more public part and the lower, more private area. The volumes are rotated towards north east, for am light and the lower volume towards north-west for pm light.

Space Pockets

spatial transformation,

Berlin, 2019

Photos: Johannes Förster

Sited between the nature reserve of the Rummelsburger-Bucht and the still operating, industrial monument Klingenberg, the project examines the spatial potential of ultra-light moving elements in the context of open floor plans. In various applications, light, stretched fabrics and curtains were used to create space pockets in different scales, generating areas for different functions.

Talus - Berlin Teufelsberg, IAD, TU Braunschweig

Research excerpts developed as an assistant professor at the Institute for Architectural Design, Prof. Volker Staab at the Technical University Braunschweig in 2018/19

In the substance of the Teufelsberg, Berlins highest Trümmerberg, everything from intact bricks to reinforced concrete can be found. Although found to be unusable and disposed of, all these fragments still bear signs of an intelligent coherence, differentiating them as architectural fragments against the naturally grown soil from which they originate.

The Local Vernacular

Log-construction build with first year architecture students at the UDK Berlin, 2016,

KET, Prof. Christoph Gengnagel
Design: Serena Abbondanza, Livia Nowak, Jan Wilkens
Teaching: Gustav Düsing

A pyramidal structure was constructed as part of the lecture series “vernacular 1:1” at the University of Arts, Berlin. In stark contrast to modern high-tech architecture, traditional or vernacular constructions stand for a site-specific and resource-conserving use of local materials. From these centuries-old techniques, contemporary approaches can be deduced and combined with modern methods to create new material systems.

Research-Object Loop Dome

Research Object – The Loop Dome, 2013
Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Project Architect: Gustav Düsing
Fotos: Gustav Düsing / Barkow Leibinger

A prototype for a large span dome structure constructed of bend plywood.

Windmill Luminaire

Windmill Luminaire, 2013

Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger

Project Coordinator: Prof. Kazu Blumfeld Hanada, Werkstatt Blumfeld

The Light-Installation is mimicking natural organizations of hierarchy and structure. By turning principles of energy harvesting inside out, the luminaire is artificial and technoid but is evoking feelings of beauty and vulnerability at the same time.

Frames

Frames – Material Concepts & Systems for everyday use.
Prototypes and Small Series developed between 2009 and 2015.

The Space-Frame series are furniture designs developed between 2008 and 2011, which are based on space-consuming structural elements (space-frame). The aim was to test architectural principles of scale, structure and production on a real object. Digital and manual techniques have been researched and developed in a series of prototypes. The resulting furniture was produced in small series with a network of workshops.

The Loop Room

The Loop-Room, Exhibition at the BDA Gallery Berlin, 2014
Architects: Barkow Leibinger, Berlin, Frank Barkow, Regine Leibinger
Team: Gustav Düsing, Blake Villwock, Jens Weßel

The Gallery Space was transformed by exploiting the very basic medias of architectural representation. A series of wallpapers with two dimensional patterns were firstly translated into a three-dimensional perspectival drawings to finally being realized as a physical ceiling piece.

The juxtaposition of these elements created an illusion which seamed to extend the gallery in all directions.

Objectives:

...and it came to pass, not to stay.

For our studio @architettura_roma_tre we left the surface of the earth behind to create a new type of co-housing structure which is elevated from the ground with a minimal footprint as a new #architecturalmodel for a near future of material shortage and environmental consciousness. Each proposal became a cell in the larger structure, while we experimented with lightweight materials in the spirit of #freiotto @yona_friedman and #buckminsterfuller . As a purely physical experience, our studio was material based, experimental and free. Throughout the semester, we developed skills and knowledge in #tensilemembrane structures as a material system that is light, #changeable and #resourceful . Together, we created a project through direct communication, elaboration and joined forces. Just like with any experiment, the final result was undefined and open-ended.

Visiting Professor: Gustav Düsing
Assistants: Zoe Panunzio & Virginia Stella

Students:
Marina Tonolo & Elena Todini
Marta Martinelli & Giorgio Tabelli
Caterina Cecconi & Elisa Cencioni
Matteo Colantoni & Paolo D’Orazio
Marco Ugolini & Eleonora Ragonici
Leonardo Bruffa & Mark Laurente Agaloos

Big thanks to our guest critic and photographer @leonhard.clemens

Sunsight to Sunclipse //
now on view as part of
Villa Massimo in Città
17-26.06 // @villamassimo.de

Can architecture be like an atmosphere? By using the energy of the sun to create an architectural volume, the installation behaves in synergy with planetary constellations and is a direct transformation of energy into architectural space. Known as the coriolis effect, the installation creates waves similar to the Rossby-Waves, giant serpentine streams of high altitude winds, largely responsible for the global weather. Sunsight to Sunclipse is a space that represents a new type of architecture which understands itself as part of a larger planetary system that is fluid, dynamic and responsive.
Video @jo.foerster

#sunsighttosunclipse
#rossbywaves
#corioliseffect #spinningumbrella #solarspace