10 Sami Rintala @ BAS

In 2003, with some friends in Italy (Stefano, Walter, Luca, Matteo and Francesca) we made a special issue of art4d on new coming designers of Europe: http://www.art4d.com/a4d/iss_content.php?type=issue&show=detail&id1=95

The cover was a work of a Finnish architect Sami Rintala (in collaboration with Marco Casagrande). It was really amazing project. Then I did not know who they were and always thought that they were a couple (Sami sounds very girlish to me). Luca was the one who contacted them. If you are curious about what he does: http://www.samirintala.com/





In BAS, one day during the lunch break in June, there was this Finnish guy who was there to teach for a couple of weeks. (In BAS, as I mentioned before, nobody is a full-time professor. They all come for a few weeks to run a workshop studio. Then they are gone. Very interesting and intensive system). He introduced himself as Sami. It did not ring a bell. After a while, Stefano realized that he was the same Sami Rintala we featured his works in art4d some years ago! Small world indeed. We got along quite well. And ended up interviewing him for Domus Magazine (November 2006) You can also see it here: http://www.domusweb.it/Domus/latest/singola_news.cfm?CodNews=65862&Tipo=1 (but you might have to subscribe online version first).

The workshop Sami was doing with BAS students was very interesting. The brief was to design and build a small shelter in the city of Bergen, in a small left over space they could find. (In this case, students could learn about urban, design of a small space, construction all at once!) When I arrived early June, the students were working in the school day and night on this assignment. After a week, they installed in around the city. Here are some of them that I had a chance to go around to visit.

This first one was an annex to the entrance of Academy of Art in Bergen. I like the material and color combination that match with the existing building. The interior is also very nice.



This one was in between one administration building of the city and its fench. It took an advantage of a small garden in between.





This little box was hang from two posts sitting on the wall. The structure was quite challenging. The entrance was on the top of the box, openning up. The little windows gave a framed view of the city on the hills.



This one was in front of the city library. Kind of standing alone.



This was the one in an empty parking lot near the guesthouse (Dahl House) where all the accessors stayed. The little shelter was on wheels and had the size was from the size of a parking space.