Christine Kim – Looking Outwards – 03

A project I’ve come across this week is The Kiosk by the British firm, Buchanan Partnership. They’ve built the St. Helen’s Gardens flower stall in 2013 by using digital and hand fabrication. The timber exterior was cut by the CNC mill, which is computer run to control machine tools. With a steel structure and concrete base. This project was originally inspired by the electron scanning of the flower petals which had ridge patterns. Therefore, the lozenge shape of the kiosk is a contemporary interpretation of the floral motif. I admire that the shape of the flower kiosk was deeply inspired by the flower itself and by using digital fabrication the similar shapes were repeated to create the exterior. By doing so, it shows that this project does not lose the essence or the purpose of the project. The information about the exact algorithm used is not mentioned, but since it used digital fabrication as well as hand fabrication, a computational algorithm was used to produce the physical model. The Buchanan Partnership’s artistic sensibilities manifest through their choice of the external shape of the kiosk and the way to open the doors of the kiosk during the day, which is by rotating.