HOME. MEMORIES
Architects: balbek bureau \ Slava Balbek, Anastasiia Partyka, Alyona Tryhub
3D artists: Nik Key, Valerii Stefanov
Graphic designer: Dasha Levchuk
Sculptor: Marusia Sinkevich
Сopywriter: Taisiia Kudenko
PR manager: Yevheniia Ryzhak
Project Year: 2022
Location: The Ukrainian Antarctic Akademik Vernadsky base, Galindez Island, Argentine Islands Archipelago
ABOUT | DESIGN TASK | DESIGN CHALLENGE | CONCEPT | DEVELOPMENT | TEAM
Photo credits: Unsplash
ABOUT
‘Home. Memories’ is an art installation project for the Ukrainian Vernadsky Research Base located on the island of Galindez in the Argentine Islands. The station is coordinated by the National Antarctic Research Center (NASC).
Our team is responsible for the design while the Magic Workshop bureau is in charge of the construction. The art installation will be produced with the support of Silpo.
Photo credits: Unsplash
DESIGN TASK
An old defunct fuel tank is located on the territory of the research base. It is one of the very first things seen by the approximately four thousand tourists visiting the Vernadsky base every year during the Antarctic summer. It appears in most of the photos made to remember the trip to Antarctica.
Our team was tasked to reimagine both the appearance and function of the fuel tank: to turn it into an object that is attractive to tourists and is organically integrated into the Antarctic landscape. The installation should also introduce the visitors of the research base to Ukrainian culture seeing as for many it’s the first point of contact with Ukraine.
DESIGN CHALLENGE
Severe weather conditions had to be taken into account when designing the art installation. The main prerequisites for the construction are resistance to low temperatures (from +5 to -30 C°), strong winds (up to 40 m / s) and almost 300 days of precipitation per year.
In addition to the station's 12 residents, the island is home to more than 3,500 penguins. The installation had to be safe for the local fauna and at the same time sturdy enough to withstand penguins who tend to disassemble constructions into bits used for nests.
Photo credits: Unsplash
The issue of transportation and assembly was also a challenge. The installation, made in Kyiv, will be assembled on-site, without professional equipment and installers. Maintenance also had to be considered: the upkeep of the facility (such as removing frozen snow) should not be time-consuming.
Photo credits: Meta
CONCEPT
The Vernadsky Research Base is a home away from home for our polar researchers. Given this, we proposed to create an installation named ‘Home. Memories‘ inspired by a typical Ukrainian house - one that is associated with warmth, comfort and grandmotherly coziness. For our researchers, it is a living memory of home. For tourists - an opportunity to get acquainted with Ukraine through a recognizable, yet not banal visual image.
Photo credits: OLX
We analyzed houses in various areas of Ukraine and compiled a composite image of a Ukrainian house - with a slate roof, chimney and distinctive windows. It was decided to recreate this image with the help of a thin detailed frame constructed around the fuel tank. According to our plan, the installation should resemble a pencil sketch: as if someone, reminiscing, sketches their childhood home from memory.
One can take a walk inside the house. Boards with symbolic objects embedded in resin such as a lump of Ukrainian soil and a fragment of an embroidered shirt will be mounted on the walls.
DEVELOPMENT
Alongside the Magic Workshop bureau, we are working on making the art installation easy to transport and construct on-site. Everything will be clearly marked and organized by section (walls, roof, etc.), so the house can be assembled by anyone simply according to written instructions.
15 mm stainless steel pipes will be assembled into a light but strong frame. To test the structure’s resistance to strong winds, we will test it in dynamics with the help of polar researchers here in Ukraine.
The podium around the installation will be made of welded galvanized steel grating. With that, most of the precipitation will flow through it.
After a test assembly, the art installation will be dismantled and in January 2022 transported to the Vernadsky Research Base on the Noosphere icebreaker. We will follow its journey and keep you posted as it makes its way from Ukraine to Antarctica.
TEAM
