LA FURA DELS BAUS OFFICE

Barcelona, 2015

Project: La Fura dels Baus Office. 

Client: Fura dels Baus.

Location: Barcelona, Spain. 

Author: External Reference; Carmelo Zappulla, Nacho Toribio. 

Team: Maja Górowska, Martyna Krajewska, Ioana Coman, Giovanni Bruni, Carlos Bauza. 

Photography: External Reference.

La Fura dels Baus is a Spanish theatrical group founded in 1979 in Barcelona, known for its commitment to “urban” theatre, use of unusual settings, and elimination of the boundaries between actor and audience, where the latter becomes an essential part of the show. La Fura’s style is so unique that it has become a worldwide recognized theatrical trend. Moreover, the group’s language is so exceptional deserving the label of “Furan language”.
In the performances of La Fura del Baus one of the most important factors is the human body, seen both in its beauty and ugliness. This office is a biomorphic, pulsating, luminous stomach which digests and metabolizes ideas. Herein, boundaries between acting and working are overcome.
The project features the insertion of an object within an already existing rectangular room. Overall, the project aims to produce an inner and an exterior space both suitable for meetings, exhibitions, performances, and office work. The exterior space is an informal and individual space used as a storage room, archive, private meeting room and space for copy machines.
Just like what we see in pallasite meteors, Meteorite is made of glass and steel: a metal structure holds transparent glass capsules, which are the cultivation environments for algae and bacteria.
The 21 capsules of Meteorite include billions of micro-organisms such as Chlorella Vulgaris, a sphere-shaped unicellular algae with a diameter of 1/20 of a hair, commonly described as a “super food” because of its extremely high protein content (40-50%), and the Synechocystis 6803, a sphere-shaped cyanobacteria with a diameter of 1/50 of a hair.
Chlorella and Synechocystis are both capable of generating oxygen and removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These organisms are photosynthetic: by absorbing the light coming from an integrated LED system, they produce around 10 liters of oxygen per day. Considering the small size of Meteorite, the quantity of oxygen produced is 8-10 times greater than that of a conifer forest.
Meteorite is the result of computational design methodologies aimed at unifying the CNC steel fabrication of the external structure with the production of the cultivation capsules, made of Murano blown glass. The final product is thus the result of a creative dialogue between traditional craftsmanship and digital manufacturing.
Meteorite was promoted by F.lli Perin, the stainless-steel machining company that operated all the required steel processing, and Fondazione Berengo, the Venice-based blown-glass manufacturer. The device was presented at HOST Milano 2017, an international hospitality and catering fair, in which it was possible to demonstrate the gastronomic possibilities of algae, through a dedicated dish prepared by chef Graziano Prest.