Polska institutet: The City and the Forest at Design March 2016 in Reykjavik

The City and the Forest is a series of exhibitions and workshops promoting environmental protection and eco-friendly attitude. The project is planned as a series of events taking place throughout the year. The first exhibition will be held at Design March festival in Reykjavik, Iceland on 10th–13th of March 2016.

The aim of the project is to draw attention to the animals living in the cities, such as birds, insects and mammals. The invited designers have created the nesting boxes for animals. Their selection was based on their own experiences and express their concerns related to changes in the environment.

The booths presented in the exhibition are dedicated to various species of birds such as swifts, that reside on the wall next to the designers’ studio or the hedgehogs living in their neighborhoods. They demonstrate very conscious approach, using a natural protection system against the harmful insects, or slightly more humorous attempt to fight with the thermo-modernization of the cities, depriving birds of their shelters. They express the fascination with bats, and interest in the insects. Through all of them speaks a desire to reconcile the life in the city with being close to nature.

The exhibition will present both new projects as well as the existing ones - such as Dziupla (The Hollow) designed by Menthol Architects for passerine birds : “The subject of the environment projection is very important for us. We created the first breeding tower for swifts in Poland. This project brought our attention to the issue of the protection of the birds in the city. We wanted to refresh the image of the typical nesting boxes and draw attention to the problem of decreasing population of the birds”.

The exhibition is co-finansed by The Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland and supported by the Polish Institute in Stockholm.

Designers in this exhibition: Agnieszka Bar, Marta i Lech Rowińscy / Beton, Asia Piaścik / Dingflux, Marta Niemywska -Grynasz i Dawid Grynasz / Grynasz Studio, Monika Brauntsch / Kafti, Ewa Bochen i Maciej Jelski / Kosmos Project, Agata Kulik-Pomorska i Paweł Pomorski / Malafor, Marcin Pogorzelski, Liliana Krzycka i Rafał Pieszko / Mentol Architects.

Więcej informacji o projekcie: https://www.facebook.com/thecityandtheforest/

Eko Miasto exhibition is co-finansed by The ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland Organiser
WILK Open Cluster of Design
Ewa Solarz, Curator
Monika Brauntsch, Project Manager
Ewa Bocheń i Maciej Jelski, Exhibition Design
Małgorzata Gurowska, Graphic Design

DESIGNERS IN THIS EDITION
Agnieszka bar
www.agnieszkabar.pl

Great Tit
"I chose a nest box for great tits, governed by strict species protection. Great Tit often nests on urban areas. Since I work in glass, I was looking for points of contact between the needs and the recommendations in the nesting boxes and properties of glass, that will have a functional justification. The project is experimental and is supposed to serve the observation of the birds”.

Beton
www.betonon.com

Sparrow
"For the sparrow! Through the sparrow booth we would like to fight a little - quite shyly though – with the termo-modernization. Because it’s a great enemy of sparrows, but also the insidious enemy of Polish architecture. Sparrows have nowhere to go, disappear from the hedges and rowans, while styrofoam takes over!”.

Beza Projekt
www.bezaprojekt.pl

Common Swift
"We will do the booth for the swifts, which have their nests on the blind wall of a building next to our workshop. We can see the wall from our windows and we really hope that the swifts will be returning here!”.

DINGFLUX/Asia Piaścik/
www.dingflux.com

KAFTI/Monika Brauntsch
www.kafti.com

The Wild Pollinators
"The concrete cities and sleek urban parks do not offer many places of refuge for wild pollinators, although, paradoxically, the lack of pesticides works to their advantage. Creating a place for them does not require specific efforts, and supports their important function, which is the pollination of the plants. The actual projects of the hotel for insects also allows quite a lot flexibility”.

Grynasz Studio
www.grynaszstudio.com

The hedgehogs from Żoliborz
"We are living in Warsaw's Żoliborz and often during the summers’ evening walks we meet those cute and useful animals. A large number of gardens and green areas provides the space for the hedgehogs. The box that we designed can be placed in the garden to serve as the breeding house and the shelter for the winter”.

Kosmos Project
www.kosmosproject.com

Bats
"There are certainly many superstitions and legends around bats. Those mysterious, nocturnal creatures, hanging upside down and hibernating in strange places, were traditionally associated with magic, witches and vampires. Even today they are believed to drink blood and to become entangled in human hair. In fact, the bats are very beneficial to humans – having a bat colony near the house makes the troublesome insects disappear”.

MALAFOR/Agata Kulik-Pomorska i Paweł Pomorski
www.malafor.co

Sparrows
"We will do the sparrows – the booth for the entire colony of sparrows, we go for quantity!

And why sparrows? Because this bird is closely associated with the humankind and colonized the human settlements thousands of years ago! The sparrows live in flocks, so they needs a real housing estate!”.

Marcin Pogorzelski
http://mapog.com/

Tits
"The bird house is part of the natural defense system against harmful insects. The motivation to design the nesting house for the tits was the large number of cases of chestnut trees, damaged by the pests, which feed on tit. This is a continuation of my previous project, which assumed a reduction of the use of chemicals in gardening backyards, and strengthening the natural protection based on cooperation with natural predators fed on the pests.”

Menthol Architects

http://www.menthol.pl/

Passerines
“The subject of the environment projection is very important for us. We created the first breeding tower for swifts in Poland. This project brought our attention to the issue of the protection of the birds in the city. We wanted to refresh the image of the typical nesting boxes and draw attention to the problem of decreasing population of the birds in the city”.

EXPERTS

Ussuri
http://www.ussuri.pl/

The company's mission is an active protection of wild animals by providing them with professional nest sites, such as the nesting boxes, sockets and other sheltersand conducting activities related to the behavior of breeding stations.

Towarzystwo Przyrodnicze Bocian
www.bocian.org.pl biuro@bocian.org.pl

The non-governmental organization, that protects the endangered species and habitats. In doing so, they use a different types of nesting boxes and platforms. For years they have been helping storks, owls, urban birds, bats and manyother birds.

Time and place:
10th–13th March 2016
HönnunarMars/DesignMarch
Museumspace Seltjarnarnes
Reykjavik, Iceland

CONTACT
Monika Brauntsch
monika.brantsch@kafti.com
+48 501 431 787