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We are delighted to announce that the studio has grown, we have changed address and amazing projects and collaborations in extreme environments are underway. We are therefore uniting our research, publication and architectural design work under one name, and we are now MAP architects. Visit our new website at www.MAParchitects.dk

The Studio is off to Venice, for the preview opening on the 27th of August, of the 13th Architectural Biennale. We are pleased to be one of the architecture practices representing the Danish Pavilion. After a year's work, collaborating with Henning Larsen Architects and Greenlandic, KITAA architects, and an endless list of Greenlander who welcomed us to their homes, our research and proposal on Greenland and its migration challenges is finally finished. When debating the future of Greenland, migration is on the agenda. Tourism, mining and mineral exploration can cause a migration flow that might turn the greenlandic population into a minority in their own country. The project investigates a historic dynamic urban development in Greenland and creates new aggregating structures that facilitate the meeting of different groups of people in the urban context. More about the projects here . and the curators and the other exhibiting teams, at DACs website .

Exploded reactor nr 4, courtesy of the AP. The Studio will be launching its fifth issue of MAP on Chernobyl, this week. We are delighted to be lecturing during the launch at the Chernobyl Museum and visiting the exclusion zone and we will be performing a series of tests on the radiation blocking properties of different materials during our visit. Many thanks to Solo East Travel and The Chernobyl Museum, and to Parvinder Marwaha for their help and support. Model of exploded reactor, courtesy of the Chernobyl Museum.

The Studio is presently exhibiting at The Storefront for Art and Architecture in New York. This is the second time we have the pleasure to exhibit in this prestigious venue and we are happy be part of such a collective. Archizines exhibits a selection of architectural publications, and MAP is represented. Images courtesy of Storefront.

DAVID GARCIA STUDIO is again in Greenland for our second workshop for the Venice Biennale. Together with Henning Larsen Architects and KITAA Arkitekter, and the rest of the teams, we have been in Ilulissat for a week of meetings with local authorities, workshops and travels, in a further attempt to engage reality with our projekt. During our travels, The Studio took the opportunity to test materials at 30 degrees below zero, and under wind and pressure, via kites and shelters.

The Studio, together with the architectural practice PMO of the Maldives, is designing a ten floor residential building in the heart of the capital Malé.

EXTREME ENVIRONMENTS AND FUTURE LANDSCAPES master course presents a full action day, with crit and triple lecture. Liam Young, teacher at the AA in London and Ricardo de Ostos, teacher at the AA and The Bartlett, Christer Malström, director of the Architecture School in Lund, and David Garcia, Guest Professor and director of the master course will take part at a morning and early afternoon critique of the work being developed by the students at the course.
At 17:00, Liam Young, Ricard de Ostos and David Garcia, will take part in an unprecedented experiment: The "BOUNCE Lecture Series". Can a lecture be improvised between three speakers? In an effort to break the linearity and planned nature of lectures, this platform will attempt to improvise by association. Each speaker, with the web and their laptops at hand, will link to the previous speakers image and comments in a successive bounce of ideas and visual journey.
Come along for a full day of visions into a world inspired b...

David Garcia Studio will be exhibiting its Quarantinable Farm and Domestic Isolation Unit projects at the CCA's exhibition "IMPERFECT HEALTH"  which includes OMA, SANAA, Morphosis, MVRDV. If you are in Montreal, make sure to drop by. Health is a focus of contemporary political debate in a moment of historically high anxiety, but are architects, urban designers and landscape architects seeking a new moral and political agenda within these concerns? Imperfect Health: The Medicalization of Architecture examines the complexity of today’s interrelated and emerging health problems juxtaposed with a variety of proposed architectural and urban solutions. Pollen, pollution, toxic materials that make up the built environment, globalized industrial food production, reclaimed manufacturing landscapes, unbalanced population demographics, sedentary and indoor lifestyles, and efforts to fight death are becoming imperfect materials for architecture to explore. Emerging as trends like hea...

HENNING LARSEN ARCHITECTS  and DAVID GARCIA STUDIO are one of the four teams which have been selected to represent the Danish Pavillion at the Architecture Venice Biennale in 2012. The theme of study, FUTURE GREENLAND , aims to look at the challenging future of perhaps one of the most rapidly changing zones in the world.  The Danish teams will be joined by architecture studios and institutions from Greenland, and together will develop the concepts and projects for the exhibition.  The Danish Architecture Centre and Professor Minik Rosing together with NORD architects will be curating the event. A workshop in Greenland in November will start of the collaboration. Congratulations to the Greenland teams,  TNT Nuuk, KITAA Arkitekter, Tegnestuen Nuuk, Clement, Carlsen Arkitekter, Qarsoq Tegnestue and Thomas Riis, and the Danish teams, Vandkunsten, BIG + Superflex, Elkiær & Ebbeskov + Hausenberg, we look forward to seeing you in Greenland. 

MAP 004 FLOODS was launched in the Maldives on the 10th of September, and the sea measuring device survived monsoons and typhoons on two islands. Through out the tests we managed to chart tide surges and sand movements, and we will now continue the project to create an array of measuring devices at selected islands. We would like to thank the people of Kurumba and Bandos for their hospitality and help with the project, The National University for their invitation to lecture and to RIAS for the sponsorship of the materials for the floating device. A very special thanks to PMO for inviting The Studio to the Maldives, for their passion and support.  At The Studio, thanks to the team that built the device, Nynne Blak, Shane Masterson, Nicolas Feihl and Hinke Majoor

MAP 004 FLOODS  will be available to distribute world wide from the 12th of September. The official launch will be on the 10th of September in the Maldives. The firm PMO, have invited David Garcia to an underwater launch of this MAP issue, to underline the challenges that the archipelago faces in the immediate future. MAP 004 FLOODS deals with the spatial implications of inundation, presenting projects in The Netherlands, Italy, the US and the Maldives. Architect Peter Cook writes the introduction to this issue. The Studio is constructing a sea level rise measuring buoy to take to the Maldives as part of the launch. More to come. This issue of MAP has been possible thanks to THE BARTLETT RESEARCH FUND. Thanks to PMO and to RIAS for their sponsorship in the launch.

The Studio has received a third prize for the Jøssingfjord museum international competition in Norway. Placed on the remnants of an old titanium mine and at the mouth of a fjord, the museum proposal plays with relationships between the vertical and horizontal landscape skyline and mining typologies as spatial design.  We are delighted to receive this prize contributing to the studio's track record of 9 out of 10 prized competitions.

Thanks again to BAUHAUS - WEIMAR and the Horizonte lecture series. Impressive publication and and energy at this platform. Here is a link to their call for papers for the next issue. A special thanks to David Bauer, Michael Kraus and Carsten Tetens for saving my laptop, and by extension, my lecture.

The Danish Arts Foundation, architecture review, has awarded David Garcia Studio, 100.000 danish kroner to research on the spatial implications of sea level rise in Denmark in general and in Copenhagen in particular, with special emphasis of speculative proposal to such an extreme scenario. Just recently, The Danish Meteorological Institute has in May published a report detailing recent studies for sea level rise in Denmark, predicting a 49cm to 100 cm rise in the next 100 years, much more than previously though. We are delighted to have been awarded this opportunity to engage in our field of study and we look forward to publishing our results as they develop.

Paul D. Miller has just launched a book on his on going project in Antarctica, including some of our architectural speculations on that continent. Drawing on Antarctica's rich history of inspiring exploration and artistic endeavors, Paul D. Miller a.k.a. DJ Spooky has put together his own multimedia, multidisciplinary study of the South Pole. In light of climate change and tireless human enterprise to be present everywhere on the planet, Miller uses Antarctica as a point on entry for contemplating humanity’s relationship with the natural world. Using photographs and film stills from his journey to the bottom of the world, along with original artworks and re-appropriated archival materials, Miller ponders how Antarctica could liberate itself from the rest of the world. Part fictional manifesto, part history and part science book, Book of Ice furthers Miller’s reputation as an innovative artist capable of making the old look new.

David Garcia will be lecturing on architecture and invention at The National Art Gallery in Vilnius, Lithuania .  The fourth session of ARCHITECTURE [discussion] FUND is dedicated to rethinking of how the mechanism of architectural education functions and bringing into a new perspective to the curriculum of an architect. The speakers representing different attitudes are invited to touch upon the subject from their point of view: How has the architecture as discipline changed and what new forms will it t ake in the future? How wide and multidisciplinary can the architectural education be? How do the processes of research and design interact with it? Has the fundamental master/apprentice model dissolved due to the institutionalizing of the architectural education, or can this model still be recognizable in the performance of the contemporary architectural offices? How does the educational practice reflect ideological frameworks and contexts? Is it becoming a platform for political ...

A map of the world that does not include Utopia is not worth even glancing at, for it leaves out the one country at which Humanity is always landing.
—Oscar Wilde

 The cities in which we live today are unfortunately not the cities that we need for a humane and sustainable tomorrow. Societies and politicians are desperately looking for solutions and ideas for the urban areas of the future. That is why the development and discussion of utopias are–next to sustainability–the most current topics in contemporary architecture.

We have learned from the 1960s and 1970s that utopian visions are one of the most important catalysts for fundamental change. Modern wind farms for generating energy, for example, were initially contemplated at that time and are now permanent fixtures in our landscapes.

 Utopia Forever is a collection of current projects and concepts from architecture, city planning, urbanism, and art that point beyond the restrictions of the factual to unleash the potential of cre...

David Garcia Studio "G HOUSE" is included in Mimi Zeiger's latest work, MICRO GREEN , published by Rizzoli and coming out in March. From treehouses to pre-fabs, this book presents sustainable, micro-green living at its best. Micro Green delves into the concept of compact living and demonstrates the possibilities of living with less while maintaining a rich life. As sustainable architecture becomes mainstream, many architects and designers are using technology and wit to experiment with what it means to be green, and the results are both effective and enthralling. The rustic treehouses, airy domes, and recycled-scrap structures of Micro Green are presented through vivid photography and detailed building plans, and display a range of environmental influences. Here living spaces are carved out of hillsides, trees rise through decks and floors, and walls melt seamlessly back into the surrounding woods. Though many of the homes chronicled in Micro Green are unique in design, t...

Involving HMKV (Germany), Projekt Atol (Slovenia), the Arts Catalyst (United Kingdom), C-TASC (Canada), and Lorna (Iceland), this collaboration focuses on the global, cultural, and ecological significance of the polar regions. These zones are causing current geopolitical and territorial conflicts, while at the same time posing opportunities for transnational and intercultural cooperation. Arctic Perspective uses media art and the research of artists to investigate the complicated, global, cultural, and ecological interrelations in the Arctic, and to develop concepts for constructing tactical communications systems and a mobile, eco-friendly research station, which will support interdisciplinary and intercultural collaborations. Scheduled to run over a period of years, this project will involve workshops, field work in the Arctic, publications, exhibitions, and a conference. The Studio and architect Alanna Baudinet collaborated on a this project for a mobile arctic unit which is include...

Architects and architecture students are increasingly concerned with food production, designing everything from edible schoolyards (Work AC) to pig skyscrapers (MVRDV), as well as entirely new urban landscapes of cultivation (Nicholas de Monchaux's Local Code). But what about an edible architecture—an architecture that is designed to be consumed, whether by humans or our companion species? Back in 2007, I taught a workshop on hybrid programming to architecture students at the Royal Academy in Copenhagen. Part of the aim with this five-day-long exercise was to find alternatives to the traditional model-making materials, which at this school did not go much beyond cardboard and glue. To achieve this, on the  first workshop day, I took the students to the local supermarket, and presented the store to them as a resource for model-making materials. From packaging to Saran wrap, and pills to broom hair, I surveyed the store with them, as a palace of alternative construction materials. To...