Carnival: Hello Wood 10th International Summer School and Festival

Architects of the future use Carnival festivities to end outdated ideas

Hello Wood asks entrants to its international summer school to consider the topics that contemporary architecture should be answering.

Best photos of past 10 years

Open Call (deadline for applications to lead a workshop is 21 April. Students: 26 May)

For its tenth year running, Hello Wood is once again hosting its popular international summer school for young architects to help foster a “thinking through making” mentality. The architecture and design studio is putting out an open call for the jubilee event, which is themed around the folklore tradition of Carnival and will give would-be attendees an opportunity to pitch what they feel are the most pressing issues facing our society and how architecture can solve these concerns. The annual event has a global reach, with the previous summer schools participated by 900 students from across 40 countries and 80 universities, including workshop leaders from notable studios such as Kengo Kuma and Urban Think-Tank.

“We see this year’s summer school as a gigantic celebration with the most progressive architects from all around the world working together as one community” - say Hello Wood’s founders.

The annual festivities of Carnival, see communities coming together to celebrate the end of a period of time and the beginning of a new era. Proposals should have this in mind since the summer school will say farewell to its past ten years with its own festival, culminating in a parade with the installations as the stars. Performative creations are a much greater focus for the Hello Wood summer school this year than ever before, meaning portable architecture will be an integral aspect of the successful proposals. This parade will even see past workshop leaders and participants returning to take part in the procession, which will lead down into the nearby village joining a local cultural festival with thousands of attendants of the general public.

This is all part of Hello Wood’s celebration, taking the familiar festival vibes that so commonly comes with the Carnival period and dialling it up to recognise the 10 years of growth that these annual summer schools have seen and welcoming the beginning of a new era of future architecture. This is more than just an opportunity to learn, it’s about bringing together the very best future architects of the world to create a community.

Each year a topic is set for the summer school, during which selected applicants are expected to work together to conceptualise, design and ultimately construct a plan based on the general theme. Hello Wood’s open call is asking for applicants to prepare thought-provoking pitches surrounding crucial modern-day topics like climate change, migration, community construction and even faith. There are some specific suggestions that come from Hello Wood to help guide would-be workshop leaders, but applicants can submit any concept tackling important questions of our age.

• HOME: Climate change and nature preservation.

• SAPIENS: Humanity, the younger generation, human rights and migration.

• MARS: Future innovation, new social and building environments, building skills and community construction.

• FAITH: What is it we believe in?

Hello Wood’s 2019 summer school will run between 15-21 July and is available to architects, designers, artists and academics of relevant fields, with professionals able to apply to become a workshop leader. Students can apply to take part under their leadership, but this year Hello Wood is allowing those that have taken part in at least two summer schools to apply as a workshop leader.

This ties into Hello Wood’s intentions to expand its community settlement located in a quaint area of the Hungarian countryside, where the summer camp will take place. Last year’s event saw the international teams conceive and build cabins as the architectural studio sought to create a more permanent space for its community of builders. In the name of sustainability, this year Hello Wood is striving to make use of the stockpile of wood that it has amassed over the years. Since the Carnival event is representative of farewells and greetings, Hello Wood is using the workshop as a means of closing down one cycle as it starts its own new beginning. This allows for old material to be reinterpreted in new and creative ways by the workshop leaders and their teams.

To take part in the international summer school, applicants will need to fill out Hello Wood’s application form with their proposal. The deadline for applications is 21 April 2019. Students have until 26 May 2019 to apply.