Second House First exhibition currently at the RAW Gallery, Winnipeg

Check out the "Second House First" exhibition, currently at the RAW Gallery of Architecture and Design in Winnipeg, Canada until Oct. 27, 2013.

Second House First gives an in-depth look into the cottages and cabins that surround Lake Manitoba in Manitoba, Canada. The exhibition explores and questions the growing differences between the cabin and the suburban house as well as the contrasting lifestyles of its residents.

Contributors include Conrad Koslowsky (Roz Barr Architects); Frederik Bo Bojesen, (Herzog & de Meuron); Scrap Marshall, (UCLA AUD); Yannick Guillen, (YG), and Lisa Stinner-Kun (University Of Manitoba).

Scroll down to see some exhibition photos RAW Gallery sent us.

"‘Second House First’ explores the tension between two contrasting forms of domestic dwelling - the vernacular architecture of the cabin and the ubiquity of the suburban house - through an exploration of the cottages and cabins that surround the lakes of Manitoba.

For much of the year, many Canadians live in an analogous ‘city’ in cottage country, with entirely different friends, activities, and lifestyles. Their cottages are not simply second homes in idyllic settings, but materialized refuges from the perceived daily grind of urban life. Often self-built, these summerhouses are informal expressions of an individual’s personality and willful - often eccentric - attempts at escaping the city. The peculiarities of their cottages create an environment for playful exploration and a strange ‘otherness’ that confounds the banality and staleness of the suburban home."

"Where the stucco sprawl of suburban houses is characterized by standardized construction techniques and generic designs, cottages tend to have a material richness that's absent in the city - whether through the creative misuse of cheap building materials, or the recycling of construction waste from the city. Less inhibited by market forces and planning control, they are often built through a series of collaged accretions, adding to their idiosyncratic nature.

The exhibition presents a catalogue of 'samples' from cottages across Manitoba. Five cottages in the form of fragmented images and models are shown - isolated from their wilderness context - exposing the material use, misuse and reuse that forms these unique structures and compelling interiors.

In 'Second House First' the cabin becomes a conceptual tool to explore and question the contemporary nature of our increasingly disaggregated and dispersed living environment."

Contributors:

"With a background in liberal arts, photography, and construction, Conrad Koslowsky completed his diploma at the Architectural Association in London (RIBA High Pass). His work was nominated for a President's Medal, and he has been the recipient of the Eileen Gray Scholarship, the Marjorie Morrison Award, and the Nicholas Boas Travel Scholarship for the British School in Rome. As an educator, he has taught courses at Oxford and Camberwell, and has been a frequent guest critic at the AA. He is currently working with Roz Barr Architects in London.

"Frederik Bo Bojesen trained as a journeyman carpenter in Copenhagen, Denmark working on projects such as the Royal Palace and the new Opera. He subsequently went on to study architecture at the Architectural Association, during which a part time position was secured with Herzog & de Meuron on the Tate Modern extension. In 2013 he finished his degree being rewarded the Pozner Prize for best single drawing of the year. He has performed as guest critic in Oxford and Bristol universities and is currently employed in Basel by Herzog & de Meuron."

"Scrap Marshall completed his diploma at the Architectural Association in London in 2012 following a career in the music and film industry. He was awarded The Sir Henry Holloway Prize, The Dennis Sharp Prize, the Ralph Knotts Memorial Prize and was a prizewinner in the 2012 RIBA President's Medals. He co-founded the Public Occasion Agency in 2010 and formed the design practice SCRAP in 2012. An educator and designer, he is currently a supervising researcher at the UCLA School of Architecture and Urban Design."

"Yannick Guillen completed his architecture BA at the London Metropolitan University with First Class Honours, after an initial fine art course at the City and Guilds of London Art School. During the following two years he worked at offices in London, Beijing and Berlin, and was invited as a guest critic at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design. He completed his Diploma at the Architectural Association in 2013, and has since delivered his first commission in the form of a market stall for a Japanese street food vendor."

"Since graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with a MFA in Photography, Lisa Stinner-Kun has shown her photographic work in numerous exhibitions, locally, nationally and internationally. In her work, Stinner-Kun searches for photographic contradictions found within the built environment. Her work has been featured in art publications such as Border Crossings magazine and published in juried collections such as Carte Blanche and Flash Forward. She has received numerous grants and scholarships, and most recently was awarded a grant from the Canada Council for the Arts. Stinner-Kun teaches at Martha Street Studio and was an artist mentor this past year with Mentoring Artists for Women's Art."

Learn more by clicking here.

All images courtesy of RAW Gallery.