Ricardas Blazukas » Installation

Monumental Pissoir for Marrakech

Ricardas — Sat, 25 Oct 2014 09:05:16 +0000

Monumental Pissoir is a design proposal for public toilets for men in the Medina of Marrakech. The structure functioning as an inhabitable column or as a free standing object.

The proposal is a response to the Seven Towers of Seven Saints square in Marrakech. The square built in 2005 was since neglected – currently and predominantly used by locals as a public dump. Squatting, peeing and even glue-sniffing Morocans can be seen there at any time of day. The picture gallery below deomonstrates the square in its current state.

The ‘monumentality’ of the pissoir is inspired by Moroccan culture – colours, ceramics and vernacular living. The architecture of the pissoir is composed of handmade interlocking ceramic components. The pictured model / sculpture below is scale 1:5:

The ceramic components were hand made using a laser-cut mould and then fired in a self made raku kiln:

The interlocking components have a simple yet flexible geometry, which allows to create various interlocking patterns:

Woven Typography – DS15

Ricardas — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 12:39:48 +0000

This woven text sign was a design I did with my coursemates Tim Waines and Piotr Garstecki for Design Studio 15 End of Year Exhibition at Westminster University in July 2014.

The same typography that I developed for the ‘here comes everybody‘ ceramic piece was applied to create this woven DS15 sign.

Ceramic Typography – here comes everybody

Ricardas — Fri, 19 Sep 2014 11:59:10 +0000

This ceramic typography sign was a design I did for Design Studio 15 End of Year Exhibition at Westminster University in July 2014.

The typography of the sign as well as its aesthetic quality was designed using chance techniques. The letters are assembled out of small hand-pressed interconnecting clay components. Raku method of firing ceramics was used as a generator of chance in producing the unexpected aesthetic of glazes. The result of the experiment is typography with fascinating variety of colours and textures.

Thanks to Tim Waines and Piotr Garstecki for their huge contribution on this piece.

‘pyramid tiles’ – sculpture collection for sale

Ricardas — Wed, 10 Sep 2014 17:40:21 +0000

This is a collection of handmade minimalistic sculptural tiles with pyramids shifting out of the vanishing point creating a deceptive impression. The concept of the tiles is based on geometrical composition of squares, inspiration being Baroque architecture.

The ‘pink pyramid tile’ has recently been selected by Saatchi Art currator Bridget Carron to feature in a ‘Radical Geometry’ collection.

The sculptures are made of high quality plaster, coated in primer and acrylic paint. The frames are bespoke made to hold the sculptures.
The collection is limited to 60 sculptures.

The size of the sculpture itself is 39cm x 39cm x 4.5cm, whilst the framed size is 50cm x 50cm x 5cm.

These sculptures are available for sale. You can get in touch via contact form below if interested.

Post Installation Model

Ricardas — Fri, 24 Jan 2014 13:39:10 +0000

Since the full scale installation (previously posted) did not last very long due to its nature, I decided to make this small model representing the same qualities, such as escaping a conventional grid (random sizes of the blocks stacked together), chance factor of variety of paintings in its defragmented state and a sculptural way of representation of the alphabet.

Installation / Time Lapse Video

Ricardas — Sat, 30 Nov 2013 19:03:53 +0000

I have done a number of projects on various scales during the last month. This one here is the biggest one of them – an installation.

Or watch in better quality on VIMEO

This might seem like just a graffiti / painting on a set of plinths, but there is more behind it. The idea I am fascinated about the most is – the provocation of students. This installation was done at university, on all plinths of our MArch Architecture studio a week before our interim crits.

Taking all the plinths might seem rude at first, but architecture is about behaviour change and interaction between a space and its users, which is what this installation did. The painting on the plinths gave them a sense of untouchability (or at least I hoped it will). I was curious what will happen with a crit day approaching. Will students start to take the plinths one by one? They belong to them as much as they belong to me.

I wanted to see a progressive defragmentation of this painting, but what I’ve discovered instead, not even 24hours after the installation was made – plinths composed randomly, looking somewhat similar to Picasso’s paintings. Brilliant – a number of coursemates decided to re-organize them.

I loved the idea of chance in this installation – stacking the plinths randomly and then painting a symbol on them left me wondering how will each plinth look like. The random sizes of plinths stacked together was also a way of escaping a typical grid. It also has an effective three-dimensional quality, due to lengths of plinths they can be spaced in a random way, again creating something completely different and completely by chance.

The crits went great too, as my tutor Sean Griffiths, Co-Founter of FAT said: “Ricardas, you have had the best presense during the crits today”, meaning that all students were presenting their models on plinths with a piece of my painted symbol.

I was hoping that after the crits I will collect them and stack them in a random way, but there was no need for that, as like I mentioned previously, it happened sooner than I expected thanks to my coursemates.

The painted symbol is from my own created alphabet, which you can check out here and download as a font here.

I have also made a small model of this installation, which will appear on the blog soon.

Above you will find a time-lapse video of the installation making process, and at the bottom a photo gallery of the installation, as well as a photo gallery of plinths being used in the studio by other students to display their work.

Dalston Youth Centre 2011

Ricardas — Fri, 25 Oct 2013 13:42:57 +0000

Dalston Art & Dance Youth Centre, Ashwin Street, E8.

DS15 – Westminster University Architecture Summer Show 2013

Ricardas — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 20:18:13 +0000

It has been an amazing year for Design Studio 15 and it finished off with a brilliant exhibition!

I feel very honoured and overly thankful to my tutors Kester Rattenbury and Sean Griffiths and all coursemates for supporting the idea to make an installation with my pyramid tiles for the show. Thanks for Mat Crawford for helping me throughout the making process.

If you haven’t been yet, the exhibition is open until 5th July.

35 Marylebone Road, Baker Street Station, London.

For more about DS15 visit our unit blog.

Summer Show Installation Making – Update

Ricardas — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 10:58:40 +0000

35 tiles have already been cast, leaving 25 more to go!