Hello Wood

Hello Wood is a multidisciplinary art camp, where well known and recognized experts and artists share their knowledge with talented students. All work produced in the camp carries two attributes: it’s mostly made of wood and it’s characterized by an interplay of art and social commitment. Hello Wood integrates various fields of art, design and science; it creates community and encourages talent. It brings together students and professionals across borders, moreover connects everyday people with the designer community. This year the camp was held in the countryside close to lake Balaton, on the premises of an old manor, Csorompuszta, amongst endless cornfields.

120 young designers and architects the had the opportunity to work with the field’s best international minds in order to rediscover the significance of vanishing human connections. The art camp’s new mission was to make an attempt to embrace and strengthen the natural human bonds and to gently shape the interaction forms of a community with their installations. This way, the camp motivated students of architecture and design, together with the young artists of this generation again to approach architectural matters with a social viewpoint, and also to think and work in a community. During one week, the participants created 12 installations that were rated by a professional jury on the last day.

This year’s motto, Step closer! summarizes two goals at the same time: to strengthen the bond between people, nature and built environment with the tools of design and architecture (and of course a lot of wood!) and to motivate young creative minds to step out of their urban, modern, digital environment and to try to solve real, evident social problems by thinking in a community and working with their hands. The motto also enables the students from different countries to work together as it reflects on a symptom experienced all over the world, that suggests the same questions about human interaction, the connection between nature and arts and of course the role of design and architecture in social matters everywhere. That’s why Hello Wood brought together talented people from around the world, to find a common ground for seeking answers.

The installations were built with teamleaders from Poland, Austria, Germany, England, Spain, The Netherlands and Hungary. Among them were the architects of CODA from Barcelona, who focused on the flexibility of wood with their doughnut shaped structure called BigO, Holger Alpermann from The Berlin University of the Arts, who built a huge, funnel shaped planetarium, while the British architect Oliver Sales and Austrian Bence Pap were inspired by natural shapes and patterns creating the TOMDOM tent. This year for the first time, FIABCI Award winner Gabor Zoboki also attended the camp as a teamleader, while Aron Losonczi, the inventor of the well known glass concrete is already considered a regular participant.

On the last day, the jury consisting of the biggest names of the Hungarian design and architecture scene, visited the camp to reward the completed works. After the guided tour, they decided to award the installation of Polish Moomoo Architects, Poliphony, which was an attempt to melt the senses of hearing, seeing, touching and smelling into one whole experience. The passageway standing on the footpath between Kapolcs and Csorompuszta is the “door of perception”: passing through, the woodstaves hanging from the top of the structure make a beautiful sound, we can feel the softness of the wood and breathe in it’s natural scent, while of course the sight of it is also a wonderful experience.

All the installations built in the beautiful landscape of Csoromuszta prove how serious the participants took their task and that valuable artistic work starts with a sensitive approach to an issue and a common seek for answers. A part of the installations were exhibited at Sziget Festival, while the Table will be exhibited and of course used in front of the Hungarian Design Terminal during the Budapest Design Week.

Organiser: Hello Wood Ltd.
Curator: Peter Pozsar
Creative Directors: Andras Huszar and David Raday
Managing Director: Maxim Bakos
Project manager: Orsi Janota, Office manager: Nikoletta Lakatos
Board: Krisztina ArvaiNagy, Karoly Gerendai, Rita Maria Halasi, Leena Pasanen, Mihaly Raday
The wood material for Hello Wood has been provided by Jaf Holz Ungarn Ltd since 2010. Hello Wood’s main sponsor is Design Terminal
Hello Wood has been founded by Peter Pozsar, David Raday, Andras Huszar and Maxim Bakos