Project Village

Hello Wood is an architectural education platform initiated three years ago as part of the Summer University programme, Project Village. It was asked to hundreds of young architects from around the globe to experiment with the relationship between communities and their built environment through building their own settlement. Students created a rural campus for their nomadic faculty.

  The framework was loose, blurring the boundaries between summer university and festival, urban and rural, art and architecture, practical solutions and utopian ideals. In the, final year seven international teams were led by researchers, academics and organisations such as Architecture for Refugees, and an important proponent of landscape urbanism, Groundlab.

The teams had to physically define the spaces in between structures, nature and the terrain, based on the actual and imagined routines of the residents. The method of interaction was to practice the craft and politics of building, negotiate against the constraints of the site, material and time. During the day participants designed, built and thought with their hands some wooden structures, trying to agree on practical matters. At night, social interaction took another dimension: a series of evening lectures allowed for critical reflection followed by parties every night. This meant connecting on a different level and discussing the global consistencies of ideas.

Project Village, Csóromfölde, Hungary
Architects: Hello Wood
Design team: Johanna Muszbek, Péter Pozsár (curators), Orsi Janota (project leader), Fruzsi Karig (project manager), András Huszár, Dávid Ráday, Niki Lakatos, Anita Farkas (project management), Lukács Gergely Szőke (graphic design), Csaba Bányai, Gyula Végh, Nóra Fekete, Dániel Kiss, Laci Mangliárt (designers), Réka Holánszki (carpenter)
Completion: 2017