Chris Bosse

Chris Bosse is Asia Pacific Director of multinational firm Laboratory for Visionary Architecture [LAVA], Adjunct Professor at the University of Technology, Sydney and lectures worldwide.

Educated in Germany and Switzerland, he worked with several European architects before moving to Sydney. Whilst Associate Architect at PTW Architects Bosse was a key designer of the Beijing Olympics Watercube, winner of Atmosphere Award at the 9th Venice Architecture Biennale. He was recognised as an emerging architect by RIBA London in 2008.

Bosse bases his work on the computational study of organic structures and resulting spatial conceptions. His research lies in the exploration of unusual structures pushing the boundaries of the traditional understanding of structure and architecture with digital and experimental form finding. Bosse's Masters’ degree dealt with the implementation of virtual environments into architecture.

In 2007 he founded LAVA with Tobias Wallisser and Alexander Rieck as a network of creative minds with a research and design focus with offices in Sydney, Shanghai, Stuttgart and Abu Dhabi.

LAVA explores frontiers that merge future technologies with the patterns of organisation found in nature and believes this will result in a smarter, friendlier, more socially and environmentally responsible future. The potential for naturally evolving systems such as snowflakes, spider webs and soap bubbles for new building typologies and structures has continued to fascinate LAVA – the geometries in nature create both efficiency and beauty. But above all the human is the centre of their investigations.

Structure, material and building skin are three areas LAVA believes that architecture can learn so much from nature. LAVA projects incorporate intelligent systems and skins that can react to external influences such as air pressure, temperature, humidity, solar-radiation and pollution.

LAVA has designed everything from pop up installations to furniture, from homes made out of PET bottles to retrofitting aging 60s icons, from master plans and urban centres to hotels, houses and airports of the future.

LAVA won an international competition to design the city centre of Masdar, the world’s first zero carbon city in the UAE. Other LAVA projects include the Michael Schumacher World Champion Tower, Abu Dhabi; Future Hotel Showcase, Germany; architectural installations 'Green Void', Sydney, and ‘Digital Origami Tigers’, Sydney, KL, Berlin, Singapore and San Francisco; furniture including Sherman Bibliotheca, Sydney, office screens for Schiavello and a desk light ‘Evolution’ for Wallpaper* and ‘Light Void’ for Artemide; the MTV Awards set in Sydney; ‘re-skinning’ of an aging icon 'Tower Skin'; Myer fashion show set; and an origami emergency shelter.

LAVA’s award winning design of the city centre for the sustainable eco-city Masdar in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) includes a plaza, hotel, convention centre, entertainment and retail facilities. It is imagined as an outdoor city-centre based on traditional European public plazas that would encourage social interaction. LAVA incorporated adaptive building technologies, solar powered sunflower umbrellas and efficient use of energy and water to create a sustainable city centre.

The Michael Schumacher ‘Snowflake’ Tower, one of a series of branded towers planned across the globe, marks a departure from traditional architectural thinking. The tower was inspired by the geometrical order of a snowflake and the aerodynamics of a Formula 1 racing car, and encapsulates speed, fluid dynamics, future technology and natural patterns of organization.

LAVA’s Digital Origami Tigers have toured Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, Berlin, Singapore and San Francisco. The crouching tigers combine ancient lantern making methods with cutting edge digital design and fabrication technology, bringing east and west together through tradition and innovation.

‘Tower Skin’, an award winning speculative proposal, re-purposes inefficient and outdated buildings. A simple, cost effective and easily constructed building skin transforms the identity, sustainability and interior comfort of an existing structure.

External links

• [www.l-a-v-a.net]