DADA collaborates with Goethe on ArtSpace RoundUp

ArtSpace RoundUp #1: The Art & Space of Public Opinion

Dream Arts & Design Agency is pleased to introduce the first in a series of events planned in collaboration with Goethe Institut to hold through 2012. ArtSpace RoundUp is a set of presentations and discursive events surrounding artistic practice and spatial realities that shape and envelope them. In exploring the meeting point between art and space, Artspace Roundup brings together architects, artists, curators, producers, cultural programmers, critics, and ‘consumers’ of artistic ‘products’ into different spaces in Lagos where each roundtable discussion will be preceded by artistic presentations on set themes.

Historical precedents to ArtSpace RoundUp #1

Events that have happened in the months leading to the year 2012 have been replete with keen contests for key spaces found critical to the expression of public opinion. From the series of revolutions that rocked North Africa and the middle East, to the ‘Occupy’ protests against economic and social inequality in Europe and North America, the expressions of public opinion have been typified by contests for ‘protest space’ between protesters and agents of state.

The Nigerian Hammattan.

Several events have served to put this type of scenario in new perspective, in Nigeria, protesters against fuel price increase and waste in the public sector took their agitations beyond social media spaces in January, to convert available public spaces into public spheres for aggregating and propagating public opinion, access to these spaces had to be contested with agents of state in a manner akin to the ‘Arab Spring’ and ‘Occupy’ events and the Lagos protests in particular featured a wide variety of artistic expressions by well known practitioners whose creative oeuvres are well known to have tackled similar issues in the past and regular citizens who improvised in different ways to have their voices heard.


The fight for Cyber-space.

Also in January, attempts to combat the piracy of intellectual property on the internet through a proposed legislative act in the United States, largely sponsored by organizations and groups representative of traditional models of media content creation and distribution met with stiff protests against the proposed Protect IP Act (PIPA) which reached a head on January 18 with the ‘black out’ of some websites, most noticeably the English Wikipedia sites. Alongside Wikipedia, opponents to PIPA include Mozilla Corporation, Facebook, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Yahoo!, eBay, American Express, Reddit, Google, Reporters Without Borders and Human Rights Watch citing mainly concerns over possible damage to freedom of speech, innovation, and integrity of the internet. The January 18 internet protests have led to a postponement of deliberations on the bill. At heart, the emergence of the PIPA act and subsequent protests against it amount to another contest for the right to a space for public opinion, this time around, a digital space where artistic output get exchanged at dizzying speeds.


Graffiti- urban menace or legitimate street art.

In a different, yet related context, artists in Cape Town, South Africa battled last year to stop the passage of a proposed graffiti by-law that sought to criminalize all forms of public art and according to the online petition circulated; “violates our personal right to freedom of expression on private property.” The violation referred to here is the requirement included in the by-law (which has now been passed), that state permission be obtained besides the permission of a property owner before murals can be put up. Cape Town being a popular tourist destination with graffiti and street art being a strong component of its cultural heritage, the significance of this contest for continued access to the public space for artistic self expression can only be well appreciated against the back drop of graffiti’s roots in ancient history, dating back well before the 16th century, its tendency to give voice to contemporary social and political misgivings and its adoption as a vehicle for artistic expression within the larger context of popular culture. Violators are now being fined as much as R1,500 and interestingly, organizations like the Visual Artists’ Network of South Africa have been drafted to help speed track application processes for their members.


The Art & Space of Public Opinion
It is in view of these happenings that the first edition of ArtSpace RoundUp is themed: “The Art & Space of Public Opinion.” On Saturday the 25th of February, we shall be deliberating on the role of the artist in the calibration and expression of public opinion and the control of / negotiation for public spheres for its expression. There will be artistic presentations, a roundtable discussion and interactive engagement. The event holds at Goethe Institut, 4th Floor, City Hall, 30 Catholic Mission Street, Lagos from 11am – 2pm.

The series of six bi-monthly artistic presentations and roundtable discussions is developed and coordinated by the Dream Arts & Design Agency (DADA) with the partnership and support of Goethe Institut Lagos.

30-storey hotel built in just 15 days

Broad Group, a Chinese building company, Broad Group, has a youtube time lapse video (which has generated 450,000 hits already) of a jaw dropping feat: They have built a 30-story tall hotel prototype in 15 days, inclussive of all the furnishings in the rooms. They are credited for having a previous record of building a 15-story building in a week earlier in 2011. The 30 storey hotel was completed over Christmas in 2011, in China’s South Central Hunan Province.

Statistics offered on feat include: 

Higher precision in fabrication (+/- 0.2mm).

More coordinated on-site construction management.

Shorter construction time span.

Lower construction waste.

Six times less cement.

Five times more energy efficiency.

And other health and energy features.

WATCH YOUTUBE VIDEO HERE:

According to Yahoo News: "The Ark hotel was built using pre-fabricated modules and uses a diagonal steel bracing.

The remarkable building also boasts a filtration system with air 20 times purer inside than outside and can withstand a 9.0-magnitude earthquake, as tested by the China Academy of Building Research.

In 2010, the same firm built a 16-storey residential block in only five days.

And it’s not just the hotel that was built in the 15 days, but all the furniture has apparently been moved into the building, so it’s ready for guests".

One comment on the Youtube page reads thus: "Building and assembling are two different things. And in the case of this building, it was assembled in 15 days, not built." 

However that rhethoric was challenged by another viewer with the following: 

"Define (verb) Built: Simple past tense and past participle of BUILD.

Define Build: To construct by assembling and joining parts or materials.

(Hopefully to silence the neigh-sayers regarding any doubt that this was BUILT as correctly stated in the video's title and summary.)" 

Whichever side of that debate your sentiment swings, it reamains no doubt a jaw dropping feat and makes a strong case for pre-fabrication in delivering high performance buildings at a competitive cost.

DesignPages Issue 2 launches via digital downloads

Definitely, there's no better way to extend to you the best compliments of the season!

DesignPages Issue 2 launches today via digital downloads on: www.designpages.biz.

Do visit our site, take a look at the magazine and tell us what you think!

Despite sounding all cool and civilized about this, we're actually celebrating and doing mental cartwheels as this post is being sent. It's not been a walk in the park, since 2008 when the preview
edition (issue 1) was published through mid 2011 when we decided the time was ripe for the return
of DP. We serve you our modest offering and hope you'll join us in the journey through many more editions.

British Council turns out an impressive Creative Industries Expo

British Council has come to be known for a bevy of highly impactful interventions in a sector now globally referred to as the Creative Industries over the past decade, including the Crossing Borders online creative writing scheme (with Lancaster University), the New Writing in Drama Project (with the Royal Court Theatre), the International Young Design Entrepreneur of the Year award, the music and publishing versions of that initiative and the more recent creative entrepreneurship training programmes organized in collaboration with the Pan African University and the Creative Industries Development Agency (CIDA). These interventions in creativity in Nigeria came to a head with the recently concluded Creative Industries Expo held at the Eko Hotel and Suites in Victoria Island.

 

Organized in collaboration with an impressive list of partners like the Bank of Industry, UK Trade and investment, Goethe Institut, Nexim Bank, Federal Ministry of Culture and Channels Television and Cool FM as media partners, the expo delivered resoundingly well on what was from the outset a fairly ambitious programme; starting off with a pre-event networking session at the Eko Hotel on Sunday the 4th of December, through three days of intense seminars, professional clinics, exhibition and creative showcases

.

DP correspondents particularly found the session on Intellectual Property, Copyright and Creativity (co-ordinated by D’Talkshop) and the session on The Creative Economy in the Digital Space (co-ordinated by Paradigm Initiative) both of which held on Day 3, to be most instructive given how critical IP and Internet Technology issues have become to the existence and survival of creative enterprises globally. Discussions surrounding policy frameworks and challenges of the Nigerian creative entrepreneur were slow in gaining audience enthusiasm, but not so the evening events which included a music and fashion showcase, a film and television showcase and a closing gala that was well attended and headlined by Liyel Imoke- the Governor of Cross River State whose special assistant and Chairman of the planning committee for the Calarbar Carnival- Nzan Ogbe was beside himself with pride in presenting the Calabar Carnival as a successful example of public-private partnership working well to the benefit of the creative industries. At the Gala, David Higgs, country director for the British Council half jokingly commented that the Council looked forward to when the creative industries would no longer be refered to as an emerging economy, this is rather apt given that creative enterprise predates even the 16th century creation of the Idia mask in Nigeria, however it is the collective realization that ‘this creativity business is not just business, but big and serious business’ that is novelle, and not just in the Nigerian environment, as the British Council’s initiatives in Nigeria stem from an industry wide awakening that has spread from the UK to countries across Africa and other continents.

The main clincher for the organisers in our estimation however, was in their ability to harness the gains of having invested in entrepreneurship training for a large number of creative entrepreneurs over the past two years and taking the initiative to offer 50 of these emerging businesses free exhibition spaces at the expo, which were all taken up, resulting in a rich and diverse exhibition. Exhibitors engaged by DP revealed that their presence at the expo had afforded them an amazing opportunity for networking and promoting their creative businesses, the benefits of which they were reaping already through new business contacts. Of all the stands taken though, there was a preponderance of fashion / accessories related brands over and above subscribers from the architecture, design, software sub-sectors. These sub-sectors registered very little presence in comparison to the publishing, film & TV, and performing arts sub-sectors which does not indicate a dearth of practitioners in these fields, but rather a lack of awareness or lack of willingness to publicly exhibit. DP correspondents took time out to engage some of the fashion / accessories based exhibitors at the expo.

Onyechi is built solid.

Recently, the design sleuth encountered one of the most interesting
show reels he had ever seen since he started keeping tabs on the
Computer Generated (CG) art scene in Nigeria. The show reel features
the character design portfolio of Onyechi Nnoli, a soft spoken digital
artist who just returned to Nigeria for a spell after concluding his
studies in animation at the Frameboxx institute of animation in
Bangalore, India. Onyechi's art is solid all through with absolutely
no fissures like you would find in the works of some CG artists who
are quite adept with different software but are weak in the actual
design of animated characters. Onyechi is a thorough bred artist with
his digital art finding a strong foundation in his abilities as an
illustrator, a painter and a designer. The design sleuth tracked him
down for a quick chat.


AA: You have an amazing portfolio of 3D character designs, what
inspired your interest in the art and how have you been able to
develop the skill to such an impressive level?

ON: What really inspired me was the 3d aspect of the art. It is really
being able see the totality of the object or character from any angle
that inspired me to develop myself in the field. I have always liked
sketching and painting, in fact all I ever wanted was for my parents
to just keep old diaries for me to draw my stick men on and paint
them. Along the line I started seeing 3d movies, then came across some
amazing 3d communities online and started building a collection of
pictures of 3d characters on my computer which inspired me even more.
During my training as a 3d artist, the passion I had for concept art
and modeling played a key role in the character design. I would
practice in the day time and spend most nights on research. I spent a
huge amount of money on 3d character design and modeling books and
tutorials which really went a long way in giving me ideas and
sharpening my skill. I also had to really dedicate hours on modeling
and concept sketching. My best friends were my pencil and paper.
Sometimes the model wouldn't come out as desired but the key factor
was never giving up and never listening to the praises of people
because there is a lot to learn and improve on. The desire to move
from one level to a higher level of perfection inspired me to keep
digging for better results

AA: India has quietly become a major destination for high quality
animation and visual effects and you have been immersed in that
development for the past four years while training to be an animator,
how has that experience shaped your career?

ON: The experience has been wonderful; it has really opened me up to a
higher level of art and creativity.
India is a country which has movies as part of its culture. Big
companies like DreamWorks, Rhyme and Hues and others located in India
provide internship for students. It has really shaped my career in
many more ways than one. When I sit and see a CG movie I see the
various stages and processes involved and it makes me appreciate the
movie and producers the more. It has given me the skills needed to
take up 3d movies and presentations with more courage knowing the
steps to take to get the required results.

AA: You studied fine art at the IMT Enugu before leaving for India,
what skill did you pick at Enugu that you rely on the most in your new
specialization.

ON: IMT was a training ground for me because I got the basics of arts
such as drawing, clay sculpting, basic designs, colour harmony,
balance and principles of design in that environment. As a concept
artist and a modeler, the art foundation made it possible for me to
skillfully convey my idea on a 2d surface with the traditional media.
This went a long way in affecting my art. Now as a CG artist I haven't
left my pencils but rather been introduced to other 3d applications
such as Maya, Z-brush, Animo, Photoshop, AfterEffects etc. However,
without the art background I had in IMT, it would have not been a
smooth journey being a concept artist/3d modeler.

AA: Bangalore is said to be the IT capital of India, does that also
make it the animation capital? What character does Bangalore lend to
your work, as a student, and now as a professional?

ON: One can definitely say it's an IT capital but not really the
animation capital because other cities like Mumbai, Chennai and
Hyderabad have a lot of animation studios just like Bangalore. Though
Bangalore may not be the animation capital, the city still exposed me
to a lot as I walked into seminars conducted by makers of top world
known animated movies like Lion King, Incredible Hulk, Kung-fu Panda
and Madagascar. This really brought a lot more meaning to my
understanding of  animation.

AA: What has been the most challenging project you've worked on as an
animator / 3D modeler?

ON: The most challenging project I have every worked on was the first
project I did back in India as a student titled "The Dirty Pilot". It
was a short movie. I ran into a lot of challenges because I had
problems being able to finish the work within the time given. As a
fresher then my main problem was really carrying my team along and
sticking to a finished concept - without changing the CG - to the very
end of the project.


AA: If you had one chance to influence Africa's role on the global
animation scene in any way, what would you do?

ON: I would suggest good and quality trainings centers be established
in our society. Africa has a lot of talented people but few really
make out the time and opportunity to sharpen their talent. This has
limited the quality of output in so many ways. I would setup training
centers that don't just teach animation but focus on the creativity
and the psychology behind animation coupled with very good acting.

AA: For a new animation and special effects company on the scene,
Paperplane Studios seems to be poised to enter the industry in a big
way, what with the pool of talent you have assembled. Are there
in-house projects like feature films and computer games in the offing
or is it strictly about servicing bigger production houses?

ON: Actually the vision of Paperplane studios is to produce animations
that can stand out anywhere, having all the qualities of a well
animated movie. We aim at being able to convey a storyline in the most
convenient method whereby adults and kids would sit back and really
enjoy and look forward to seeing our products on air. Nevertheless,
Computer games are being work on currently as well as VFX adverts/
presentations. Our goal is to build a strong animation team in and out
of Nigeria, whereby we as Nigerians can proudly have studios and CG
content that can comfortably compete with any animation studio out
there in the world

AA: You've just visited Nigeria for the first time in three years,
what has this homecoming been like for you? Have you been able to
scope the 3D animation scene in Nigeria within the time you've been
here?

ON: It's been very welcoming and interesting. Seeing my fellow
Nigerians has really been a thing of joy.  I have also observed that
many people are very eager to learn about the animation production
pipeline. It's still fresh here and at the same time coming up pretty
fast. I hope we start promoting CG in our society here and giving more
support to the young ones as the DADA group has devoted time and
resources to encouraging and empowering the youth.
.
AA: Where will Onyechi Nnoli be in the next twenty years? What will
you be up to?

ON: I hope to have animated at least seven world known movies and
trained more Nigerians in the art of 3d modeling /animation. I would
love to have affected kids and the youth with opportunities that would
give some of them the chance to positively affect their future and
that of generations to come.

If a Pool Guy can drive a Ferrari...

...then Omoluabi must have his Tarred Roads and Covered Gutters.
-Ayodele Arigbabu
(first published in March 2006 in The Guardian)

Femi Omoluabi is possibly the only person in these parts who can go to
work in his pyjamas and have no one complain. For a young man whose
workplace is just ten paces away from his bedroom, life can hardly get
any better, if you asked him, that's what he'd tell you. The people in
the neighbourhood where he keeps an apartment assume he is into shady
internet transactions of the Yahoo Boys ilk. You would too, if you had
a young man for a neighbour who is often indoors watching television
by all appearances and hardly leaves home to pursue any visible form
of livelihood. Yet Femi is no couch potato, his tubby frame not
withstanding, this fellow wakes up between 5am and 6am every morning
and trains for two hours before starting the day's job. What does he
do? Sumo Wrestling? Femi scratched his chin and thought for a second,
"Come" he said, gesturing towards his PC's monitor, "I'll show you"
and with a few clicks of his mouse, he did show me.
His odyssey started with an interview he watched on CNN while in first
year at the University of Lagos. The guy being interviewed worked at a
blue-chip company and obviously earned some good money there. When
asked what motivated him, he said it was his friend, a swimming pool
attendant who drove a Ferrari. Femi latched on to that and since then,
the Pool Guy (or the Ferrari or what they both represent) has been his
prime motivator. But that's not exactly where it all started. While
attending Comprehensive High School Aiyetoro before switching over to
Command Secondary School Ikeja, he already knew he wanted to do
creative stuff. He also wanted to work with computers so he toyed with
the idea of being a computer programmer until he realized that would
involve loads of calculations. He also faced the prospects early
enough of starving if he stuck to the pure arts. To say the least, he
was in a quandary.
Enter Koku, his high flying architect cousin who just returned to
settle in Nigeria with really nice clothes and 22 pairs of shoes (he
actually counted). Koku was a revelation, he's so cool, an architect,
he's creative…hmm…a good blend of art, science and business. Femi hung
around his cousin long enough to get hooked, his choice to study
architecture, he admits, was influenced by his cousin's apparent
success. Though, he chuckled, in hindsight, it was what Koku himself
would call Rush – Rush money: Very nice car without the money to fuel
it, just a few designer clothes and nothing else, but that was enough
for Omoluabi.
Studying architecture at Unilag however, was a disappointing
experience. In his own words, it had no role to play in his current
occupation. Okay, he gives it a thought; maybe it did, since nothing
in life is wasted. He sees design education in Unilag as being given a
bare foundation when what is needed is a super-structure which each
individual can then clad to his taste. The skill base could be useful
but there is a need to understand broader concepts. In an era when
it's cheaper to buy a personal computer than a draughting table,
students are allowed to learn Computer Aided Draughting and Design
(CADD) but are still restrained from presenting their assignments in
CADD form (*editor's note: this has since become a thing of the past
as the architecture department at the University of Lagos has since
fully embraced digital technologies). Omoluabi sighs after a pause-
Almost all learning is self development. That statement explains his
development to a large extent. A lot of his learning came from
magazines, and from studying them, he realized early enough that
architectural consultancy does not earn the sort of money that his
Pool Guy represented. He looked at architecture as a business and
didn't see the prospects so he thought to himself, how do I make money
and move out of home to a fairly comfortable place before I turn 30?
Femi had been hanging out with Peller – a senior course mate at the
University, nick-named after the late magician Prof. Peller in
deference to his adeptness with computer graphics at a time when it
was still at its infancy, he augmented this interaction with several
magazines which he purchased under the bridge at Ojueleba. In late
1999, Cadbury was selling off some of their old computers. Around this
same time, Omoluabi together with Prabu Ramalingam another course mate
entered for a competition organized by MOE for adaptive re-use of the
Ijora power station. They came fifth and part of the money awarded to
them went into the purchase of one of the Cadbury PCs in January 2000.
Femi added on some more hardware and did his first tutorial in
animation on the 21st of March 2000AD (he remembers the exact date)
and has never stopped learning ever since- hence the strict early
morning study regimen.
Through Peller, he was soon doing architectural animations for
different firms. His foray into the advertising industry was through a
chance meeting in a Cyber-Café. He made friends with a guy through
whom he eventually met the Agency Producer at SO&U, an association
that saw him doing voice-overs for the agency late in 2002. His first
job came out of an argument over the possibilities of creating some of
the animated adverts that Promassidor was airing on television in
Nigeria. Soon, Femi got his chance and did a Launch Video for HP in
Nigeria. Several jobs have followed, with SO&U remaining his major
source. In essence, Femi Omoluabi is a hired gun for advertising and
architectural firms for the production of Computer Generated Images
and Animations and he's not doing badly, in fact, he's living a dream.
Omoluabi takes time out to philosophize, being the son of a renowned
Psychologist; he has every license to do so: In life you can't see
your next level until you are on the present level….you cant really
visualize the future until you are on a level where it becomes
feasible. Which is why the rich will get richer, because being rich
anyway, they are at a vantage point for visualizing even more wealth.
10 years from now? Femi doesn't bother with long-term plans. In the
Interim, he's looking at a house in an estate plot in Lekki, meanwhile
a house on the Mainland would do. Do you know how difficult it is to
find land in an area with tarred roads and covered gutters? He asks
humorously. Next, he wants to go into the property Market at the sub
10 Million Naira level. In his chosen occupation, Omoluabi has a
floating idea of upping his game to provide international outsourcing
for architectural representations and content for television. He has
no clear cut route to achieving that but knows it's definitely the
next level because things are getting easier. He looks back with
nostalgia at the old days when things were more stressful. His major
pains still remain payment delays and unrealistic deadlines though
those are reducing now that he's established in the field.
For someone who works alone, he finds it rarely boring and cites his
work for MTN Graphix and Premium Chicken commercials as his most
memorable efforts due to the technical challenge they presented.
Omoluabi comments on the advertising industry: Ad agencies contain
some of the brightest minds in this country. It doesn't show though,
because clients shut down bright ideas due to their belief that
Nigerians are not appreciative of high levels of creativity. Femi
smirks regrettably, they're probably right.

Studio Prowl with the Design Sleuth:

B+TIC's Taiwo Aina on the Mercedes Benz Business Park, Lekki.
-Ayodele Arigbabu.
It's always interesting meeting an architect in his own space. The
last time the Design Sleuth met with Taiwo Aina at his Victoria Island
office was in 2008 when we had cause to collaborate on his pitch for
the Africa Pavilion at the 2010 World Expo in China. It was fun
engaging with a literally out-of-the-box design initiative, albeit
that the endgame left Aina feeling sour with the Chinese. "I'm not
having anything to do with the Chinese again," he said while we had a
chat on a wet Sunday afternoon. Aina looks the quintessential
architect, with a clean pate and slim round glasses, the round neck
tee shirt he wore was dark grey in colour, but got me wondering
whether black tee shirts were still in vogue internationally as the
de-facto uniform for 'trendy' architects. The office has a retro feel
to it and has a slightly surreal air when you visit outside office
hours. The chairs at the workstations are empty but you can almost
hear the mouse clicks and digital whirs that would take up the space
when each workstation is manned.
We played catch-up, talking about our shared interests in digital
media, 3D modeling, animation and interactive arts. Aina was for quite
a period a distributor for Graphisoft - manufacturers of Archicad -
which was the best thing to happen to architectural modeling,
visualization and Building Information Management before Revit took
over the scene and made Archicad look obsolete. "I ran into someone
with an amazing portfolio recently and couldn't believe he did it all
with Archicad," Aina mentioned. We both concurred that it's not the
tool, but the man (or woman I must add) that uses it, besides, being
in competition, the software vendors are in a constant process of
continuous improvement.
Then we talked about a project of his which had only recently been
commissioned. I had noticed the Mercedes Benz Place on the Lekki
Expressway several times while plying the route without realizing that
Aina's Building And Technical Information Consultants (B+TIC) was
responsible for it. I had wondered why the project took so long to
reach completion; now, talking with the architect behind the project;
I got to understand about the challenges behind direct labour
contracts and the fabrication of exposed structural steel members in
an industry where bespoke steel works are difficult to procure. The
Mercedes Benz Place comprises a business park made up of the Mercedes
Benz Center (show room, diagnostics, body shop and spare-parts store)
Bang and Olufson Center, Technogym and an Ecobank branch. B+TIC were
architects and project managers with Fred Moye Engineering as
structural engineering consultants. Jengs Engineering provided
structural engineering consultancy and Dwab Costprudence were quantity
surveyors. The project had Domus Construction Limited and Interkel
Nigeria Limited as contractors, Eurotech as Roof Contractors and EBM
being responsible for the Aluminium works while Dorman Long provided
specialist steel works fabrication.
For the project which is the 3rd Mercedes Benz project Aina would
deliver for Mercedes Benz Nigeria whose Managing Director, Benson
Uwatse (husband to visual artist Chinwe Uwatse who also runs Bang &
Olufsen) is a good friend.
According to Aina, the design process involved close interaction with
Mercedes Benz Stuttgart who gave detailed outlines as to how the
Mercedes Benz brand architecture was to be developed for service and
retail outlets. Given that Mercedes Benz's architects in Stuttgart
have stringent requirements for appending the 'star' brand identity to
any outlet, B+TIC had their work cut out for them despite having built
a couple of outlets for Mercedes Benz Nigeria in the past fifteen
years. Having worked in the past on a similar automobile retail and
service outlet for an international brand on the same Lekki
Expressway- The Briscoe-Ford Center , the Design Sleuth could very
well understand what Aina had to go through in meeting Mercedes Benz's
demands. The attention to detail paid off with the adoption of the
new Mercedes Benz Place Lekki as one of their international flagship
centers, just like an earlier facility built for the car brand by
B+TIC tagged 'The Habitat.'
While Aina slipped away for a minute I read a paragraph from a note he
had made on his experience putting the building together:
"Because of its worldwide presence, all aspects of Mercedes Benz
operations are of great significance in portraying their brand values.
The values are conveyed and emphasized through the architecture.
Customers and staff experience the appearance as part of the corporate
and brand culture. The architecture established the design and
ambience of all Mercedes Benz operations formats with the aim of
creating an identity that can be reorganized across all formats."
I'll leave off with another quote from him which lays plain what
brands like Guaranty Trust Bank and now, apparently, Mercedes Benz
have long put into practice in perpetuating their brand identity:
"Since a brand fulfils the real or perceived needs of the customer,
this perception occurs at a subconscious or subliminal level which is
emotional and based on relationship. Architecture and interior design
offer a wider field of synthesis, where all these components can be
brought together to evoke predetermined emotions and spur relationship
between the customer and the brand."
Well said Arc. Aina.
What else does this architect and his B+TIC have up their sleeves?
Well, let's just say I spied a visualization of an egg shaped form –
highly reminiscent of Norman Forster's Greater London Authority
building – pinned to the wall. It's for an office tower that is meant
to replace the building where the B+TIC office is currently situated
in Victoria Island. Shhh…that should be enough gossip for one week
already!