NULA.STUDIO x PALMA’s pink-hued installation in madrid explores the limits of reality

'fake realness' on view at COAM in madrid Developed on the occasion of the annual URVANITY Art Fair taking place in Madrid, Spain, 'Fake Realness' »

lea zeitoun May 6, 2023 3 min

‘fake realness’ on view at COAM in madrid

Developed on the occasion of the annual URVANITY Art Fair taking place in Madrid, Spain, ‘Fake Realness’ unfolds as a collaborative project between architecture practices PALMA (Mexico) and NULA.STUDIO (Madrid). The pinkish installation space, photographed by José Hevia, is on view at the College of Architects of Madrid (COA), exuding a stone-like aesthetic and appearance that spotlights the ‘limits of reality and material fiction,’ the architectural team explains.

NULA.STUDIO x PALMA's pink-hued installation in madrid explores the limits of reality - 1 — all images © José Hevia

spotlighting infinite recycling and technological evolution

The joint proposal by PALMA (see more here) and NULA.STUDIO (and here) for URVANITY Art Fair investigates the creation of new flooring and wall materials by Tarkett ‘and revalues the elements in which technological evolution and infinite recycling directly question the existing perception of the artificial,‘ the duo writes.

Design-wise, as visitors walk through the pinkish spaces of ‘Fake Realness’, the granite-like aesthetic of the vinyl fabrics takes center stage, contrasting with the lightness of the two-tiered curtains, only millimeters thick. The latter levitate on crushed pieces of the same material, a grinding that is ‘the origin of the material, but also its destination since, at the end of the exhibition, everything will be recycled and shredded, to become, many times, the same vinyl,’ conclude PALMA and NULA.STUDIO.

Palma’s team — lIse Cárdenas, Regina de Hoyos, Diego Escamilla –, originally based in Mexico City and today digitally multilocated is an emerging practice and the recipient of the League Prize from The Architectural League of New York. NULA.STUDIO, led by Laia Cervelló and Miguel Fernández-Galiano and headquartered in Madrid, believes in design as the engine of social transformation, focusing on experimentation with respect to what exists — be it in the city, as in the rehabilitation of the Foios Town Hall in Valencia, or the landscape, as in the Xoane Civic Center in Coruña.