Zenith Boil Book Launch

Zenith Boil is an exploration of the architectural image when subjected to an atmosphere. Twenty-seven spaces were selected from Pa.LaC.E’s back catalogue of work. A rendering of each space was processed on a 35mm slide and then placed into a photographic scenario that the artists call a “scintillator”, composed of a Newtonian mirror, point light and a camera sensor.

After a subject breathes into an extracorporeal ceramic lung, the warm breath mixes with the cold air of a room, creating a turbulent condition around the renderings. Each slide was video recorded bathing in swirling air. The publication gathers stills from these videos.

In the book:

Vera Bühlmann explores the measurement and moderation of an “earth” to be measured through an imaginary line of longitude that manifests as an articulate breath—atemwende (breathturn)—and not one of geometric metre.

Alan Longino writes about how temporal currents produced by weather appear in Eastern literature as 'conduits of information' revered as moments for transcendence.

Valle Medina explores images that inhabit the sterile, hermetic vacuum of the interior of thoughts—of the body—and moves through to the outside and the elements, a “fleshing”.

Benjamin Reynolds shares how the gradual usurpation of the image over text calls a radical return to the textual, through the kinds of images that require readers.

We are delighted to welcome Benjamin and Valle to the Architectural Association Bookshop to celebrate this exciting new publication over refreshments. They will be in conversation with Vera Bühlmann and guests to explore and unfold strands of the book.

Launch Price £25 RRP £30

Benjamin Reynolds and Valle Medina run a Basel and London-based practice (Pa.LaC.E).

They currently direct a studio at the Royal College of Arts, London.

Valle Medina is a former Geisendorf fellow from the Laboratory for Applied Virtuality at ETH Zürich D-ARCH (summa cum laude).

Benjamin Reynolds received a diploma with honours from the Architectural Association, London.