Biotechnical Faculty, Ljubljana University

ARK arhitektura Krušec. Architecture is not a static but a dynamic, living thing. Similarly film is highly suited to represent and experience architectures as spaces, as stages for human encounter and interaction. In this series of short films architecture becomes animated, even transformed, with social input. Similarly it serves to animate its viewers/occupants — architecture as stage and actor both. (Good) built projects in Slovenia generally follow a well-thought and focused approach and execution. They are, relatively speaking, of modest size. They are small not in scale nor ambition — but small as in contained, disciplined, intelligent and specifically responsive. With room for a smile.

Small and Smart consists of six short films, one of each of six built architectural projects. Each employs a simple story — a development, an exchange — to move through and relate the experience of the architecture. As the films move through and document the spaces and exchanges, certain key features of the architectures are revealed and emphasised. All architectures here are recent builds (2006 and later) and are of varied types, programs and scales: private house, row house, industrial facility, sacred, educational/institutional, public/sports. Together they reflect representative currents, developments and practices in the best of Slovenian architecture today.

Museum of Architecture and Design, Ljubljana, Slovenia

Curator: Jeff Bickert (ARK)

Production: Matjaž Ivanišin and Damjan Kozole, Vertigo Emotionfilm