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Projects The "n" in the name of the firm nARCHITECTS is the same sort of "n" you might see in a high school algebra class. "It's an unstable signifier," says partner Eric Bunge. "It's meant to show that we can change, that our work can be responsive and flexible." Bunge explains that the n also stands for the number of people in the firm. "Right now," he says, "n equals two." Bunge's partner, Mimi Hoang, also works as a designer for Steven Holl, but the two have been working together since 1996, after they met at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. nARCHITECTS has existed as such since 1999, when Bunge left his job at Diller + Scofidio, where he served as project architect for that firm's Blur Building. The catalyst that finally brought nARCHITECTS' two partners together in a formal collaboration was their entry for the Hotel Pro Forma, an itinerant Danish performing arts group's new permanent home in a planned extension to Copenhagen. The initial stage of the competition had no program at all, and nARCHITECTS, along with their collaborators fieldOFFICE, proposed an alternating series of lobbies and rooms, with passage among all of the areas billed by an electronic card system. The nARCHITECTS team took first prize in the conceptual phase, and was invited to participate in the second stage of the competition, one of only seven international teams invited to do so. This stage dictated the project's site and dimensions, but gave very little programmatic guidance. The team's entry, found below, won encouraging comments from the judges, but ultimately, a Danish team won for the practical reason that the performers needed a "black box" theater. The Hotel Pro Forma, however, was part of nARCHITECTS' winning entry to the Architectural League of New York's young architects competition this year, so the future looks bright for these young architects as they move from the theoretical to, they hope, the built. by Kevin Lerner
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