Allan Sylvester’s film explores the former printing press company Rotaprint‘s building, located in a suburb of Berlin. Rotaprint were pioneers in the production and export of printing press machines until 1989. The original site started as low rise building and in the 1950’s the company decided to give the company a new modern identity by redeveloping the site with a new administration corner building designed by the architect Klaus Kirtsen. The original plan for the corner building was for a 7 storey building but for some reason in 1958 construction was halted and the corner building remained as we see it today façade unfinished and 5 storeys. In 1991 the corner building and some of the associated site buildings was declared Monument status which is equivalent to the British listed buildings system.
“ExRotaprint” started in 2004 as a tenant initiative initiated by artist Daniela Brahm and Les Schliesser who founded an association of tenants to purchase the property. Since then, the corner tower and site buildings has been undergoing refurbishment becoming part of the social fabric of the area, offering low studio rents for artist, makers, and offering cultural activities and learning opportunities to the local residents.
Authors and Credits
All Credits: Allan Sylvester
Visit Allan’s website HERE
Location
Corner building on Gottschedstraße and Bornemannstraße, Berlin, Germany
Read More
Profile & Architecture
Allan Sylvester was born in London, studied an architecture degree at the London Metropolitan University, then architecture Diploma and part 3 qualification at the Bartlett school of architecture London. He is a co-founder and director of Ullmayer Sylvester Architects, which is a design led studio based in Hackney London, which was started in 2005 after participation in a custom-build housing project in North London. The studio’s work has received various awards and have been widely published. Since 2010 he has also been a part time educator in Interior architecture, teaching at the School of Architecture & Cities at the University of Westminster London, and also Allan has been a regular judge for the Architects Journal Retrofit Awards.
Filmmaking & Architecture
Producing films with drones is a passion and has been doing so for other architects who wish to showcase their work on social media platforms and website. He has an enthusiasm for architecture being captured through the medium of film and keen to explore and experiment with the representation of architecture seen in motion. Allan uses his architectural background and eye for detail and concepts, together with his ability as a drone pilot, to give a unique visual experience from the interior as well as exterior viewpoint .
He also takes a keen interest in the brutalist and modernist era of architecture and has undertaken projects exploring the virtues of this period here and abroad.
Flight planning & Architecture
Firstly, for Allan, planning and storyboarding a shoot is no different from sketching, planning, and representing a design for a building or space. The same considerations of perspective and point of view for visual story telling are taken into account. So like in architecture his process starts with observing the site, and the possible ideas and concepts for the flight plan shoot.
Secondly, Allan is an registered CAA drone operator, which means he has obtained the required training and certification to fly and carry out work for commercial purposes. Once a theme or concept has been decided, the flight plan then gets translated into a formal format of flight planning and risk assessments. This entails preflight assessment checks of the site and of the flight path to be flown, checking for any flight restrictions, and if necessary any permissions which might be required, all flights are insured with regards to the specific site location situations.
Allan Sylvester holds an Operational Authorisation (AO) PDRA01 drone licence issued by the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA).
Click Below
Visit us on Instagram