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SOKA-BAU

How to instill pride in architects and builders

Since 2005, Q has been responsible for creating premium archictural calendars that present outstanding buildings in a half-metre format for year-long display.

Since 2005, Q has been responsible for creating premium archictural calendars that present outstanding buildings in a half-metre format for year-long display.

Soka Awards, German Design Award Nominee, European Design Award, gregor international calendar award Soka Awards, German Design Award Nominee, European Design Award, gregor international calendar award

THE TASK

Q was asked by SOKA-BAU, the social security of the German construction industry, to come up with a calendar concept that would communicate a positive image to employers and employees throughout the year.

THE CONCEPT

Under the title “Fascination of Building”, we created a calendar series that celebrates important construction projects. We choose a different, surprising theme for each year’s calendar. Just like a foreman, we supervise the entire project – from the initial idea and resarch to editorial, art buying, and design to production supervision. The large-format pages display fascinating edifices, all linked by a common purpose. Marveling at them, the people of the building industry, who often confront difficult problems, feel great pride about what their know-how and creativity can achieve.   The SOKA-BAU calendars become collectors’ items, and they have received numerous awards. Some of them are part of the permanent collection of the German Calendar Museum. Q has created each calendar since the first one in 2005. Here are recent examples.

BUILDING WITH CHALLENGES

Under the title “Bauen mit Herausforderungen”, the 2020 calendar presents buildings whose constructions posed certain challenges – e.g. through urbanistic, financial, technical, or geographical requirements. The selected edifices proof that difficult conditions are not only given as problem but as part of a solution. In these cases, architects and constructors explore new grounds and go beyond themselves quite often. 

In our design concept, cropped numbers of each month were imbedded in the photos. Information and image levels, large-format typography and great archi-tecture merge — and surprise by their literal photo-graphic impression. The calendar was printed on “Bauhaus -Dessau”; this innovative industrial paper was launched 2018 due to a collaboration of Gmund Paper and the Bauhaus Dessau Foundation. The material makes great visual impact by its pleasant surface feel, pure materiality, and quality without any structure or effects.

Gregor International Calendar Award 2020: Gold
Japan Calendar Award 2020: Special Prize

BUILDING FOR THE SENSES

Are buildings audible? Yes. For instance, concert halls can deliver totally different sound experiences of a specific piece of music. Are buildings tangible? Yes. Their materials and designs provide tactile and visual sensations. A stunning view from a building is another example. SOKA-BAU’s 2019 calendar presents exceptional edifices that appeal to our senses in various ways. In its 13th edition, the calendar project again confirms the German building industry’s impressive capacity and performance. – Several exemplars of the SOKA-BAU calendar range – created by Q in content and form – are part of the German Calendar Museum’s permanent collection.

BUILDING WITH PERSPECTIVE

Buildings provide perspectives. Not only via the visual impression we receive when we look at forms, materials, and rooms, but also because buildings offer new possibilities as they open new vistas. For the calendar “Building for Perspectives”, we chose 12 examples of architectural design that communicate the fascination of construction. In addition to text explanation, each page includes two visual impressions at once (and hence two perspectives), with a photographic depiction overlayed by the abstract graphic shape of the structure.

BUILDING FOR LIVING

“Building for Living” was the main theme of the “Fascination of Building” calendar for 2017, Q’s 11th SOKA-BAU calendar.

Is there such a thing as the perfect space for living? Building a home requires creation and realization of spaces for human habitation, tasks that present endless design possibilities and vast challenges. Legal and structural guidelines often interfere with individual wishes. The 12 buildings chosen for the 2017 calendar dramatically demonstrate that courage, imagination, and visionary thinking can create perfect living spaces for the homeowners and their families.

Looking at a residential building makes us curious about how it looks inside. The calendar’s design concept plays on this curiosity. Inside the central circular area, a collage shows the exterior of each building. It lets the architecture partially rise into the background imagery, which reveals an interior view. This combination of interior and exterior creates an overall picture, representing the character of the building without violating the privacy of its inhabitants.

BUILDING FOR MOTION

For the 10th calendar in the series, we developed the theme “Building for Motion”, which featured architecture that enables motion and transportation – including sports venues and infrastructure projects (streets, bridges, railways). A visual link connects all the calendar pages by integrating “speed lines” in the images. They soften the static lines of the architectural photography and add a dynamic sense of motion throughout the calendar.

BUILDING FOR CULTURE

For the 2015 calendar, our main theme was Building for Culture, because we were inspired by the fact that many cultural buildings become objects of cultural value themselves. Their specific requirements often lead to innovative results, as impressively proven by the 12 buildings selected for the calendar, including the House of Cultures in Berlin, the Westerturm Ensemble in Duderstadt, and the German Mining Museum in Bochum. The color of each sheet was inspired by the time of year. From a cold blue to fresh green and warm red to dark autumnal tones and back to blue again, a seasonal color gradient expands over 12 months. While the image and calendarium are usually positioned in seperate areas, Q rethought the “normal” approach and inserted the month’s names in the building images. This combination of text and visual levels, big letters, and great architecture, forms a suprising unity through its compelling photographic impact.