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RE-READING STORIES OF HOUSES
AIMS We do believe that architecture is part of specific stories, of affections and dreams, of interpersonal projects, as well as a result of negotiation and the unexpected. The course is built around the series of articles, “Stories of Houses”: http://storiesofhouses.blogspot.com Since these dwellings were built during the 20th century, the meaning of the cultural…
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CHILD IN THE CITY
AIMS Play is the highest expression of human development, not just for children but for adults as well. In a time when many people—both adults and children—are glued to their computers and mobile devices, rarely leaving their homes, urban and cultural problems arise, particularly affecting social cohesion. Urban designers and architects have a crucial responsibility…
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RADICAL PRESENT
AIMS This workshop is intended to confront the world we have received by making its paradoxes visible and revealing the absurdity of a discipline that continues to insist on defining itself from formal and stylistic aspects to deviate towards a factual, operational architecture that acts on the real… even if it does not build anything…
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RUSILIENCE- COMMUTE
AIMS Designing a resilient structural system for a bus terminal or a train station using available local materials (stones, timber… etc) inspired by biomimicry and learning from local environment and traditional architecture. The line from Yerkoy to Kayseri passes through many towns and it will have terminals for intercity buses and railway stations for high…
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EMBODIED LANDSCAPES
AIMS The workshop aims to explore the potential of emerging technologies to reconnect us with our world and it’s non-human inhabitants. Through this journey we will critically engage the place of new AI tools within this process. METHOD Interdisciplinary engagement (architecture & computing). – Make a film -Test AI tools -Group technologies exploration -Group intervention…
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THE CITY AS VISUALIZED MUSIC
AIMS Every city is a unique piece of music. Its rhythm is reflected by the incidental cadence (pulsation, undulation) of the urban structures and structural elements; its pitch reverberated by the various hues of colours, while its melodic leitmotifs translate into the recurring urban visual patterns. In this workshop, students will try to capture the…
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BUILDING THE EMPTINESS
AIMS This workshop is based on the belief that emptiness plays an essential role in all gestures and actions. It aims to explore how emptiness interacts with both constructed and natural spaces. The goal is to design a space for pilgrims of Santiago de Compostela in A Guarda, Spain, with a focus on using emptiness…
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CITY OF GHOSTS
AIMS / The temporal, transient and ephemeral nature of human presence in the urban environment. (Arch. Photography Quest – Chapter 5) METHOD / Using their cameras, students will explore their urban environment searching for imprints of the transient human presence / absence and try to capture the contrasting character of these ‘haunting’ scenes. TECHNIQUE /…
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DEFINING & REDEFINING STREET SPACE
AIMS / The function of the street space and the way it’s perceived depend on activity level of its users. Observation and analysis of the street in an urban, universal design and artistic key. Second edition. METHOD / 1. analysis of: – the function of buildings – urban composition – user activity and movement –…
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BUILDING THE EMPTINESS
AIMS / Working from a context that reafirms the importance of emptiness in all gestures and actions, which constantly confront the constructed space and the natural space where we live our daily lives. And creating a New Narrative Through the spaces of Three iconic Houses. METHOD / Thinking and looking at emptiness as a design…
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MASHRABIYA, Ma’ Malqaf Modernization
AIMS / To understand traditional Architectural elements in Islamic world that are used to create environmentally comfortable and healthy buildings. To be able to design new elements inspired by traditional ones. METHOD / Groups of 2-3 persons will be established to: choose one element, create 2min analysis presentation video -Design a modern element for the…
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URBAN MUSICAL DEVICE: Music pavilion
AIMS / Interpreting Public Place and Local Heritage; designing a thematic (music) small ephemeral architectural structure for the Cultural Capital of Culture 2027. METHOD / Students will be paired with international colleagues: select an historic urban space in Évora and propose an urban device to enable people (locals, visitors, etc.) to enjoy music that place.…
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MEDITERRANEAN URBAN SHELTERS. Alicante study case
AIMS/ Year after year, climate change underline the lacks of the cities urban planning and the disconnection in between architecture and the urban fabric in terms of its insufficient adaption to the climate change demands. The aim of the exercise is to search and found, urban situations inAlicante where climate shelters would improve the urban…
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RADICAL ENCOUNTERS. The city as a laboratory
AIMS / Learning from the relationships between us and our urban environment students will conceive the program as an open framework, generating new radical scenarios in the city through architecture. The aim of this workshop is to build upon what has been explored in the previous workshops. METHOD / SEMINARS: Reflecting on the architectural program…
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TABARCA: A PLANETARY INDIGESTION
AIMS / When we think of islands like Tabarca, it is common to imagine yourself disconnecting in an idyllic independent paradise. But far from being a self-sufficient island, Tabarca is a place deeply dependent on an outside world that provides it with services, manages part of its waste or delivers its tourists. A dependency much…
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DEFINING & REDEFINING STREET SPACE
AIMS The function of the street space and the way it is perceived depend on the activity level of its users. Observation and analysis of the street in an urban, universal design and artistic key. METHOD 1. Analysis of: – the function of buildings and transport; – the height of buildings and greenery; – user…
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RUSIELIENCE- RUral reSIELINCE
Rusilience, is a workshop aims to achieve RUral ReSIELINCE, through developing traditional rural housing by locally feasible structural/construction systems. CONTENT / Climate change resisting strategies and rapid transformation in developing countries focus on designing systems which modernize cities and make their structures resilient in the face of natural disasters. Unfortunately, the process neglects rural areas…
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BUILD THE EMPTINESS
METHOD / Students will work around the possibility of creating a space and its perception and imagining the place to built. TECHNIQUE / Collages, sketches, drawings, photo, physical model, CAD drawings, tools that allows the construction SILENCE, TRUTH AND POETRY. AIMS / Working from a context that reaffirms the importance of emptiness, which constantly confront the constructed…
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RADICAL HOUSING
CONTENT / Radical comes from the latin radix, -īcis, and means root which, as for the Oxford Dictionary, stands for the origin or basis of something. Therefore, a RADICAL HOUSE should be somehow connected to the original meaning of what a house is but…. what is a house? What are its main characteristics and ingredients?…
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ONEIROPHRENIA
A tribute to Mickael Sorkin CONTENT / We are convinced that the city has a role to play in the ecological transition we are experiencing. It seems essential to see the city as an ecological system that needs resources to be able to function, give us the opportunity to Live and Circulate but also that…
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INTERWEAVINGS
CONTENT / We are situated within complex interweavings of event; environmental, human, non-human, digital. Our urban spaces are complex relational realms in a constant state of becoming; a thick space of overlapping narratives set in both physical form and mercurial digital form. Ambitions for the evolution of the metaverse, avatars, and the expansion of our…
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BIOTOPES
A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. The proposal is to redesign a network of Biotopes in Tabarca to project a future for the Island. The improvement of the biotopes through the project, as a network of connections, must effectively…
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A.I.DENTITY
METHOD The course will help identifying and visualizing the distinct characteristic architectural traits in an urban environment, understanding what makes our context individual. TECHNIQUE Using their cameras, students will explore their urban environment for recurring unique patterns. Then, using their findings, students will synthesize an imaginary signature collage of their city with the aid…
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ARCHITECTURE, CREATIVITY AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE DAWN OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
METHOD Future of architecture and urbanism will be greatly influenced by AI, but first, we need to know what kind of tools will be available and how to use them. TECHNIQUE – Searching for the tools, apps, protocols… – Analyses of what is about to happen, short essay. – Using the tools for rapid…
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TREES ARCHITECTURE FOR MOVABLE CITIES
METHOD The course will explore the immaterial meaning of trees for moveable future scenarios in cities. Trees are used as metaphors and tools to explore cities’ contexts according to new utopia creativity. TECHNIQUE We explore our ideas using hand drawings, digital drawings, and other media. AIMS Imagining different and unexpected methodologies of communication…
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NEW VISION OF PERFECT PLACE TO GIVE A BIRTH
METHOD Students create an idealistic vision of place which do not exist: ‘New Vision Of Perfect Place to Give A Birth’ and spend time before and after. Opposite of conventional – hospital which are focused on doctors, machines, and medication. Forget about it! TECHNIQUE First week: the aim to produce series of sketchy ideas.…
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3M: MASHRABIYA, MA’ MALQAF
METHOD To understand traditional Architectural elements used in creating environmentally comfortable and healthy buildings. To be able to design new elements inspired by traditional ones TECHNIQUE -A model of the designed element. -A story board (shop drawings are recommended) -2min analysis presentation video. AIMS The importance of traditional and vernacular architectural heritage and…
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EPHEMERAL ARCHITECTURE: URBAN FOLLIES
METHOD Interpreting Public Place and Local Heritage; designing small ephemeral architectural structure for the Cultural Capital of Culture 2027 TECHNIQUE Students will be paired with international colleagues: select an historic urban space in Évora and propose an urban device to enable people (locals, visitors, etc.) to enjoy that place. AIMS Raise awareness about…
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SITE WORKS: THINKING THROUGH DRAWING
METHOD Evolving the site drawing as a tool to think through. TECHNIQUE Evolving drawing techniques using your choice of medium in relation to site interests and project concerns. AIMS To explore the capacity of drawing as a means of extending cognition. STRENGTHS Evolving tools to investigate a site. TEACHING DAY AND HOURS Fridays 09.00-13.00 CET…
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BIOTOPES v2 COMPETITION
A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. Last semester we did a workshop related to biotopes. This year we will start with this information and we will revise the concept of Biotope using the work developed by the students as a…
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VENICE IN THE METAVERSO v2
CONTENT / what it is relevant on Architecture nowadays is talking about SUSTAINABILITY AND DIGITALIZATION. Last year we designed in the Metaverso in Venice to create new environments, relations and horizons. The proposal for the workshop is to create a sustainable space with agents and objects in order to redesign the project developed last year…
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ARCH: MAPPING THE IMAGE OF URBAN GAIA
The Gaia hypothesis (/ˈɡaɪ.ə/), proposes that living organisms interact with their inorganic surroundings on Earth to form a synergistic and self-regulating, complex system that helps to maintain and perpetuate the conditions for life on the planet. It was formulated by the chemist James Lovelock and the microbiologist Lynn Margulis in the 1970s. Learn more about…
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ARCH: Radical futures_Contemporary Edens
Athanasius Kircher, Garden of Eden in Arca Noë, 1675 CONTENT / Paradise comes from the latin paradisus, from the greek paradeisos, from the persian pairidaeza or “enclosure”, from “pairi” (meaning “around”, in Greek it’ll derive to “peri”) and “daeza” (meaning “wall”). Paradise or Eden was, therefore, first of all, a fortress, a place to…
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ARCH: Ecosystemic Relationships
CONTENT / Situation. In the city people, ideas and objects cohabitate. Some have attracted the others, but their relations remain difficult and the potential profits of their cohabitation remains largely unrealized. In the article “Do it by yourself” published in L’Architecture d’aujourd’hui in 1970, Tschumi and Montès developed a reflection on interaction in architecture underlining how…
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ARCH: Re: Enactment
CONTENT / ‘Re:Enactment’ is the latest chapter in a series of workshops exploring the various interpretations and potential in narrative architectural photography, following workshops from the previous semesters: ‘Texture, Rhythm, Pattern’ & ‘Visual Storytelling’. Students once again use their photo cameras to capture their personal interpretation of human interaction with the architectural environment, and the…
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ARCH: Characters in the Open Building
CONTENT / The city as any living organism should be looked at not only in a three-dimensional (spatial) context but in a four-dimensional one that takes into account time. The changes taking place in the urban fabric range from the construction of new buildings to the adaptation and the demolition of existing structures. Thus, it…
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ARCH: Before Me the Deluge
Hokusai’s Great Wave. Photograph: British Museum CONTENT/ Last summer, biblical floods in northern Europe washed away houses, undoing roads, revealing subterranean services. If our environment is unpredictable because of human or celestial activity is irrelevant: the reality is that water, while vital, is for architects a design constraint. Keeping water where it needs to be is…
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ARCH: Positive Birth
DESIGN A NEW BIRTH CULTURE 2022 WORKSHOP – SEMINAR – COMPETITION – EXHIBITION – RESEARCH QUESTIONS CONCERNING NEW VISION “In today’s culture, birth is in crisis” says Milli Hill, author of the Positive Birth Book who campaigns for dignity and right of choice for women planning birth. But perhaps the whole culture before and after…
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ARCH: Rusilience
Rusilience, is a workshop aims to achieve RUral reSIELINCE, through developing traditional rural housing by locally feasible structural/construction systems. CONTENT / Climate change resisting strategies and rapid transformation in developing countries focus on designing systems which modernize cities and make their structures resilient in the face of natural disasters. Unfortunately, the process neglects rural areas…
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ARCH: Liminal: Digital Landscape
Liminal: an intermediate state, phase, or condition: in-between, transitional CONTENT / We live suspended between the digital and the physical, in a liminal space. The pioneers of digital landscapes we navigate realms unfettered by physical constraints. A place where stories can construct and reconstruct themselves at will, where time is not just static but can…
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ARCH: Designing with the Climate
CONTENT / Nowadays we can hardly think of architecture without a focus on sustainability and energy efficiency. It is obvious that climates in many parts of the word are changing due to our huge CO2 footprints. If we want to design climate responsive architecture, we carefully need to choose the building materials and think about…
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ARCH: Biotopes
A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. CONTENT / This year again we start making emphasis on the many changes that are shaking the architecture profession. More specifically, this time the introduction of non-human conditions in the process of design is…
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ARCH: Coastline Window
As a tribute to our coastline … CONTENT / We know, now, that the rising waters could reach about 90 centimeters. This information should change our way to design the architectural project in this area. Above all, it is a question of letting the site guide the project rather than thinking of the architectural object…
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ARCH: Interpretation through Photography
CONTENT We, as designers of buildings and places, need to understand the spaces in which we are creatively working. Without that we cannot begin designing. This workshop is all about using photography as a tool to help us to understand place and to capture our personal take on it. It will provide you with an…
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ARCH: Behi(yo)nd a Picture
CONTENT / Starting from a picture chosen by me the students are asked for developing the architecture of the landscape the image represented in it. The picture could be a painting but also a comic or postcard and the students have to produce plans, section, and sketches and all they consider enough to represent the…
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ARCH: Inside outside – Contaminating architecture and landscape
CONTENT / Today, architecture, public spaces, gardens, and landscapes are experiencing moments of contamination like never before seen in the history of these disciplines. During the Renaissance and soon after, major projects such as Versailles brought together the fields of architecture and landscape, creating physical connections and visual relationships between garden spaces and the monumentality…
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ARCH + ARTS: COMPETITION / RESEARCH: Venice in metaverso
CONTENT / what it is relevant on Architecture nowadays is talking about SUSTAINABILITY AND DIGITALIZATION. WATER as a physical and digital substance that create new environments, relations and horizons. The proposal for the workshop is to create a sustainable space with lines, agents and objects in order to design a project inside the “METAVERSO”.…
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ARCH: architectural cornerstones
CONTENT / The corner plays a very special role in any architectural scale – from the micro to the macro. It is the boundary of architectural spaces, both inside and outside. Corners define places and transitions, they mark beginnings and ends. Corners are the exceptions of any rule. However, the corner has, for a…
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ARCH: Visual Storytelling – Interaction with Architecture through Photography
CONTENT / This workshop is a spiritual and thematic continuation of ‘Texture, Rhythm, Pattern’ from the fall semester. Students once again use their photo cameras to capture their personal interpretation of human interaction with the architectural environment, and the potentials in visual storytelling through still images. AIMS & METHOD / In a similar…