CONTENT / We live in a time of change. What we took for granted in the summer of 2019 is now an enormous uncertainty. Each day we sick for answers to questions such as when can we travel? When can we visit a museum? And I ask how can I introduce students, here and worldwide, to the World Heritage City (WHC) of Évora?
Following Darwin’s quote “It Is Not the Strongest of the Species that Survives But the Most Adaptable to Change”, in this workshop we will change the way we travel, by “bringing international students to Évora, and to the city Museums”, and exchange knowledge about architectural heritage, as space and place.
Participants will be asked to design an Urban Folly (from French folie, “foolishness”, a generally non-functional building that was in vogue during the 18th and early 19th centuries, to enhance a natural landscape), an ephemeral structure to place in an urban space, where the unimaginable will happen: the city heritage will be displayed, not inside a traditional and immoveable museum, but in the square or the street, perhaps from where the museum pieces have been found. And, by 5G technology, these Follies will be in contact with the rest of the world and provide a virtual tour to the WHC of Évora.
AIMS / To raise awareness about the local heritage of a WHC. To reflect on how it can be displayed into the public, here and elsewhere, in the outdoors.
METHOD / Interpreting Public Place and Local Heritage – Local participants (Évora) will be paired with international colleagues. Then they will be given an historic urban space in Évora and describe it to the foreign colleagues. To design an architectural structure to enable people (locals, visitors, etc.) to enjoy the historic values of that place. To present the idea in a mock-up.
SCHEDULE / 2-Week Workshop. Weekly 4-hour class
OFFICIAL TEACHING HOURS: 2 h Tuesdays + 2 h Thursdays 15:00-17:00 (PT)
Day 1 | Introduction of the workshop objectives (video-lecture of 15 minutes) + questions and feedback / Introduce yourself and three major values of the historic core of the city where you are living, in a short video (3min. máx) / Define work groups according to shared city’s values / Group work: Start the development of ideas
Day 2 | Group work: development of ideas and teachers’ feedback
Day 3 | Group work: teachers’ feedback on finalising Mock-up scale 1:50 and presentations in Zoom setting.
Day 4 | Final Crit.
(SELF-) EVALUATION / Answer to these questions in order to identify what skills you acquired:
Question 1 | Our world is increasingly composed of visual images – phones, tablets, laptops, cameras, therefore it is important to develop the ability to recognize, sort, and rearrange them in order to create something new: did you heightened your visual acuity (your ability to look at things on their own terms but also to make visual connections and to turn those visual connections into an evolutionary history that has a past, a present, and a future)?
Question 2 | This workshop has the capacity to be a consequential experience if it is used to enhance your knowledge on cities values, on why and how they can be used as triggers of new architectures. As you study other follies and ephemeral architectural structures, in order to understand how you can design one that responds to the challenge, you became an interactive learner, you expand your mind, you exchange ideas with other students, you work together in groups, and create real world projects and, by so doing – have you enhanced your academic and personal life? Please explain how.
Question 3 | By proposing an interactive learning experience, mixing students from different geographies and cultures, a contemporary solution (to bring cities values to wherever you are) to a real life problem (the impossibility/difficulty to travel to other countries to know indigenous cultures on-site) has been found and communicated using a mock-up – How have you learned with your colleagues and enhanced/enlarged your architecture communication methods?
Question 4 | Working in groups in such a short period, requires the establishment of tasks such as data gathering, discussion/brainstorming of ideas and methods, and time management – have you reached a definition of the concepts of space and place to suitably respond to the workshop proposal on cultural values?
Question 5 | Explain how innovative your proposal is.
Bibliography | https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/361/
Tuan, Y.-F. (2011). Space and place: the perspective of experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Évora University (PORTUGAL)
Sofia Aleixo (saleixo@uevora.pt)
João Santa-Rita (santarita@uevora.pt)