UOU

Category: Uncategorized

  • ARCH: ephemeral architecture: urban follies

    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)

     

  • ARCH: Homeland Miniatures: A Collective Digital Travel book

    CONTENT / In architectural education, one of the most common and universal representation technique is central perspective which was discovered during Renaissance period. The rational world that Renaissance offered us helps to create a universal language in the field of architecture and enables to represent our thoughts on space so as to create a dialog between ourselves and others. On the other hand, some other techniques like iconography or miniature drawing reflects another understanding of the world and space per se that could be a new way of representation in our era.

     

    The understanding of perspective in miniature drawing is different from the European Renaissance painting tradition. The scene depicted usually includes different time periods and spaces in one picture. Thus, we may say that miniature drawing is a multi-layered representation. Miniatures are always a part of book, not like a standalone work of art and because of that they are closely related with the context of the book they were included in.

     

    In our “Homeland Miniatures: A Collective Digital Travel book” workshop, we will make a collective travel book that represents different cities/countries through miniature drawings of those homelands. Each student will draw a miniature drawing of his/her homeland or the city where he/she is living at that moment and write a short reflection paragraph that is related with his/her drawing. By putting all these drawings together, we will create our collective digital travel book at the end of the workshop.

     

    AIMS / To introduce a new way of looking and understanding the world around us. To start a debate between “Western” and “Eastern” thoughts. To think on how to represent a city/country through one drawing. To discover the textures, important landmarks and cultural artifacts of a city/country. To discover the multi-layered world of miniature drawings and their fragmented but yet holistic spatial characteristics. To discuss on the emancipatory character of architectural representations.

     

    METHOD / The tutor will give a lecture on miniature drawing and travel books (seyahatname) and introduce the drawing techniques through various examples. Each student will make one miniature drawing and write a short text about it. The process of the workshop will be as follows:

     

    1st > Introduction of the history and technique of miniature drawings and discussion on different cities

    2nd > Each student will start to draw fragments of spaces, textures that are related with their homelands

    3rd > Each student will propose a draft layout of his/her miniature drawing

    4th > Each student will apply all the fragments and textures to his/her miniature drawing and finalise it and write a text about it.

    5th > The tutor will put all drawings together to create the collective travel book and each student will present his/her page in it at the final crits session.

     

    SCHEDULE / 2-Week Workshop. Weekly 4-hour class arranged with the students:

     

    Feb. 11th, 2022 (Friday) | 30 minutes – Introduction

    Feb. 15th, 2022 (Tuesday) | 11:00-13:00 (CET) – Fragments of spaces, textures

    Feb. 18th, 2022 (Friday) | 11:00-13:00 (CET) – Layout of his/her miniature drawing

    Feb. 22nd, 2022 (Tuesday) | 11:00-13:00 (CET) – Finalise the miniature drawing and the text

    Feb. 25th, 2022 (Friday) | 11:00-13:00 (CET) – Final crits

     

    EVALUATION / The following will be considered in the evaluation process:

    • Active participation in discussions and production of drawings
    • Precise drawing in his/her own way
    • Writing a critical reflection text

      

    Bibliography /

    • Sener, S., (2007). “A SINGULAR ART: A Theoretical and Artistic Survey on Miniature and Hybrid Possibilities of Traditional Arts in Contemporary Art”, Master of Fine Arts in Graphic Design Thesis, Supervisor: Assist. Prof. Dr. Mahmut Mutman, Bilkent University.
    • Avci, O., (2016). “Rethinking architectural perspective through reverse perspective in Orthodox Christian iconography”, ITU A|Z Journal of Faculty of Architecture, 12(2), p. 159-171

     

     

    MEF University Istanbul (TURKEY) /

    Ozan Avci (avcio@mef.edu.tr)

     

  • ARCH: 2043 a dinner with Churchill in the Metaverse

    CONTENT /

    Sir Winston Churchill (1874-1965), British Prime Minister (1940-45, 1951-55) in his speech to the meeting in the House of Lords on October 28th, 1943 said “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us,” requesting the House of Commons, bombed out in May 1941 during the World War II, be reconstructed exactly as before. He stated that the old Chamber with rectangular configuration shaped the two-party parliamentary system, the essence of the British democracy. This is a profound and powerful statement that reveals how the environment we have created constantly shapes and affects us and how we perceive things.

    Since 2020, the pandemic has made more apparent the flexibility or rigidity, not only spatial, of the structures that organize the world we inhabit, the times of adaptation and the human predisposition to change. On the other hand, it has also revealed the increasingly recurring technological lifesaver, based on the need for networked, remote work without physical limitations—a clear invitation to reflect on how we architects can position ourselves to unfold the future. University of Universities, a pioneering example of adaptation, becomes the ideal setting for this reflection.

    In With a new mind Daniel H. Pink (2008) speaks of the end of the “Knowledge Age” and the beginning of a new era, the “Conceptual Age”, where the future belongs to a type of person with a global and creative vision. That seeks transcendence instead of people with logical, linear and computational capabilities, typical of the information age. In the middle of an intermittent pandemic, we will consider whether, as Churchill did with the old camera after World War II, we cling to the replica of the already known models that have shown their deficiencies, or we begin to anticipate what the new ones may be like. Physicalities, spatialities and social relationships that will “shape” the future, and consequently us, or rather, our alter-egos: the avatars. It is time to enter The Metaverse.

    The Metaverse responds to the growing incursions and dependence on the virtual world, where users can interact socially and financially using an avatar. Interactivity, incorporeality and continuity are essential for its operation. The Metaverse concept is not new but originates in 1992 in the novel Snow Crash by American writer Neal Stephenson. In 2018, director Steven Spielberg popularized it with the film Ready Player One, based on the 2011 Ernest Cline novel of the same name. Different companies such as Epic Games, Roblox or Facebook are leading and developing their Metaverse concept in which it will converge the physical or tangible with the digital. These companies will not constitute the Metaverse by themselves. However, they are already the first “architects” and inhabitants in it, and they are anticipating a paradigm shift for many professions and markets, architecture being one of them.

    As the futurist Matthew Ball points out in A Framework for the Metaverse, what happens in this space will become part of our culture. “Building things with friends within virtual worlds will become common, and major events within the most popular virtual worlds will become pop culture news stories.”

     

    AIMS /

    • Learn from our own experiences by taking an introspective journey to the food-space relationship.
    • Propose new ways of socialization around virtual/hyperreal food experiences.
    • Looking around us and highlighting the physical formats that are falling into disuse or being replaced by digital formats that reinforce our increasing dependence on the virtual world: digital money, documentation, art, workplaces, education, entertainment, shopping, socializing.
    • Conceptualize the future and propose a new professional framework for architects and designers.

     

    METHOD /

    Among the many transformations and changes in different sectors that The Metaverse proposes, this workshop invites us to focus on a critical economic and social engine in most cultures. We will talk about food and its power to socialize. We will first look at it by analyzing the traditional role it has been playing in our lives as a binding agent of social and family relationships, as a builder of memories, as a stimulator of meanings. After looking at the past, we will now reflect on the relationship that food establishes with the spaces where it is enjoyed. More specifically, we will imagine those gastronomic spaces of the virtual future.

    Day 0: Launch Part 1 and 2

    PART 1. FOOD-SPACE-FOOD (INDIVIDUAL WORK)

    Describe a space and a food/meal from your culture that both are intimately and uniquely intertwined, creating a distinctive symbiosis as food-space relationship. Your chosen space gives the food a unique dimension, just as the food gives the space an exceptional grade. Tell us, using ppt format, how the food builds the space and vice versa.

    Bonus reflection, any finding in other species?

    PART 2. ARCHEOLOGY OF THE VIRTUAL GASTRONOMIC FUTURE (TEAMWORK 2 STUDENTS)

    After extensive research, groups will present, using ppt format, the most relevant findings of existing experiences around food, or that can relate to food, in virtual environments. Reflect on how this “Meta-reality” can affect our relationship with food. Conclude with a summary table/chart/diagram of the most relevant features of the findings.

    Day 1: Presentation Part 1 and 2. Launch Part 3.

    PART 3. 2043 (TEAMWORK 4 STUDENTS)

    We are in 2043, a hundred years after Churchill’s mythical quote “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us”. The students propose a space, menu and eating experience in The Metaverse for virtual social gatherings around food. The following will be designed and presented (ppt):

    1. The virtual space: a transformable geometry and atmosphere
    2. The menu: 1 starter + 1 main course + 1 dessert showing their cutlery and eating ritual
    3. The eating experience in 4 interactions: avatar-avatar, avatar-food, avatar-space, space-food

    Do not miss including Mr. Churchill’s avatar in the performance.

    Important note: The student’s mindset should be wholly detached from reality. A dining experience in The Metaverse should benefit from unprecedented, exceptional and fictional conditions.

    Along with the ppt presentation, students will submit an A4 landscape manifest with the ten key features of the dining project. Each feature page includes the feature name, descriptive short sentence and image.

    Day 2: Final presentation and jury

     

    SCHEDULE / 2-Week Workshop

     

    • Friday, February 11th 14:00 (CET)

    Workshop 02a Presentation & Launch (30 minutes)

    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83777914345

     

    • Tuesday, February 15th 10:00-11:00 (CET)

    Review & Progress

    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84853602418

     

    • Friday, February 18th 10:30-14:00 (CET)

    PART 1 & 2 PRESENTATIONS

    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87018723206

     

    • Tuesday, February 22th 10:00-11:00 (CET)

    Review & Progress

    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86718328382

     

    • Friday, February 25th 10:30-14:00 (CET)

    PART 3 PRESENTATIONS AND FINAL CRITICS

    https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82256887417

     

    EVALUATION /

    The following qualities will be positively valued:

    • Risk
    • Creativity
    • Understanding of the task
    • Submission of all the required elements

     

    Grades will be based on each university’s requirements.

     

     

    American University in Dubai (UAE) / Jose Carrillo (jcarrillo@aud.edu)

     

     

     

    GUEST JURORS /

     

    Dr. Juan Carlos Arboleya

    Physical Biochemist. Expert in improving sensory and nutritional properties of foodstuffs

    Professor and Researcher at the Basque Culinary Center (University of Mondragón, Spain)

    Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Gastronomy and Food Science, published by Elsevier

     

    José de la Rosa Morón

    Gastronomic Scientist and Food Alchemist Lab

    Fermentedfreelance

     

    Dr. Georges Kachaamy

    Architect, expert in Future & Virtual Environments

    Professor of Architecture, Director of the Center for SAAD Research, Innovation and Design (CRID) at AUD.

     

    Jashan Sippy

    Food-Architect. Expert in sustainable food future

    Sugar and Space | Food Design Nation | Online School of Food Design

     

    José Antonio Antoli Salva

    Architect, Enterpreneur

    3DSC | Virtual You (VIU) | Savory Spain

     

    Dr. Francesca Zampollo

    Food Design Thinking Consultant, Teacher, Facilitator, Researcher

    Chief of Inspiration at Online School of Food Design

    Editor of International Journal of Food Design

    Founder of International Food Design Society

    Huffington Post Blogger

     

    Sergi Freixes

    Historian, food designer and graphic designer.

    Coordinator and professor of the Master’s Degree in Food Design at IED Kunsthal Bilbao, and the postgraduate course in Food Event Design at IED Barcelona

    Partner of the Food Design company Biscuits Barcelona

    Studio Freixes Pla

     

    Caroline Hobkinson

    Anthropologist

    Experiential event expert investigating the interrelationships between Tech, Food, Art and the Senses

    Collaborations with Unilever, Disney, Barilla, Magnum, Selfridges, Bang & Olufsen, Kensington Palace

     

    BIBLIOGRAPHY /

    The Metaverse Primer. (2022). Mattewball. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.matthewball.vc/all/category/The+Metaverse+Primer

     

    Metaverse Ecosystem Infographic. (2022). Https://Www.Newzoo.Com. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://newzoo.com/insights/infographics/metaverse-ecosystem-infographic/?utm_campaign=GGMR%202021&utm_content=170823463&utm_medium=social&utm_source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-1710460

     

    Nudake. (2022). Https://Www.Instagram.Com/. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.instagram.com/nu_dake/

     

    Bompasandparr. (2022). Http://Bompasandparr.Com/. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from http://bompasandparr.com/projects

     

    This is Mold. (2022). Https://Thisismold.Com/. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://thisismold.com/

     

    Alien Worlds. (2020). Https://Www.Netflix.Com/. Retrieved February 1, 2022, from https://www.netflix.com/ae-en/title/80221410

     

    Ortega, L., & Puente, M. (2017). Total Designer: Authorship in the Architecture of the Postdigital Age (English ed.). Actar.

     

    Pink, D. H. (2006). A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future. Riverhead Books.

     

  • ARCH: Public adaptive reuse

    CONTENT / The church of Bethlehem was built in 1959 by German architect Joachim Matthaei and is considered as a prime examples of northern German post-war modernism architecture.

    Desacred in 2005 the former church building houses a kindergarten since 2011. The award-winning transformation was planned by Stoelken and Schmidt architects. While interior fit out and open spaces of the kindergarten have been carefully designed the adjacent square has never been considered a public space of relevance in the vibrant quarter of Eimsbuettel.

    The former bell tower – a significant monument built as a concrete structure cladded with bricks today only remains due to its status a heritage listed object and is surrounded by a fence inaccessible to the  public. The neglected square surrounding the tower needs an upgrade to become the public space once again it was originally intended to be.

     

    AIMS / The design project intends to transform the forgotten tower into a public building within the quarter that is deeply interwoven with the local community and enrooted and interwoven with the public spaces surrounding its entrance.

    Inside the building today only a set of stairs and a few concrete slabs remain. The church bells have been removed. An existing roof terrace, once being home to the church bells offers a panoramic view of Hamburg’s cityscape.

    The local church is looking for concepts to re-use the heritage protected building with unconventional, creative, out of the box and reasonable ideas to enliven this unique example of post-war modernism. Bethlehem tower and square is envisioned to be a lively public space catering for the multiple realities present in Hamburg’s inner-city quarter of Eimsbuettel.

    From a wedding retreat to co-working spaces, rehearsal rooms, housing units or even a climbing center anything seems possible. So give free reign to your architectural-urbanistic fantasies!

     

    METHOD /The Workshop focuses on adaptive reuse of a public space and a public building by design.

     

    SCHEDULE

    12.11.21    Introduction

    19.11.21    Workshop

    26.11.21    Workshop / Presentation

     

    EVALUATION / Groups of two students propose concepts for an adaptive re-use of a former church tower and the adjacent square as an important public space in Hamburgs inner city quarter of Eimsbuettel.

     

    groundfloor plan indicating relation of open spaces 1:100

    Sectional perspective drawing 1:100

    Interior and exterior vizualisation

    Sectional Model scale 1:50

     

    IU International University Hamburg (GERMANY)

    Heiner Stengel / h.stengel@iubh-dualesstudium.de

    +

    BTU Cottbus Senftenberg (GERMANY)

    Liesa Marie Hugler / hugler@b-tu.de

     

  • ARCH: Build the emptiness

    METHOD / Thinking and seeing at emptiness as a design strategy that supports the construction of a place.

    TECHNIQUE / Emptiness is a tool and a method of experimentation that allows the identification of strategies that improve a physical place that human can occupy spiritually.

    AIMS / Working from a context that reaffirms the importance of emptiness in all gestures and actions, which constantly confront the constructed space and the natural space where we live daily.

    STRENGTHS / Development of the perception and need for the existence of emptiness using the creative process as a means of awareness. Like Eduardo Chillida and Jorge Oteiza´s sculptures, emptiness is no longer an absence, but a matter present in the built space. We speak of active emptiness, that is, an emptiness that generates and provides symbolic and identity spaces.

    DATE:
    5 to 12 November

    Faculdade de Arquitectura da Universidade do Porto:

    Alberto Lage  (jlage@arq.up.pt)