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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 how to achieve thermal comfort in the most efficient way. Passive design strategies and innovative building systems and technology will go hand in hand.

    Further, we can think about how our buildings can even significantly produce energy. Today, many buildings are able to produce more energy than needed for operating. With this in mind we will investigate different design strategies for a small climate responsive building. However, different climates require different design solutions.

    AIMS / A global perspective on climate responsive architecture – from an urban design to building technology

     

    METHOD /

    • Design a minimal room (hotel room/minimal apartment) that is climate responsive, adaptive to its specific context, location and climate
    • Working in an existing structure (e.g. hotel 4-star) with a parasite creating a climate responsive architecture inside/outside to create am energy harvesting adaptive building envelope.

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

    1. Introduction / Week 9
    2. Strategy Development + Design Development / Week 10
    3. Final Crit / Week 11

    EVALUATION /

    Evaluation criteria:

    • Originality of the designed object
    • Clarity and depth of the analysis:
      function, design, interaction and impact on the context and climate, integration of passive and active measures
    • Quality of the presentation material

    Learning outcome:

    • Creating awareness responsibility of architects and urban design practitioners for the responsibilities of the profession for human made climate change.
    • Finding answers how to design and change things for the better

    IU Internationale Hochschule /

    Prof. Heiner Stengel (heiner.stengel@iu.org)

    Prof. Philipp Molter (philipp.molter@iu.org)

    Prof. Thomas Loeffler (thomas.loeffler@iu.org)

     

  • 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 needed to preserve the theory of the Earth as an organism – see Gaia hypothesis.

    In this first semester, our course has students from more than twenty different nationalities. This is a strength of our learning, and we want to proceed with that singularity:

    Every student needs to study and measure a biotope from her/his country, city, or town. A piece of landscape to understand the environment and the rules of the relations between plants and animals, including people.

    AIMS / Our aim is to be capable of measuring an activity in a specific landscape and to do it we will have to design our measuring tools.

    After identifying a local biotope, we will work with the measurements and descriptions of the place.

    • Find opportunities in our environments to start with a project.
    • Introduce yourself to the class.
    • Get to know the rest of the future members of your working group.
    • Learn how to contribute to group work.

    METHOD /

    1st working day: Introduce your biotope presenting a 1 min video with the values of your singular environment.

    Group work according to your common interests. Connect the activities of your biotopes in a story board (free technique).

    2nd day: Final crit. Design your instruments of measuring aspects of live in your group selected biotope.

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

    Introduction / 16 Sept 2022.

    Video + Story board / 23 Sept 2022.

    Final Crit / 30 Sept 2022.

     

    EVALUATION / Develop the answers to 3 questions from these 12:

    1. The WORKSHOP proposes that students begin to build a complete thought to tackle projects, to process, organize, view and display information so that “data collection” became proactive rather than an analytical tool. Have I been able to go beyond analysis procedure and convert the project into a proposition display?
    2. The students have to learn to criticize their work and to draw conclusions. They have to process systems and models of architectural production, reformulating nonobvious descriptions, focusing their gaze on the invisible structures, not having preconceived ideas, producing unexpected findings, and non-discursive reasoning. Have I used my own ways of expression reformulating descriptions and avoiding the obvious and the use of direct images of the project culture?
    1. The student begins to explore architectural expression systems to formalize their projective ideas. How many ways of expression have I used at work and what is the value expressed by each of them?
    2. We have to learn to talk and discuss about architectural sustainability criteria, adding the concept of ecological niche project (mental territory, social, material, technical, medium-environmental, etc). Have I addressed the theme of THE WORKSHOP responding to the proposal on the sustainability?
    3. We are going to know how to work in-group to discover the roles in production systems. How much information data made in-group have I used to express my project?
    4. The students must participate and contribute with their ideas to the class as an essential part of knowledge. What is the intensity used to express my ideas through the architectural expression ways?
    5. The students must learn to establish a personal lexicon to express his architectural ideas. Have you expressed your ideas through a personal lexicon, or have you imitated expression systems used by other designers seen in the media (magazines or Internet)?
    6. You need positively assess risk and innovation as a necessary condition of design. Innovation defined as the use of allied disciplines to develop intellectual and technical tools to create new realities, within their own reality, exceeding the established models. Do I use allied disciplines for innovative production?
    7. The students must enter, step by step, work details the project culture, you must learn to interpret and criticize from their own proposal. How many data have you appropriated from the culture to express my project?
    8. You should produce an open system work, with more questions than answers. How many questions have you made throughout the design process and how many have you tried to answer?
    9. Skills: Interest in the contribution, regardless of the attitude from which it was generated. What is the interest of my contribution?
    10. Attitudes: how to tackle the problem independent of the outcome. Have I solved with intellectual and material effort to present the proposal?

     

    Bibliography / The work by Thomas Thwaites and Philippe Rahm

    Alicante University (SPAIN) /

    Joaquín Alvado Bañón (joaquin.alvado@ua.es)

    Javier Sánchez Merina (jsm@ua.es)

     

  • 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 and inserting it into a natural context.

    Each student has to choose one a site located on the coast, a site close to home or a site visited during a trip, … a site well known to the student. The richness of UOU is that we should share the way these sites are experienced in different countries and share our views of how to proceed forward the climate change.

    AIMS / The aims of this topic are:

    • To be able to observe, to read one site,
    • To be able to present one site with our sensibility,
    • To understand the rule of a window (not only seen by inside – light, wind, … – but also seen by outside – opening on a landscape, framing
    • To use the window as a pretext of showing something from one point of view (our point of view made of all we are made of OR the one from another)

    The architect navigates in his house whose windows have the shape of a tribute, Lucas MERLINI, 1999.

     

    METHOD /

    1st working day: Present a sensitive collage (sketch, photo, references that come, free technique) and a story. Both, the collage and the story describe, in a sensitive way, haw the coastline site is experienced by people.

    On a beach of Nice, in the South of France, 2015. Martin Parr for Magnum Photos agency.

    2nd day: Final crit. Design a photomontage made by the model of a cabin, that stage the landscape (fictional  and reality) as seen through a window. The cabin has to be built with organic material in order to be digested, one day, by the ocean.

    Model of Strasbourg Cathedrale seen from Scharrabergheim-Irmstett

    – 40km far away from, 2005

     

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

    Introduction / Friday 30 SEPTEMBER 14:00-14:30 CET

    Stories / Thursday 06 OCTOBER before midnight

    Presentation of the collages and creating of groups / Friday 07 OCTOBER 2022 – 12h30 – 15h30

    Model – Final Crit / Friday 14 OCTOBER 2022– 12h30 – 15h30

     

    EVALUATION /

    • This topic is about to “read” the site chosen ad how to account of our reading. Be able to “read” the site. What is the best way to explain this data or the other? What are the characteristics of the site that I will use in the project?
    • It is question to exchange our way to live on the coastline depend on where we live in the world. How can I explain the others students my culture and the way this site is experienced?
    • The window is a strong theme of the topic. The different functions of the window are :
      • to watch through,
      • to light the room,
      • to bring the wind into the room,
      • but moreover the way to see the world through our eyes, our culture, our “ourselves”,…
    • To be aware of the climate change and to explain the attitude we can have toward these changes.

     

    References /

    Reunion School of Architecture ENSA /

    Magalie Munier (Magalie.munier@hotmail.fr)

    Jane Coulon (jane.coulon@lareunion-archi.fr)

  • 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 introduction to a lifelong and transferable skill. This is important because it will encourage you to look carefully at place, to read the intangible elements of place and to record them. The workshop brings together two things: an urban humanities approach to observation and understanding, and the use of photography as a tool to capture your ideas. You do not need to be an expert photographer to participate, a mobile phone camera is ideal.

    URBAN HUMANITIES
    This workshop uses an urban humanities framework to address the question of what is place – what is its genius loci? It is an emerging way of looking at place that has developed from thinking at UCLA, Berkeley. Take this quote:

    “Those fields that aim to understand history, the arts, meaning, expression, and experience make substantial contributions to our thinking about cities and culture. From classicists to contemporary film scholars, humanists enrich an understanding of situated collective life… [but]… the absence of a humanist perspective in urban thought is brutally apparent (Cuff and Wolch, 2016, p. 14).”

    This workshop uses the humanities to inform a reading of place and to photograph it. In doing so, it addresses this ‘absence’ that Cuff and Wolch draw to our attention. It allows for a subjective, iterative and creative interpretation of place as something of a counter balance to more established objective, data driven, quantitative approaches to urban analyses.

    This more humanistic way of looking at place drives artistic practice, such as that of Cecilie Sachs Olsen at zURBS artistic collective in Switzerland, http://zurbs.org/wp/biographyintro/. In explaining her work, she draws attention to the fact that:

    “zURBS work is situated within the Urban Humanities and the exploration of the complexity of urban space in order to generate new and varied forms of creative output that demonstrates the rich terrain where urbanism, geographical knowledge and practice, and the humanities overlap. Central to this work is creative and practice-based art research” (Sachs Olsen, 2016).

    PHOTOGRAPHY
    There is a famous article, written by Claire Zimmerman, an architectural historian. published in the Harvard Design Magazine in Fall (Autumn) 2001. In the article – Tugendhat Frames – Claire Zimmerman examines the house designed in the 1930s by Mies van der Rohe in Brno. This house has been, and still is, often cited by students and academics as one of the prime examples of modernism in architecture. Yet, most of our understanding of it is derived from photographs, the house being inaccessible during the Cold War. The article asks, how seeing place through the framed lens of a photographer influences our view of it. And this is the point of our workshop. How can a photograph express a sense of place – or can it?

    Poyner (2002 p. 71) makes a strong case for ‘amateur’ (but informed) photographs being very useful in capturing place:

    “… By virtue of one’s training or experience one simply looked at things in a different way and selected details and viewpoints which the professional photographer wouldn’t have chosen”.

    and

    Sarah Pink (2006, p. 16) noted that the visual brings fieldwork experience “directly to the context of representation” and the same author argues that, amongst all the senses, the visual as expressed by photography has a strong role to play in the ‘mapping of space’ (2011, p. 4).

    With these two themes in mind – ‘urban humanities’ and ‘photographic interpretation’ – we will explore, in groups, places you both are and are not familiar with.

     

    AIMS

    The aims of this workshop are, therefore,

    •  To understand urban space
    • To grasp the difference between the ‘appearance’ of place and the ‘character’ of a place
    • To consider the intangible
    • To think about different way of using photography to capture our ideas
    • To learn how to use photography to communicate

     

    METHOD

    We will start by critically thinking a little about the urban humanities – those matters mentioned by Cuff and Welch – as they relate to place and are expressed visually in films, posters and photographs. We then move on to consider the deliberate framing and composition of the image in the way Claire Zimmerman describes, and then we produce creative output along the lines of Cecilie Sachs Olsen.

    We will use different photographic techniques, all of which will be explained to you. In particular:

    • Photography as found drawings – a very personal view of place
    • Documentary and found photography – using someone else’s photographs to express your own view
    • Deep mapping and photography – exploring a very small place in depth using ‘forensic’ photography

    You will work in groups, experimenting with these techniques and using them to produce a group portfolio that investigates and interprets a given place.

    Everything is designed to be delivered online and will be run via Moodle.

     

    INDICATIVE SCHEDULE (All times are GMT)

    WEEK 00

    Friday 25.11.22 / 14h00 – Short introduction

    Publication of Task 1 (individual)

     

    WEEK 1.0

    Monday 28.11.22 / 14h00-15h30 – Discussion on task 1
    Talk: Photography & Place in the humanities Approaches to photography

    Formation of groups
    Publication of Task 2a (group) – archival photography

    Wednesday 30.11.22 / 16h30-17h30 – Discussion on task 2a
    Publication of task 2b (group) –manipulation

    Friday 02.12.22 /  14h00-16h00 – Discussion on task 2b
    Lecture: Types and purposes of photography Task 3 (group)

     

    WEEK 2.0

    Monday 05.12.22 / 14h00-15h00 – Seminar and questions about task 3

    Wednesday 07.12.22 / 16h30-17h30 – Tutorials

    Friday 09.12.22 / 14h00-17h00 – Final review (submission) and assessmentpage3image47159680 page3image47159872 page3image47160064 page3image47160256

    EVALUATION – ASSESSMENT

    Each university has its own expectations and requirements and you will be informed of those separately. As a general guide to assessing your involvement in this workshop the following will be considered:

    Evaluation is based on:

    • A grasp of the role of urban humanities as a frame for understanding and interpreting place
    • Ability to use different photographic techniques, especially ‘archival’ and found drawings’ to help an understanding of place
    • Visual communication
    • Ability to explain and justify an approach take to the brief
    • Ability to produce a group output and to participate in that

     

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Cuff, D. & Wolch, J., 2016. Urban Humanities and the Creative Practitioner. Boom: A Journal of California, 6(3), pp. 12-17.

    Sachs Olsen, C., 2016. Re-imagining the city through the Urban Humanities. [Online]
    Available at: http://geohumanitiesforum.org/project-re-imagining-the-city-through-the-urban- humanities/

    Pink, S., 2006. The Future of Visual Anthropology. London: Routledge.
    Pink, S., 2011. Amateur photographic practice, collective representation and the constitution of place.

    Visual Studies, 26(2), pp. 92-101.
    Poyner, R., 2002. The Camera as Pen. In: Typographica. New York: Princeton Archhitectural Press. Zimmerman, Claire (2001) Tugendhat Frames, Harvard Design Magazine, Fall 2001

     

    UWE BRISTOL (UK) /

    Mike Devereux (Mike.Devereux@uwe.ac.uk)

    Catalina Morales Maya (Catalina.Moralesmaya@uwe.ac.uk)

     

  • 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 architecture they image is “behind” o “beyond” the picture.  During the critic student will show the concept of the architecture they are going to develop.

    AIMS / The workshop aims at students focusing on the power of imagination in the design process and about the idea that the reference of a project can be a synthetic image

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

    Introduction / 28/11/2022

    Crit /02/12/2022

    Final Crit / 09/12/2022

     

    EVALUATION / for the final evaluation students has to produce a trip in the model (virtual or real) representing the architecture that, according to their imagination, is behind the picture assigned.

     

    Bibliography /
    Ferlenga Alberto, (edited by) Étienne- Louis Boulée. Architettura. Saggio sull’arte, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino, 2007.

    Feireiss L., Klanten R. (edited by), Imagine Architecture: Artistic Visions of the Urban Realm, Die Gestalten Verlag, 2014.

    Ungers Oswald Mathias, Architettura come tema/ Architecture as theme, Electa, Milano, 1982

    UNIVERSITÀ DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II (ITALY) /

    Paola Scala (paola.scala@unina.it)

     

  • 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 of architecture.

    Today, at a time of democratization of public spaces in the city that is taking place through new and important projects, they need to strategically review the design of the soil, triggering processes of more significant contamination between the closed space of architecture and the open space of gardens, landscape, parks, and public space.

     

    AIMS / The workshop has two moments. The first one is a physical workshop during which students and the professor draw a tree-city on a large canvas to be seen only from above. The second one is online, reflecting on the previous workshop experience to image more realistic relationships between trees and architecture.  

     

    METHOD / Students draw without having a direct relationship with the scale of the canvas, imagining a landscape city intuitively. Later, they are required to visualize their city through sections, diagrams, maps, or any other media they consider helpful to redesign their city. 

     

    1st day: brief introduction of inside outside by professor; Presentation of the spaces chosen by the students.

    2nd day: Group work.

    3rd day: Final critic.

     

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

    Introduction / TBA.

    Development / TBA.

    Final Crit / TBA.

     

     

    Bibliography / Morabito V, The City of Imagination. ORO edition.

    Corner J., The High Line, Phaidon.

    ……….

     

    Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria (Italy) /

    Valerio Morabito (valerio.morabito@unirc.it)

    + TBA

     

  • 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”. The design will be a scenario for a video game in VENICE.

     

    As a third attempt for this workshop, using the WATER AS AN ARCHITECTONICAL MATTER, we are going to create a new horizon with LINES, AGENTS AND OBJECTS, and, going beyond, to design it into the “METAVERSO”. For this purpose, we will work together with one digital platform.

     

    AIMS / to understand the presence of the SUSTAINABLE AND DIGITAL SPACES in our projects.

    To relate drawings, physical models and video as a way to produce an architecture DIGITAL project.

     

    METHOD / The students will use the drawing to create A SUSTAINABLE SPACE USING WATER AS A MATTER. We will draw lines, agents and objects, and model them to create a space as a sustainable scenario.

    Finding opportunities of Multimedia Dawing_Model_Video relationships to start with a digital project.

     

    Part 1: Draw. Individual Work. Picture frame

    Select one scenario in Venice and draw the lines, agents and objects that constitute the sustainability of the space.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY / “Power of ten”. Charles and Ray Eames:

     

    Part 2: Model. Group Work.

    Transform the individual work into a three-dimensional object.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY / “Cloud Cities and Solar balloon travel”. Tomas Sarraceno:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61fybvkZiDE

     

    Part 3: Video. Class Work.

    Work all together to design the project as a new scenario into “METAVERSO” with all your ideas.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    “Let me tell you about my boat.” – The Life Aquatic. Wes Anderson

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1RnYfFZK2k

     

     

    SCHEDULE /

    11 Apr                Presentation

    13 Apr                Part 1 + 2

    26-29 Apr          Part 3

     

    EVALUATION / Jury: UOU professors. 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize.

    Those are 12 questions to be answered by students:

     

    1.-The WORKSHOP proposes that students begin to build a complete thought to tackle projects, to process, organize, view and display information so that “data collection” became proactive rather than an analytical tool.

    Have I been able to go beyond analysis procedure and convert the project into a proposition display?

     

    2.-Students must learn to self-reference and criticize their work and to draw conclusions. They have to process systems and models of architectural production, reformulating nonobvious descriptions, focusing his gaze on the invisible structures, not having preconceived ideas, producing unexpected findings, and non-discursive (arguments that are made but which does not follow anything immediately) reasoning.

    Have I used my own ways of expression reformulating descriptions and avoiding the obvious and the use of direct images of the project culture?

    3.-Student begins to explore architectural expression systems to formalize their projective ideas.

    How many ways of expression have I used at work and what is the value expressed by each of them?

     

    4.-We must learn to talk and discuss about architectural sustainability criteria, adding the concept of ecological niche project (mental territory, social, material, technical, medium-environmental, etc …).

    Have I addressed the theme of THE WORKSHOP responding to the proposal on the sustainability?

     

    5.-We are going to know how to work in-group to discover the roles in production systems.

    How much information data made in-group have I used to express my project?

     

    6.-The students must participate and contribute with their ideas to the class as an essential part of knowledge.

    What is the intensity used to express my ideas through the architectural expression ways? How much time do I need to make a drawing or a model to express my ideas?

     

    7.-The students must learn to establish a personal lexicon to express his architectural ideas.

    Have you expressed your ideas through a personal lexicon or have you imitated expression systems used by other designers seen in the media (magazines or Internet)

     

    8.-You need positively assess risk and innovation as a necessary condition of design. Innovation defined as the use of allied disciplines to develop intellectual and technical tools to create new realities, within their own reality, exceeding the established models.

    Do I use allied disciplines for innovative production?

     

    9.-The students must enter, step by step, work details the project culture, you must learn to interpret and criticize from their own proposal.

    How many data have you appropriated from the culture to express my project?

     

    10.-You should produce an open system work, with more questions than answers. The number of questions the student will be assessed is more than the number of certainties, you must use fuzzy logic, to support multiple possible truth-values, allowing multiple possible truth-values and strategies to create unpredictability.

    How many questions have you made throughout the design process and how many have you tried to answer?

     

    11.-Skills: Interest in the contribution, regardless of the attitude from which it was generated

    What is the interest considering my contribution to the WORKSHOP?

     

    12.-Attitudes: how to tackle the problem independent of the outcome

    Have I tried to solve with intellectual and material effort to present the proposal. The project has developed enough quality. 

     

    Alicante University (SPAIN) /

    Joaquín Alvado Bañón (joaquin.alvado@ua.es)

    Javier Sánchez Merina (jsm@ua.es)

     

  • 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 long time been also an architectural theme (the Doric Corner Conflict) of rhythmic-harmonic transition from one side to another, of proportion, scale, dimension and creative materialized expression. The aesthetic solution of the corner is closely connected with the constructive solution.

    At all architectural scales we find manifold examples and spatial situations where the corners play a special role representing unexpected creative design solutions: from furniture design to interior fit-out, in constructive details, in the building scale as well as in urban design. Depending on their function, their context, and the designers specific answer, corners appear in different shapes: right-angled, rounded, beveled, recessed, dissolved, different materializations or different roles as spaces of transition.

     

    AIMS / Analyzing, understanding and visualizing the meaning of a self-selected corner, describing its role as the end of a grid, an architectural component of precise thought and materialization in different scales (multi scalar context).

     

    METHOD /

    1. Identifying a corner of interest within an architectural or urban context (not forcibly made of stone)
    2. Exploring and analyzing its architectural specificities, function and materiality
    3. Determine defining the typology of the corner
    4. Documenting in form of
    5. line drawings (section, elevation, plan, axonometric projection)
    6. 3 photos (from context to detail)
    7. Presenting and discussing the findings

     

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

    1. Introduction / 00.00.2022
    2. Development / 00.00.2022
    3. Final Crit / 00.00.2022

     

    EVALUATION /

    Evaluation criteria:

    • Originality of the chosen corner object
    • Clarity and depth of the analysis:
      function, design, interaction and impact on the context, typological classification, materiality-immateriality
    • Quality of the presentation material

     

    Learning outcome:

    • Learning to identify and understand that architectural elements (here: corners) can have specific roles within different scales and contextual situations.
    • Training analytical and presentation skills.

     

    IU Internationale Hochschule /

    Thomas Loeffler (thomas.loeffler@iu.org)

    Heiner Stengel (heiner.stengel@iu.org)

     

  • 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 fashion to the previous semester, the workshop is structured into two photo exercises.

     

    In the first exercise students seek for various unique and unusual scenarios in which the architecture of the urban setting influences the way people interact with buildings or the way they interact with each other. They try to capture these strange urban rituals that are characteristic only that one distinct environment, one special context or one micro location.

     

    In the second exercise they try to find spatial (architectural) situations where the elements of the visual composition are created by light and shadow, or where light or the lack of it fundamentally changes how we perceive the space.

     

    In the process, students further develop their visual compositional skills, learn to understand the compositional values of their built surroundings, and to explore the narrative potentials in their environment beyond the obvious.

     

     

    SCHEDULE / Two-week workshop. Weekly on-line classes (+ individual work during the week) arranged with the students:

     

    March 25th 2022 (Friday) – 2.00 pm (CET) – Introduction & Project Description

     

    March 29th 2022 (Tuesday) – 9.30 am (CET) – Consultation (Project 1)

     

    April 1st 2022 (Friday) – 10.00 am (CET) – Presentation & Critical Review (Project 1)

    April 5th 2022 (Tuesday) – 9.30 am (CET) – Consultation (Project 2)

     

    April 8th 2022 (Friday) – 10.00 am (CET) – Final Critical Review (Project 1&2)

     

    EVALUATION / Evaluation is based on the fulfilment of workshop aims. Participating students are expected to gain a better understanding the visual characteristics of their urban surroundings and develop their visual compositional skills.

     

    Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Architecture (HUNGARY) /

    Portschy, Szabolcs Dávid (portschy.szabolcs.david@epk.bme.hu)

     

  • ARCH: Drawing Spatial Movement

    CONTENT / Movement is fundamental to our experience of the spaces we inhabit, but design can fail to fully engage with this simple truth. Our representational traditions seem caught in ambitions for static portrayal, capturing our world as frozen moments in a seeming denial of time. So, when we begin designing the drawing tools we turn to are not necessarily promoting ambitions that contemplate the dynamics of everyday activity which our environment consists of. There is also little sense of our place within these drawings.

    In our workshop we will begin a critical engagement with movement, building understanding of the nature of dynamic spatial experience, such as perceptual border zones of spatial vagueness, through direct engagement, teasing out implications. We will begin with a walk of fixed time and length, but in numerous locations, engaging with neighbourhoods near and familiar to each workshop participant. We will then start to untangle our experience and evolve our drawing techniques and tools to begin to construct a new vocabulary for dynamic representation. Through this we will start to challenge conventional technique and offer drawn frameworks which can be inhabited by our experience, offer our presence a voice to within the drawing.

    AIMS / The aim of our workshop is to critically examine our experience of movement through space and begin to identify means to subvert traditional modes of representation in order to represent this. We therefore aim to identify modes of drawing and representational tools that can enable us to capture movement space so these might offer frameworks for future design proposals informed by movement.

    METHOD / We will start with a shared ‘walk’ in the same time but multiple places. On route we will begin to identify perhaps previously overlooked phenomena. What do we notice, what starts to blur or fade, how do we experience these spaces differently in movement? We will experiment with capturing our movement through different means such as drawing, photography, photogrammetry, lidar depending on facilities available. We will evolve these evidences towards a representational language for dynamism

    1st day: Introduction
    Lecture: Spatial movement and drawing
    We will divide into internationally diverse groups for a ‘walk’ taken at the same time for the same time period yet in disparate locations. Each group member will record this using one of a range of techniques agreed within the group. The ‘walk’ constitutes moving through space in the manner and at the speed you are familiar with for the set time.

    2nd day: The findings from the ‘walk’ recording are critically analysed and key findings identified. The phenomena each group identify as the most intriguing become the focus of the exploration. How might this growing understanding begin to inform how we draw that space? Are we present within the drawing or are we outside of it? How does this start to challenge traditional forms of architectural representation? How might a drawing start to speak of this experience and assist us in designing within it? Review of each groups drawing tools.

     

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

    Initial introduction at the end of the preceding week

    Tuesday 29th March Introduction and development

    Lecture: Movement and drawing: Sarah and Charlotte

    Tuesday 5th April Evolution and Review

     

    EVALUATION / Develop these actions:

    •  Engaging critically with traditional modes of representation, questioning the static world they discuss.
    •  Uncovering the variety of spatial experience.
    •  Finishing with experimental proposals for drawing techniques which are capable of speaking of our experience of space through movement.

    Bibliography /

    • Allen & Pearson Drawing Futures: Speculations in Contemporary Drawing for Art and Architecture.
    • Robin Evans Translations from Drawings to Building and Other Essays.
    • Perez-Gomez, Pelletier Architectural Representation and the Perspective Hinge.

    University of Brighton (UK):

    Sarah Stevens (s.stevens2@brighton.ac.uk)

    +

    Bergen School of Architecture (Norway):

    Charlotte Erkrath (charlotte@bas.org)

     

  • ARCH: Genius Loci

    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 introduction to a lifelong and transferable skill. This is important because it will encourage you to look carefully at place, to read the intangible elements of place and to record them. The workshop brings together two things: an urban humanities approach to observation and understanding, and the use of photography as a tool to capture your ideas. You do not need to be an expert photographer to participate, a mobile phone camera is ideal.

    URBAN HUMANITIES
    This workshop uses an urban humanities framework to address the question of what is place – what is its genius loci? It is an emerging way of looking at place that has developed from thinking at UCLA, Berkeley. Take this quote:

    “Perhaps the most widely recognized fields of expertise considered relevant to urban concerns are design and planning along with engineering and the physical and social sciences. But what of the humanities? Those fields that aim to understand history, the arts, meaning, expression, and experience make substantial contributions to our thinking about cities and culture. From classicists to contemporary film scholars, humanists enrich an understanding of situated collective life… [but]… the absence of a humanist perspective in urban thought is brutally apparent (Cuff and Wolch, 2016, p. 14).”

    This workshop uses the urban humanities to inform a reading of place and to photograph it. In doing so, it addresses this ‘absence’ that Cuff and Wolch draw to our attention. It allows for a subjective, iterative and creative interpretation of place as something of a counter balance to more established objective, data driven, quantitative approaches to urban analyses.

    This more humanistic way of looking at place drives artistic practice such as that of Cecilie Sachs Olsen at zURBS artistic collective in Switzerland, http://zurbs.org/wp/biographyintro/. In explaining her work, she draws attention to the fact that:

    “zURBS work is situated within the Urban Humanities and the exploration of the complexity of urban space in order to generate new and varied forms of creative output that demonstrates the rich terrain where urbanism, geographical knowledge and practice, and the humanities overlap. Central to this work is creative and practice-based art research” (Sachs Olsen, 2016).

    PHOTOGRAPHY
    There is a famous article, written by Claire Zimmerman, an architectural historian. published in the Harvard Design Magazine in Fall 2001. In the article – Tugendhat Frames – Claire Zimmerman examines the house designed in the 1930s by Mies van der Rohe in Brno. This house has been, and

    still is, often cited by students and academics as one of the prime examples of modernism in architecture. Yet, most of our understanding of it is derived from photographs, the house being inaccessible during the Cold War. The article asks how seeing place through the framed lens of a photographer influences our view of it.

    Poyner (2002) makes a strong case for ‘amateur’ (but informed) photographs being very useful in capturing place:

    “… By virtue of one’s training or experience one simply looked at things in a different way and selected details and viewpoints which the professional photographer wouldn’t have chosen” (p. 71).

    and

    Sarah Pink (2006, p. 16) noted that the visual brings fieldwork experience “directly to the context of representation” and the same author argues that, amongst all the senses, the visual as expressed by photography has a strong role to play in the ‘mapping of space’ (Pink, 2011, p. 4).

    With these two themes in mind – urban humanities and photographic interpretation – we will explore, in groups, places you are (or are not so) familiar with.

    AIMS / The aims of this workshop are, therefore,

    •   To understand space
    •   To think about different way of using photography to capture our ideas
    •   To consider the intangible

    To learn how to use photography to communicate

     

    METHOD / We will start by thinking a little about the urban humanities – those matters mentioned by Cuff and Welch. We then move on to consider the deliberate framing and composition of the image – in the way Claire Zimmerman describes and then we produce creative output along the lines of Cecilie Sachs Olsen.

    We will use different photographic techniques, all of which will be explained to you. In particular:

    •  Photography as found drawings – a very personal view of place
    •  Documentary and found photography – using someone else’s photographs to express your own view
    •  Deep mapping and photography – exploring a very small place in depth using ‘forensic’ photography

    You will work in groups, experimenting with these techniques and using them to produce a group portfolio that investigates and interprets a given place.

    Everything is designed to be delivered online.

    INDICATIVE SCHEDULE (All times are UK)

    Friday 25.03.    14h00 GMT [or alternative tba]

    Short introduction and initial task

     

    WEEK 1

    Monday    13h00-15h00

    Presentation of the workshop
    Urban humanities

    Different approaches to photography

    Formation of groups

    Setting the first task

     

    Wednesday 11h30-12h30

    Seminar

     

    Friday    14h00-16h00

    Presentation first task

    Interpreting photography

    Setting the second task

     

    WEEK 2

    Monday.   13h00-15h00.   Seminar and questions

    All week.   Developing the group project

    (Wednesday).   Seminar – feedback and questions

    Reviews at given times

    Friday 13h00-17h00.    Final submission and review

    EVALUATION – ASSESSMENT

    Each university has its own expectations and requirements and you will be informed of those separately. As a general guide to assessing your involvement in this workshop the following will be considered:

    Evaluation is based on:

    •  A grasp of the role of urban humanities a frame for understanding and interpreting place
    •  Ability to use different photographic techniques, especially ‘archival’ and ;found drawings’ to help an understanding of place.
    • Visual communication
    • Ability to explain and justify an approach take to the brief
    • Ability to produce a group output

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    Cuff, D. & Wolch, J., 2016. Urban Humanities and the Creative Practitioner. Boom: A Journal of California, 6(3), pp. 12-17.

    Sachs Olsen, C., 2016. Re-imagining the city through the Urban Humanities. [Online] Available at: http://geohumanitiesforum.org/project-re-imagining-the-city-through-the-urban- humanities/

    Pink, S., 2006. The Future of Visual Anthropology. London: Routledge.

    Pink, S., 2011. Amateur photographic practice, collective representation and the constitution of place. Visual Studies, 26(2), pp. 92-101.

    Poyner, R., 2002. The Camera as Pen. In: Typographica. New York: Princeton Archhitectural Press.

    Zimmerman, Claire (2001) Tugendhat Frames, Harvard Design Magazine, Fall 2001

    University of the West of England, Bristol (ENGLAND) /

     

  • ARCH: re: cultivation

    CONTENT / The urban fabric is interwoven with specific places such as urban gardens, parks, river banks, semi-public or semi-private green areas. Those little lungs of the cities, often play a role of informal gathering spots, where inhabitants can undertake various activities from picnics and barbecues, through sports, yoga, leisure up to everyday walks with pets or simply reading a book. Some of those actions are taken by individuals, while other require the group effort. The beauty of these spaces lies in their appearance in the form of (more or less) well-kept greenery, accompanied with equipment, seats, playgrounds and specific meeting places such as garden houses or sheds.

     

    re: cultivation means a response, a cultivation of the plants in urban gardens as a social activity, but also the process of trying to acquire or develop a quality or skill. The “re:” refers also to re-fuse, re-duce, re-use, re-purpose and re-cycle (the 5R principle). Therefore the topic concern designs that will enhance social interaction, which lately was damage by COVID-19 pandemic, but also will pay attention to the eco-friendly materials and their multiply use or recycling.

     

    AIMS / The aim of the workshop is to research and find the social potentials in the small green areas in the cities and to propose the factor that enhance social interaction and local community cooperation. The participants should take into account the environmental impact of the proposed architectural objects, as well as their simplicity (understood not as an object to which nothing can be added, but from which nothing can be subtracted in order to fulfil its intended role). The objects what can be retransformed, recycled or re-purpose and are made of local, recycled, unobvious materials will be of high demand.

    The workshop will be an initial step to the summer school of architecture, during which participants will develop further their concepts, create shop drawings and finally will build prototypes of those social boosters for public spaces.

     

    Have a look at the previous Summer School of Architecture workshops: https://youtu.be/k_NDe6ka-bo

     

     

    METHOD / The participants of the workshops will gather into group of 5- 8 members from different universities and cooperate in order to create a preliminary conceptual design of an architectural object that will answer for the need described above. The work on the project will include the research on certain areas (online and onsite – by the students from chosen location), research on the needs of users and potentials of the space, preparation of scenario for actions and social activities, preparation of conceptual design. Next, the concepts will be discussed during the mid-term presentations and further developed in terms of structural design and materialisation with the respect to the mitigating their negative impact on the environment.

     

    THECHNIQUE / The presentation of the projects can have a form of sketches, notes, diagrams, CAD drawings, visualisations, collages, mock-ups, animations, videos, and other visual techniques that will support description of the assumed project idea, functioning and materialisation of the architectural object.

    The object may have varies forms and functions, and the authors should not limit themselves at the first stage of design.

     

     

     

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

     

    Introduction / 11 March 2022.

    Mid-term presentations / 18 March 2022.

    Final Presentation / 25 March 2022.

    Optional consultations 15 and 22 March 2022.

     

    EVALUATION /

     

    – Quality of the research on the potential spots and needs of local community.

    – Originality of the concepts.

    – Innovation in social and material solutions.

    – Use of materials and solutions that mitigate the negative impact on the environment.

    – Clear and comprehensible project content and presentation.

     

     

    Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (POLAND) /

    Jerzy Łątka (jerzy.latka@pwr.edu.pl)

    Agata Jasiołek (jagata.jasiolek@pwr.edu.pl)

     

    Yasar University in Izmir (TURKEY) /

    Mauricio Morales-Betran (mauricio.beltran@yasar.edu.tr)

     

  • ARCH: liminal: digital landscapes

    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 be reversed, where truth can be rewritten and history revised. Orientation increasingly turns to an expanding mirror world, the echo of Borges fiction. A 1:1 remaking of the world, where huge ships may hide within the folds of fake signals, infrastructure is analysed through its digital twin and non-existent islands rise into being leading very real exhibitions to search for them.

    This can begin to paint a picture of an increasing retreat from reality into our imaginaries, with all the dystopian and problematic environmental consequences this could bring. Yet it also holds within it the potential to enhance and deepen our embodiment within the physical realm. AI and other technologies offer the opportunity for us to sculpt this liminal realm to enhance our spatial embodiment, extending our understanding and engagement of the physical world and ourselves.

    We will explore how the design of our architecture and cities might engage critically with these liminal landscapes, beginning to define our mode of engagement through the spaces we dare to imagine.

    AIMS / The aim of our workshop is to begin to explore the implications of our evolving liminal condition as an opportunity for extending embodiment. We aim to begin to construct potential frameworks of engagement, formulating a zoo of proto architectures for the liminal realm. We will focus on the potential of AI to augment spatial experience.

    METHOD / We will be teaching through the medium we are contemplating, the digital realm of Zoom, Teams, Miro. We will therefore begin through a questioning of the space of this connection. For our workshops each of us will simultaneously enter into multiple spaces in multiple countries through a digital presence. Yet the sound of our voices will echo around solid walls and physical spaces remote from us, influencing and impacting places we have never visited. Working in small groups spread across disparate locations we will begin with attempting to grasp the nature of this liminal space, using drawing as a tool to start to discuss its implications for our inhabitation of space. With the aid of this initial navigation we will begin to focus on how AI might inform our engagement with liminal spaces to extend embodiment, workshopping opportunities to evolve a zoo of proto architectures.

    1st day: Introduction
    Lecture: Liminal Landscapes: Sarah Stevens (Architecture lecturer, University of Brighton) Lecture: AI and architecture: Marcus Winter (AI lecturer, University of Brighton)
    Workshopping ideas and then dividing into small groups to evolve specific areas of interest.

    2nd day: Workshopping group proposals through concept images for initial proto architectures. Opening of the zoo of the liminal landscape with the final review of the group’s proto architectures.

    SCHEDULE / 2-Week Workshop. Weekly 4-hour class arranged with the students: Tuesday 15th March Introduction, lectures, workshopping proposals

    Lecture: Liminal Landscapes, by Sarah Stevens
    Lecture: AI and Architecture, by Marcus Winter
    Tuesday 22nd March Workshopping proposals and final review.

    EVALUATION / Develop these actions:

    – Critically engage with the digital realm that augments out day to day lives.

    – Uncover implications of differences in cultural approaches.

    – Finish with concept proposals for proto architectures which begin to discuss both the physical and digital realms we inhabit, furthering our embodiment in the physical.

    University of Brighton (UK) / Sarah Stevens – architecture (S.Stevens2@brighton.ac.uk ) + Marcus Winter – computing: AI (Marcus.Winter@brighton.ac.uk)

     

  • 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: the space for learning as a landscape of desire

    CONTENT / We started last academic course saying that many changes have been in the architecture profession since Journey to the East was written: the diary of Le Corbusier’s trip in 1911. This book is a collection of visual notations or impressions perceived by Le Corbusier as a visitor to several cities in Southeast Europe. Later, the acquired disciplinary knowledge acted as an inspiration for his architecture.

    Our aim last year was to travel to an unknown part of the city with the task to practice an activity to learn from the local, its technology, culture, and society. It was an experience to empathize Architecture as a Comparative Study, learning as a trip, a journey as an experience.

     

    We start this course realizing that many changes have also occurred since last year. Let’s focus in just this important fact: no one is capable to predict the future.

    Our workshop takes this uncertainty as an opportunity to imagine new realities and, why not, coexisting at the same time.

    This time we will discuss and go further with our proposals and designs for our desired trips, redefining the limits of architecture by experiences to build up research.

     

    AIMS / To identify a desired experience. To work with the imagination and describe a place for your experience. To find opportunities in your desires to start with a project. To introduce oneself to the class. To get to know the rest of the future members of your working group. To learn how to contribute to group work.

     

    METHOD / The student’s desires as building material. To introduce our personal skills and portfolio into a place. Trip to a new destiny you desire to create.

     

    1st day: Introduce yourself presenting a 3min video with the values of your experiences in the desired reality.

     

    2nd day: Group work according to your common interests. Connect your realities in a story board (free technique).

     

    3rd day: Final crit. Design your Zoom setting. Mock-up scale 1:1.

     

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

     

    Introduction / 01 Feb 2022.

    Video of experience / 04 Feb 2022.

    Group story board / 08 Feb 2022

    Final Crit / 11 Feb 2022.

     

    EVALUATION / Develop the answers to 3 questions from these 12:

     

    1. The WORKSHOP proposes that students begin to build a complete thought to tackle projects, to process, organize, view and display information so that “data collection” became proactive rather than an analytical tool. Have I been able to go beyond analysis procedure and convert the project into a proposition display?

     

    1. The students have to learn to criticize their work and to draw conclusions. They have to process systems and models of architectural production, reformulating nonobvious descriptions, focusing their gaze on the invisible structures, not having preconceived ideas, producing unexpected findings, and non-discursive reasoning. Have I used my own ways of expression reformulating descriptions and avoiding the obvious and the use of direct images of the project culture?

     

    1. The student begins to explore architectural expression systems to formalize their projective ideas. How many ways of expression have I used at work and what is the value expressed by each of them?

     

    1. We have to learn to talk and discuss about architectural sustainability criteria, adding the concept of ecological niche project (mental territory, social, material, technical, medium-environmental, etc). Have I addressed the theme of THE WORKSHOP responding to the proposal on the sustainability?

     

    1. We are going to know how to work in-group to discover the roles in production systems. How much information data made in-group have I used to express my project?

     

    1. The students must participate and contribute with their ideas to the class as an essential part of knowledge. What is the intensity used to express my ideas through the architectural expression ways?

     

    1. The students must learn to establish a personal lexicon to express his architectural ideas. Have you expressed your ideas through a personal lexicon, or have you imitated expression systems used by other designers seen in the media (magazines or Internet)?

     

    1. You need positively assess risk and innovation as a necessary condition of design. Innovation defined as the use of allied disciplines to develop intellectual and technical tools to create new realities, within their own reality, exceeding the established models. Do I use allied disciplines for innovative production?

     

    1. The students must enter, step by step, work details the project culture, you must learn to interpret and criticize from their own proposal. How many data have you appropriated from the culture to express my project?

     

    1. You should produce an open system work, with more questions than answers. How many questions have you made throughout the design process and how many have you tried to answer?

     

    1. Skills: Interest in the contribution, regardless of the attitude from which it was generated. What is the interest of my contribution?

     

    1. Attitudes: how to tackle the problem independent of the outcome. Have I solved with intellectual and material effort to present the proposal?

     

    Bibliography / Le Corbusier. Journey to the East. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987.

     

    Alicante University (SPAIN) /

    Joaquín Alvado Bañón (joaquin.alvado@ua.es)

    Javier Sánchez Merina (jsm@ua.es)

     

  • ARCH: Emergency Architecture

    METHOD / Research the problem, fast design of the architectural solution.

    TECHNIQUE / Collage, sketches, drawings, visualisation, physical model.

    AIMS / To research and design an emergency architecture in chosen context.

    STRENGTHS / Understanding the need for a shelter in different emergency contexts and situations (refugee, natural disasters, homeless). Creating a possible scenarios and solution.

    Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (POLAND):

    Jerzy Łątka (jerzy.latka@pwr.edu.pl)

    Yasar University, Izmir (TURKEY):

    Mauricio Morales Beltran (mauricio.beltran@yasar.edu.tr)

     

  • ARCH: Texture, Rhythm, Pattern.

    METHOD

    Understanding the historical dynamics and characteristic features of the urban built heritage and the interaction with its dwellers in the process of developing a personal interpretation of the city through the eye of the camera.

    TECHNIQUE

    Students will use their camera in the exploration of urban patterns, textures, visual rhythm, contrasts,  contextual interrelations and constellations, between the city and its inhabitants and prepare their personal reading of the city through a photo series.

    AIMS

    To understand how buildings and built structures and their interaction with the living environment define and initiate unique cultural, social and psychological synergies.

    STRENGTHS

    Developing a new perspective and understanding of the individual character of our urban environment.

    Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Architecture (HUNGARY):

    Szabolcs Portschy (portschy@gmail.com)

     

    Doina Carter (docarter@lincoln.ac.uk)

     

  • 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: Machinery Landscapes

    METHOD

    Search for machine aesthetics as a system, create an imaginary landscape based on machinery and make a collective landscape.

    TECHNIQUE

    A collective landscape based on machinery will be produced by drawings and collages.

    AIMS

    To encourage to look at architecture from another perspective, to enhance critical and relational thinking, to empower collective work.

    STRENGTHS

    Being a part of a team work, discovering the importance of collective production, to look at something differently.

    MEF University Istanbul (TURKEY):

    Ozan Avci (avcio@mef.edu.tr)

     

  • ARCH: Reuse / Retake – Democratic Architecture

    METHOD

    Reinterpreting the notion of architecture through reuse of existing buildings and areas.

    TECHNIQUE

    Through exploration of existing and underused buildings and areas in the city we would like to discover new infinite places reinterpreting the notion of commons in the EU cities.

    AIMS

    To reflect on the role of the architecture and explore new tools for the architectural and urban design, through innovative participatory methods. The WS will include talks with practitioners and experts, reading seminars and co-desing sessions.

    STRENGTHS

    Interdisciplinar and Intercultural. The aim is to produce an ATLAS that can be used as the starting point for further explorations and reflections.

    Umeå University (Sweden) / Malmö University (Sweden):

    Maria Luna Nobile (maria.nobile@umu.se)

    Marie Kraft (marie.kraft@mau.se)

     

  • ARCH: Discovering place through unfamiliar language

    METHOD

    Storytelling – interpreting place through imagination and language.

    TECHNIQUE

    Through using the rhythm, tone and intonation of language explain and question place in words from language(s) you are not familiar with.

    AIMS

    To use languages and words that students are not familiar with to create a story that helps a listener to read a place, even if that listener does not ‘speak’ the language.

    STRENGTHS

    International, avoids the use of English uses a lingua franca, explores a medium of communication neglected in architecture and urbanism. Accessible to all students regardless of their mother tongue or other known languages.

    University of the West of England, Bristol (ENGLAND):

    Michael Devereux (mike.devereux@uwe.ac.uk)

     

  • 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)

     

  • ARCH: Psychoanalysis of creativity 3 Path to the library

    METHOD

    Analyses & Self-reflection on different creativity styles.  Based on 3 frameworks of design. 3 pre-recorded  lectures about theory of creativity and workshops will be given as base for the exercise.

    TECHNIQUE

    First week will be desiccated to production of fast ideas, drawings/sketches based on theory and workshops. Second week will be dedicated to refine one concept.

    AIMS

    Undertraining theory of creativity and understanding of own design strength  based on individual fast test-design exercised.

    STRENGTHS

    Developing more couscous and more structured and more approach to own creativity.

    University of Lincoln (UK) :

    Marcin Kołakowski (MKolakowski@lincoln.ac.uk)

     

  • ARCH: treatment

    METHOD

    Students will work around the possibility of transforming urban space and its perception and imagining the shape of the public space.

    TECHNIQUE

    All techniques of urban project are allowed.

    AIMS

    regenerating / redeveloping the undecided or degraded spaces of the historic city.

    STRENGTHS

    Students and teachers from different cultural areas of the project disciplines will work together.

    Bologna University (ITALY):

    Antonio Esposito (antonio.esposito9@unibo.it)

     

  • ARCH: graphic anthropology

    METHOD

    Use drawing as a tool to understand the experiences of people in place.

    TECHNIQUE

    Build a relationship with a participant in the neighbourhood you are studying and make a series of drawings of their experiences/stories/histories.

    AIMS

    To challenge the generic idea of ‘the user’ by understanding the nuanced and complex experiences of people in the places where they live, and how the built environment and urban form impact these experiences.

    STRENGTHS

    Use architectural skills combined with anthropology, to expand beyond common methods of analysis in architecture.

    Architecture at Queen’s University Belfast School of Natural and Built Environment (UK) :

    Agustina Martire (A.Martire@qub.ac.uk)

     

  • ARCH: before me, the deluge

    METHOD

    Identify and analyse the topographic condition you would like to work with in response to the brief (eg: land that becomes an island, land/water edge, open water).

    TECHNIQUE

    Through models, physical and digital, develop ways of dealing with unpredictable water levels to propose a structure for shelter, be it attached to land and responsive or amphibious or buoyant…

    AIMS

    To stimulate quick design responses for scenarios which require adaptable solutions.

    STRENGTHS

    Employ architects’ ability to solve complex problems to offer solutions for extreme situations (non-site specific solutions with site specific knowledge, skills, materials).

    University of Lincoln (UK) :

    Doina Carter (docarter@lincoln.ac.uk)

     

  • ARCH: cognitive mapping

    METHOD

    Mappings (hybrid drawings).

    TECHNIQUE

    Through models, physical and digital, develop ways of dealing with unpredictable water levels to propose a structure for shelter, be it attached to land and responsive or amphibious or buoyant…

    AIMS

    To appreciate cognitive mapping as a tool that assigns preferences, determines attitudes and predicts possibilities.

    STRENGTHS

    To transcend the familiarity with cartographic maps (that correspond to a dimensional reality) and explore a plurality of experiences/ cultures/sites via alternative representation techniques.

    University of Nicosia (CYPRUS) :

    Maria Hadjisoteriou (hadjisoteriou.m@unic.ac.cy)

    Markella Menikou (menikou.m@unic.ac.cy)

    Yiorgos Hadjichristou (hadjichristou.y@unic.ac.cy)

     

  • ARCH: competition / research: MATTER ON LINES. MARBLE

    CONTENT / What it is relevant on Architecture and Art, talking about objects is the matter. Matter as a physical substance that create atmospheres, relations and light.

    The proposal for the workshop is to create matter with lines in order to design a “Material City”.

    As a second attempt for this workshop, using the definition of Marble, we are going to create matter with a pattern of lines and, going beyond, to design one “Marble City”. For this purpose, we will work together with MIRO.

     

    AIMS / To understand the presence of the matter in our projects.

    To relate drawings, physical models and video as a way to produce an architectonical_artistic project.

     

    METHOD / The students will use the drawing to create matter.

    We will draw lines and model them to create a space as a matter.

    Part 1

    Draw. Individual Work.

    Select a piece of marble, draw, and model the lines that constitute the matter of the stone.

    Bibliography

    • “Power of ten”. Charles and Ray Eames.

    • “How I built a toaster from scratch”. Thomas Thwaites. https://www.ted.com/talks/thomas_thwaites_how_i_built_a_toaster_from_scratch

    Part 2   

    Model. Group Work.

    Transform the lines into a three_dimensional object

    Bibliography

    • “Cloud Cities and Solar balloon travel”. Tomas Sarraceno.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61fybvkZiDE

    Part 3

    Video. Class Work.

    Work all together to design a “Material City” with all your ideas in MIRO.

    Bibliography

    • “Let me tell you about my boat.” – The Life Aquatic. Wes Anderson

     

    SCHEDULE / Workshop:

     

    17 Sept / Presentation

    24 Sept / Part 1 + 2

    1 Oct / Part 3

     

    EVALUATION / Jury: UOU professors. 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize.

    Those are 12 questions to be answered by students

     

    1.-The WORKSHOP proposes that students begin to build a complete thought to tackle projects, to process, organize, view and display information so that “data collection” became proactive rather than an analytical tool.

    Have I been able to go beyond analysis procedure and convert the project into a proposition display?

     

    2.-Students must learn to self-reference and criticize their work and to draw conclusions. They have to process systems and models of architectural production, reformulating non obvious descriptions, focusing his gaze on the invisible structures, not having preconceived ideas, producing unexpected findings, and non-discursive (arguments that are made but which does not follow anything immediately) reasoning.

    Have I used my own ways of expression reformulating descriptions and avoiding the obvious and the use of direct images of the project culture?

    3.-Student begins to explore architectural expression systems to formalize their projective ideas.

    How many ways of expression have I used at work and what is the value expressed by each of them?

     

    4.-We have to learn to talk and discuss about architectural sustainability criteria, adding the concept of ecological niche project (mental territory, social, material, technical, medium-environmental, etc …).

    Have I addressed the theme of THE WORKSHOP responding to the proposal on the sustainability?

     

    5.-We are going to know how to work in-group to discover the roles in production systems.

    How much information data made in-group have I used to express my project?

     

    6.-The student must participate and contribute with their ideas to the class as an essential part of knowledge.

    What is the intensity used to express my ideas through the architectural expression ways? How much time do I need to make a drawing or a model to express my ideas?

     

    7.-The student must learn to establish a personal lexicon to express his architectural ideas.

    Have you expressed your ideas through a personal lexicon or have you imitated expression systems used by other designers seen in the media (magazines or Internet)

     

    8.-You need positively assess risk and innovation as a necessary condition of design. Innovation defined as the use of allied disciplines to develop intellectual and technical tools to create new realities, within their own reality, exceeding the established models.

    Do I use allied disciplines for innovative production?

     

    9.-The student must enter, step by step, work details the project culture, you must learn to interpret and criticize from their own proposal.

    How many data have you appropriated from the culture to express my project?

     

    10.-You should produce an open system work, with more questions than answers. The number of questions the student will be assessed is more than the number of certainties, you must use fuzzy logic, to support multiple possible truth-values, allowing multiple possible truth-values and strategies to create unpredictability.

    How many questions have you made throughout the design process and how many have you tried to answer?

     

    11.-Skills: Interest in the contribution, regardless of the attitude from which it was generated

    What is the interest considering my contribution to the WORKSHOP?

     

    12.-Attitudes: how to tackle the problem independent of the outcome

    Have I tried to solve with intellectual and material effort to present the proposal. The project has developed enough quality.

     

    STRENGTHS / Finding opportunities of Multimedia Dawing_Model_Video relationships to start with a project.

     

    Alicante University (SPAIN) /

    Joaquín Alvado Bañón (joaquin.alvado@ua.es)

    Javier Sánchez Merina (jsm@ua.es)

     

  • 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 long time been also an architectural theme (the Doric Corner Conflict) of rhythmic-harmonic transition from one side to another, of proportion, scale, dimension and creative materialized expression. The aesthetic solution of the corner is closely connected with the constructive solution.

    At all architectural scales we find manifold examples and spatial situations where the corners play a special role representing unexpected creative design solutions: from furniture design to interior fit-out, in constructive details, in the building scale as well as in urban design. Depending on their function, their context, and the designers specific answer, corners appear in different shapes: right-angled, rounded, beveled, recessed, dissolved, different materializations or different roles as spaces of transition.

     

    AIMS / Analyzing, understanding and visualizing the meaning of a self-selected corner, describing its role as the end of a grid, an architectural component of precise thought and materialization in different scales (multi scalar context).

     

    METHOD /

    1. Identifying a corner of interest within an architectural or urban context (not forcibly made of stone)
    2. Exploring and analyzing its architectural specificities, function and materiality
    3. Determine defining the typology of the corner
    4. Documenting in form of
    1. line drawings (section, elevation, plan, axonometric projection)
    2. 3 photos (from context to detail)
    1. Presenting and discussing the findings

     

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

    Introduction / 30 Apr 2021.

    Development / 03-14 May 2021.

    Final Crit / 14 May 2021.

     

    EVALUATION /

    Evaluation criteria:

    • Originality of the chosen corner object.
    • Clarity and depth of the analysis:
      function, design, interaction and impact on the context, typological classification, materiality-immateriality.
    • Quality of the presentation material.

     

    Learning outcome:

    • Learning to identify and understand that architectural elements (here: corners) can have specific roles within different scales and contextual situations.
    • Training analytical and presentation skills.

     

    GUC German University in Cairo (EGYPT) /

    Thomas Loeffler (th.loeffler@gmx.de)

     

  • ARCH: spatial agency: a detail

    CONTENT / Architectural details are often seen or even reduced to tools for solving technical issues and other things related to construction. Or they are described in relation to architectural styles. But what happens when we look at the detail and use the detail as a form of spatial agency?

    Agency has to do with performance. It fosters relationships. Agency is the capacity of an actor (detail) to act in a given environment (whole). Within that mindset we wonder whether the architectural detail can go beyond the mere solving of a technical issue and thus having agency? What is the relationship between the architectural detail and the conceptual intent of the building to which it belongs? Is it only ornamental details that can have agency or do other types of details have spatial agency? If we would affirm that an architectural detail can have agency, then this implies that details could teach us something about important themes related to the Anthropocene…

    Through this workshop you will be invited to find and explore the relationship between material, the place a detail has in a project and the overall concept and intent of the project. You will be asked to consider in what ways a detail can represent the whole? How can you use the development of an architectural detail to move the project forward? How can the detail highlight and address actual ‘spatial’ urgencies?

    So basically, it comes down to this crucial question: ‘Can a detail save the world?’

     

    AIMS / To identify a place as a desire. To work with the imagination as a real context. To describe a place with your experience. To find opportunities in your desires to start with a project. To introduce oneself to the class. To get to know the rest of the future members of your working group. To learn how to contribute to group work.

     

    METHOD / Model-making, sketching, drawing, collage and annotating. Documentation of the process in a Leporello booklet A6.

    1st day: Brings up to date regarding the state of your ongoing project or body of work developed during the semester. Formulate a clear intent.

    2nd day: Individual work developing of the detail and documentation of the process. Discussion of the work in small peer-groups.

    3rd day: Final crit.

     

    TECHNIQUE / Documenting the process of the workshop through producing a small A6 Leporello booklet. No waste! Discussing the works in small groups. Organising a feedback carousel.

    Together these Leporello booklets form a new collection of ‘details with intent’.

     

    AIMS /

    To consider that in a design process the arrow does not always point from the large to the small.

    To think spatially in a multidirectional way.

    To consider the architectural detail as an architectural gesture: something small that can have a big impact.

    To get acquainted with the concept of spatial agency.

    To experience documenting as an ongoing production and part of the design process.

     

    STRENGTHS /

    Putting the architectural detail center-stage.

    Exploring the impact of the small in relation to the whole.

    To work on a very tactile thing, as a sharp focus, but which also has the potential for a greater impact.

     

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

     

    Introduction / 30th April 2021.

    Development / 3-13th May 2021.

    Final Crit / 14th May 2021.

     

    EVALUATION /

    1. Have I been able to formulate an intent for my project?
    2. Did I explore different options?
    3. Was I able to hold on to more than one line of thought simultaneously?
    4. Was I able to document my process and development in an understandable way?
    5. Did I succeed to communicate my insights and development in a clear way, both graphically and in annotating of the graphics.?
    6. Did I increase my knowledge on spatial agency?
    7. Was I able to express my thoughts and engage my peers in a conversation?
    8. How much did I use experimentation to move the assignment forward?

     

    Bibliography / Tatjana Schneider and Jeremy Till. Beyond Discourse: Notes on Spatial Agency. Footprint: Agency in Architecture: Reframing Criticality un Theory and Practice, Spring 2009, pp 97-111.

    James Corner. The Agency of Mapping. Mappings (Denis Cosgrove ed.). Reaktion Books, 1999, pp 213-252.

     

    Faculty of Architecture KULeuven Campus Sint-Lucas Brussel/Gent /

    Tomas Ooms (Tomas.ooms@kuleuven.be)

     

  • 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. Probably, during the Renaissance and soon after, major projects such as Versailles brought together the disciplines of architecture and landscape, creating physical connections and visual relationships between garden spaces and the monumentality of architecture. 

    Today, at a time of democratization of public spaces in the city that is taking place through new and important projects, they need to strategically review the design of the soil, triggering processes of greater contamination between the closed space of architecture and the open space of gardens, landscape, parks, and public space.

     

    AIMS / The workshop aims to investigate the relationship between inside and outside by imagining the disappearance of closed and open space, generating interconnected and fluid spaces.

     

    METHOD / Students are asked to choose a place, either real or imagined, and propose spaces of relationship between architecture and landscape. Sections, diagrams, maps or any other media they consider useful to redesign of the ground of cities.  

     

    1st day: brief introduction of inside outside by professor; Presentation of the spaces chosen by the students.

     

    2nd day: Group work.

     

    3rd day: Final critic.

     

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

     

    Introduction / TBA.

    Development / TBA.

    Final Crit / TBA.

     

    Bibliography / Berrizbeita A, Inside outside: Between Architecture and Landscape. Editor Rockport Pub.

    Corner J., The High Line, Phaidon.

    ……….

     

    Università Mediterranea di Reggio Calabria (Italy) / Valerio Morabito (valerio.morabito@unirc.it)

    + TBA

     

  • ARCH: working with the existent and the non-existent

    CONTENT / Everyone has a favourite architect and artist and we would like to live two days and at least a night in one of the designed dwellings in an urban context by her or him. In this case we can understand the spaces of the house in the phenomenological way and know how it was more important for the architect, which were their concepts. It has to be part of the city because we will try to discover its way of integration.

    In this pandemic period, we notice the openness of the architecture publications, magazines and even the famous architect’s will to share the precious information. In this way, we invite you to explore your most wanted building through, first of all, the plans and sections, second of all, the conceptual 3D model and, third of all, the short interview with the architect and someone from their office.

    All of them create an imaginary atmosphere about that building and play with new spaces which you will add on the conceptual 3D model. You will design your house based on your needs, but related to the initial concept. So, we provoke you to re-design the former.

    This year we have organized a 2-week workshop living in our favourite architect’s building.

    It is also an experience to study the landscape of the windows of this house, because we will find many photos that have captured the exterior context and the way of entering the light in a room. Through these images the look is home to show the architect’s intentions.

    We discover a fascinating world of the house only in two-week discussions and your serious analysis.

     

    AIMS / To identify a dwelling as a desire. To work with the found documents, imagination and your needs. To describe a city with your chosen house in collaboration with your favourite architect or office of architecture. To find opportunities in your desires to start with a project. To introduce oneself to the class.

     

    METHOD / The student’s life and interests as building concept and way of insertion in a context. To introduce our personal skills to re-design a building. Live imaginarily to a new space, which you desire to know.

    1st day: Introduce yourself presenting a 3min video with the values of your interests of an architect.

    2nd day: Group work according to your common interests. Connect around the main architect’s ideas from his or her period of design. Here we will meet with persons who appreciate the same architect, but not the same ideas, details.

    3rd day: Final crit. Design your Zoom setting.

     

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

     

    Introduction / 30 th April, 2021.

    Development / 3-7th May, 2021.

    Final Critics / 10-14 th May, 2021.

     

    EVALUATION /

     

    Bibliography / The collection of El Croquis magazines.

                                The collection of Domus magazines.

                                The collection of OASE magazines.

                                The collection of SAN ROCCO magazines.

                                The collection of sITA – studies in History and Theory of Architecture publications.

     

    Ion Mincu University of Architecture and Urban Planning, BUCHAREST, ROMANIA/

    Andreea Calma (andreeacalma.drd18@uauim.ro)

     

  • ARTS: moving bodies – on art and walking

    CONTENT / In this workshop we will explore different approaches and methods in relation to moving and sensing bodies. We will look briefly at how artist and thinkers have used walking as a means to think, create and converse different terrains.

    Together we will examine how walking in certain situations affects our knowledge, that we gain from experience, literacy and landscape views from the perspective of art.  Participants will be invited to take part in a few exercises that are based around walking and to look at their own movement and walk through their environments and try ways to make that visible.

    Participants can expect to walk indoors and outdoors, to sketch their ideas and make documentation of their movement, to share ideas and to discuss their own and others, to view work of others.

     

    AIMS / To explore different ways of walking and collecting, measuring, thinking and sensing.

    To gain insight into environmental, societal and personal layers of urban or natural landscapes.

    To create visual documentation of these explorations.

     

    EVALUATION / Assessment will be based on the following learning outcomes. Participants should be able to:

    • discuss different examples of walking for example in artworks, texts or exhibitions.
    • to engage independently with the course material, through discussion, writing or visual methods in their own work.

     

    SCHEDULE / Prior to the workshop an audio lecture will be made available for participants to listen to before the 11th of May.

    Tuesday 11th of May

    Presentation of outline

    Small group discussions

    Walking exercise

    Discussions

     

    Bibliography / Selected pages from the publications will be made available before the workshop.

    – Careri, F. (2017). Walkscapes: Walking as an aesthetic practice. Ames. Culicidae Architectural Press.

    – Solnit, R. (2000). Wanderlust: A history of walking. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

     

    Iceland University of the Arts /

    Gunndís Ýr Finnbogadóttir (gunndis@lhi.is)

     

  • ARCH: housing Europe – challenging sameness

    CONTENT

    Housing forms the rooms, neighborhoods and cityscapes of our everyday lives. Housing is where our most personal happiness and societal well-being originate and find their expression. Simultaneously housing illustrates personal dramas and social ills. The Question of Housing (referring to Engels, Friedrich: Zur Wohnungsfrage. Leipzig, 1872) is increasingly reduced to the phenomena of the real estate market and disassociated from the cultural practice of architectural urbanism. Across Europe alternative models of housing concepts are lacking and for large parts of societies it is becoming more and more difficult to gain access to self-determined and affordable housing. 

    The right to housing is a human right. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly and states that „Everyone has the right to standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services.“ (Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Paris, 1948).

     

    AIMS

    Housing Europe – Challenging Sameness investigates the interrelation between urban design and architecture, between housing and social reality taking the participating University Cities as its Case Studies. Housing is the field of architecture most heavily influenced by formal, social and spatial conventions. Investigating specific typologies of housing in different urban environments and visualizing the manifold forms and types, considering the various scales of public and private interfaces aims to broaden the understanding of – and the perspective on Housing.

    The relationship of density, complexity, difference and openness of spatial concepts and use arises in every housing design concept regardless of its location or size. 

    Today various forms of (re-)densifications continue to absorb the never-ending flow of new urban inhabitants while city expansions are being developed as new island within ever-growing metropolitan areas. At the same time shrinking cities, abandoned real estate speculations, or vast structural changes are phenomena found in various regions across Europe. All of these scenarios impact the specific responses to The “Question of Housing”.

    • What can we learn from traditional housing typologies?
    • How does housing types differ in various parts of Europe (or further)?
    • How can we learn from the specificities of the other? 
    • How can the battle for quantity be transformed into new architectural quality?  
    • How does the concept of adaptability manage the constant changes of individual and common demands?
    • How does the demand for adaptable, neutral structure relate to the fact architects are asked to create specific, unique buildings?
    • Which forms of housing do residents really identify with?

    Due to factors like climate, culture, social practices, design – to name a few – the use of public space differs widely in different parts of Europe. Even if the proportion of ownership resided Housing varies greatly throughout Europe, the forms of Housing seem to be more of the same in different parts of the continent – but is this really true? New forms of communities, processes and ownership models are being encouraged and developed to either cope with an ever-increasing demand for affordable housing in rapidly developing urban environments or the immediate demands of structural shifts.

    The term sameness has an ambiguous meaning. On the one hand it describes a lack of variety, uniformity and even monotony – on the other hand sameness defines the quality of being the same which has the capacity to generate identity through similarity.

     

    METHOD

    Housing Europe – Challenging Sameness identifies, analyses, visualizes and explains specific typologies of Housing present in the respective Case Study Locations. Representing the most important characteristics in a consistent manner: key facts, photo, axonometric projection of research object and urban context and axonometric projection of a selected single unit.

    Comparing typical structures aids in understanding spatial qualities and deficits of urban housing architectures. How do essential architectural elements like dimension, proportion, cohesion, access, circulation, representation, private and public space contribute to the urban architectural form of Housing in the specific context? Creating an understanding for both conventions as well as concepts of alternative, unexpected spatial configurations, promoting the ideas of radical spatial, social and functional mix. 

    The Workshop focuses urban housing typologies and the multiplicity of relations between the architectural object and the city. As a manual of existing typologies, the outcome of the International Workshop allows all participants of Housing Europe – Challenging Sameness to evaluate existing conditions of Housing in a broader context based on different urban realities. This knowledge encourages a new thinking regarding the own design process that transfers, translates and transposes this understanding to ultimately challenge sameness with experimental Urban Architecture that has to be deeply enrooted and interwoven with the context of the contemporary city.

     

    SCHEDULE

    23.04.21 Introduction / Workshop

    30.04.21 Workshop / Presentation

     

    EVALUATION

    Groups of two students to analyze, visualize and communicate on housing project

    Key facts of research object 

    Series of photos 

    Axonometric projection of research object and urban context 

    Axonometric projection of a single unit

    Evaluation of Drawings after Hand-in

     

    BIBLIOGRAPHY

    • Engels, Friedrich: Zur Wohnungsfrage. Leipzig, 1872
    • Janson Alban; Wolfrum Sophie: City as Architecture. Basel, 2018
    • Wietzorrek, Ulrike: Wohnen+: Von Schwellen, Übergangsräumen und Transparenzen, Basel 2014
    • Wolfrum, Sophie: Squares – Urban Spaces in Europe. Basel, 2014
    • Zoller, Doris: Herausforderung Erdgeschoss. Berlin, 2014

     

    Prof. Heiner Stengel

    Architekt und Stadtplaner 

    Fachbereich Architektur 

    IUBH Internationale Hochschule 

     

    Waterloohain 9 I 22769 Hamburg

    h.stengel@iubh-dualesstudium.de

     

  • ARCH: rivers – ecological, economic, cultural & ideological links between faraway lands – living connectors.

    CONTENT / Once hugely determinant in the development of shoreside urban areas, the evolution of city structure, and vital in the survival of the local communities, the role and hence the appreciation of urban riverfronts largely diminished, somewhere in the last century. With the development of infrastructure and the general social and economic transformations, rivers were often viewed as obstacles in city planning. It wasn’t until about three decades ago that cities all around Europe began to rediscover the underlying enormous potential of urban rivers.

     

    Beyond the apparent aesthetic, recreational values, rivers also largely define urban identity, and at the same time evoke a spiritual bond, cultural and historical cohesion among twin cities along their banks. Danube alone connects four capitals and a number of large towns both physically and culturally. Yet, up to this point there still are a great number of urban riverfronts which have been underused partly due to bad design, or simply by oversight.

     

    AIMS / This workshop aims at the investigation of the relationship between inter-urban rivers and riverside communities; the understanding exploration of the potential of underutilised embankment sites, and the inspiration of architecture students to exploit this potential through creative design thinking and collaboration.

     

    METHOD / Working in groups of 2 or 3, students explore the possibility of small-scale design interventions in larger riverside cities.

     

    Using online maps, like Google Earth they locate urban locales, smaller embankment sites which in spite of their obvious proximity to residential areas have clearly failed to create the natural connection between the people and the water; or even worse, which currently act as a barrier between the community and the river.

     

    Then, they select one and create design ideas to reintroduce, restore or strengthen the bond, the interaction. The groups lay out a series of design solutions which together help reinforce local, visual as well as international and intercultural identity, at the same time.

     

    SCHEDULE / Two-week Workshop. Weekly 4-hour class arranged with the students:

     

    1st class – Introduction & potential site mapping

    2nd class – Development of conceptual solutions

    3rd class – Final Crit

     

    EVALUATION / Evaluation is based on the fulfilment of workshop aims. After the workshop students are expected to have a better understanding of river cities, the ability to evaluate the contextual quality of embankment sites, and to be able to create the scene of community interaction with the river through the language of architecture.

     

    Bibliography / Links:

    https://welovebudapest.com/en/article/2018/6/5/meet-valyo-budapest-s-cool-urban-activists

    https://valyo.hu/projektjeink/

     

    Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Faculty of Architecture (HUNGARY) / PORTSCHY, Szabolcs Dávid (portschy@gmail.com)

     

  • ARCH: sharing the voids. reuse and reactivation in architecture

    CONTENT / In his book Construire autrement in 2006, the builders, architect, artist, planner (…) Patrick Bouchain  reflects on alternative way of building societies: “I believe in temporariness and mobility of things, in exchange.  And I work in order to create, in architecture, a situation in which construction could be achieved in another way  and could produce unexpectedness, and thus enchantment. Construire autrement is using ideas that I  experienced/experimented [same word in French] with a lot of delight and then kept from a construction site to  another in order to reach this goal: building within the context, knowing the rule, not acting but transforming,  doing the least as possible in order to give as much as possible, involving everyone, interpreting, giving some  time, transmitting, never doing the same thing…” 

    The phenomena global development and the current urban condition of our cities, induce to think about a  different possible way of intervening on abandoned and empty spaces. This matter has alerted public awareness and produced a debate in which we are all involved as architect and urban designers. Thinking about the city as  a place of experimentation in which citizens primarily, politicians, investors, public administrators and technicians are working together to contribute and to improve the quality conditions of life for the cities, means  to design more open and flexible cities, improving our tools and references, towards a more sustainable future. Starting from these considerations, the workshop aims at identifying different points of view on the role of the  architects and planners in the contemporary city, starting from an alternative way of “building”. 

    Starting from the experience of the Workshop held in October 2020 (ARCH EU1s 2020-21) with students  participating from 6 different universities: Umeå University, School of Architecture; Malmö University, Urban  Studies; Alicante University, School of Architecture; University of Nicosia, Department of Architecture; University  Ion Mincu of Bucharest, Department of Architecture; University of Bristol, School of Architecture; about the  Architecture as the art of building communities; we have learned that in the current pandemic situation we have  an opportunity that can bring us beyond the trans-national/scalar/disciplinary boards learning from the local  context, culture and society, and going beyond languages, national regulations. We built an ATLAS of more than 

    200 “infinite places” as possible places for a future intervention, sharing and reflecting on the potential of each  of this places in 6 countries in Europe. 

    AIMS /  

    • To unpack the ATLAS, considering the experience of the places. 
    • To find opportunities in neglected and forgotten area/buildings. 
    • To identify a potential place, from the existing ATLAS, as context of experimentation and work with the  imagination in defining new rules for a collective “Imaginary Place” as a different idea for a trans national/scalar/disciplinary community. Sharing the voids, sharing the experiences, and the notion of  “occupation” and transformation.  
    • To learn how to contribute to group work and exchange as a small experiment for a learning society. To  think about installation to be tested in scale 1:1.  
    • To improve the ability of working in an international team using online teaching as an opportunity. • To learn about new techniques for communicating the projects through digital curation. • To find opportunities of Interdisciplinary relationships starting from a “common” project.

    METHOD /  

    Research and investigate through case studies, speculate through the common sharing of knowledge.  Positioning yourself as an architect producing a visual manifesto.  

    The students will work in groups from the 6 different universities, on a project of transformation, thinking  about the short/mid/long term prevision, exchanging knowledge as a small experiment for a learning society, using as a starting point the ATLAS produced during the WS 2 / UOU ARCH EU2s 2020/21. 

    Part 1. / Reflecting and Unpacking the ATLAS choosing and unpacking three of the proposed Infinite Places from  different countries. What is the potential for transformation? What can we learn from the different uses of the  space? How do the community manage the place, what is the role of the architecture? Design the strategy of  intervention sharing the voids, learning from each other, producing and sharing a first draft of a visual manifesto.  

    Part 2./ Communicating the idea/strategy through the production of a visual Manifesto to be displayed through  an online exhibition/showcase. 

    SCHEDULE / 

    Fridays  

    10-14.00  

    (Time of Central Europe) 

    Expected Learning Outcomes/ 

    After these two weeks workshop the student will be able to: 

    Apply methods for quantitative and qualitative mapping, through the description of a place in the city. Identify a potential for the reuse or reactivation of an area/building of the city. Learn how to use case studies.  Explain the consequences of various urban development strategies and its relation to architecture and society. Improve communication ability through oral and visual presentations. 

    Bibliography / 

    1. BOUCHAIN, Construire Autrement. Comment Faire? Arles : Actes Sud, 2006 
    2. INGHILLERI, Verso un’architettura die beni comuni e dell’identità, in LOTUS n.153, 2014 S.MARINI, G.CORBELLINI, a cura di, Recycled Theory. Dizionario Illustrato/Illustrated Dictionary. Quodlibet, 2016 

    TUTORS/ 

    Umeå University (Sweden) / Malmö University (Sweden)  

    Maria Luna Nobile (maria.nobile@umu.se)

    Marie Kraft (marie.kraft@mau.se)

     

  • ARCH: the ‘review of reviews’

    CONTENT 

    This workshop is for students who want to overcome a worry about presenting design work It is deliberately designed to be relaxed and to build confidence  

    The architectural review is ritual in education in which the student presents work to academics in  public for legitimisation but which research has shown to be a frightening experience (Webster  2005). Many architectural students live in fear of the review. It can remove their enjoyment of the  subject and many potentially good designers are lost to the architecture profession because of the  way in which reviews are held. The traditional review cripples learning, especially for the shy and  reserved. This is an issue throughout architectural education. Myself and colleagues are very  supportive of initiatives to overcome this and have been developing innovative new ways of helping  students to explain their work and to receive feedback without being intimidated. 

    There are many words associated with this but all have roughly the same meaning and same  connotations: ‘review’, ‘critique’ (crit), ‘presentation’, ‘jury’. 

    There are two common reasons for problems associated with this process of giving students  feedback on their design work. 

    ∙ The critic (who may be from academia or practice) does not understand what being a critic is  about and how to explain his or her thinking without being aggressive or condescending.  ∙ The student (who may be resilient or reserved) not being prepared, being too defensive or being argumentative.  

    Both of these broad problems can be overcome by the student taking control of the review.  

    But before we look at how this workshop might help you do that let’s consider some positive aspects  of the architectural review. Reviews help you: 

    ∙ To synthesise your design arguments and defend your ideas 

    ∙ To work to deadlines and mimic practice 

    ∙ To improve visual and verbal communication skills 

    ∙ To improve your design output 

    AIMS 

    This workshop aims to help you think about the architectural review and its role in your education  and in professional practice through undertaking research, practical exercises, including developing a  piece of design and presenting it. You will also have a good idea of alternative ways of undertaking  reviews and in how to make the most of them. All of the above is scheduled to be carried out over a  period of two weeks, based on working approximately 4 hours (with academic staff) and 6 hours  (without academic staff) per week. 

    At the end of the workshop you should have much more confidence in understanding reviews and in  taking charge of the presentation and understanding of your project. This is useful for all students of  architecture.  

      

    METHOD 

    We will start with an introduction to the review using examples and academic research. This will be  done on line (staff presentations) and by individual learning and reflection. In particular you will be  asked to reflect on your own work to date in design studio and your experience of the review. This  

    will be done in a systematic way with results posted on line. This first part of the workshop will be  followed by an individual short design exercise (esquisse) that will help you to generate a  proposition that might be reviewed.  

    You will then have a presentation about different methods of review and how to make the most of  them, including advice on selecting the best one for the purpose. We will conclude week 1 by  creating cross university groups ready for the start of week 2.  

    Week 2 will be group work. Your group will be assigned the task of choosing a review typology best  suited to (a) the student presenting and (b) the type of project being presented. You will be helped  to do this but at the same time encouraged to be creative and arrive at your own preferred  approaches. These will be compared against traditional approaches (by academic staff) to help you  understand them.  

    You will then have a review of your work – how that will be done will be revealed to you at the time.  The idea being that this delay in revealing how you will be reviewed mimics some of the  apprehension felt before a review – but please be assured that this is a relaxed, fun experience.  

    SCHEDULE 

    Friday 14h00 [or alternative tba] Short introduction 

    WEEK 1 

    Monday 13h00-15h00 Presentation of the workshop  Overview of the review process 

    Setting the first task 

    Wednesday 11h30-12h30 Setting the design task  

    Friday 14h00-16h00 Submission of design task 

    Formation of groups 

    WEEK 2 

    Monday 13h00-15h00 Developing confidence 

    Review formats 

    All week Reviews at given times 

    Friday 13h00-17h00 Review of the reviews

    EVALUATION – ASSESSMENT 

    Each university has its own expectations and requirements and you will be informed of those  separately. As a general guide to assessing your involvement in this workshop the following will be considered: 

    Evaluation is based on: 

    ∙ your grasp of the concerns that surround architectural reviews,  

    ∙ your self-reflection  

    ∙ your development of a suitable approach to the review 

    ∙ your review  

      

    University of the West of England, Bristol (ENGLAND) /

     

  • ARTS: small scale and isolated occurrences – on art and the precarious

    CONTENT /

    In this workshop we will pay attention to the margins of our visibility: the precarious, ephemeral, fragile, unstable. Based on the radicality of contemporary artistic practices, participants will be invited to reflect on their daily lives. Each participant will be proposed to use video as a privileged tool to document ephemeral actions, small occurrences and / or precarious situations that reconfigure their relationship or perception of the reality in which we live. It is proposed to introduce a certain form of slowness into the gaze, because what is intended is not just an observation but a stopped view. It is a repair: seeing it a second time and giving new opportunities not only to the object but to the visibility itself. As if the number of half-glances and overflows that we dedicate to things is harmful to this ethics that remains in expectation in the encounter with each look.

    At the end, all videos will be compiled into a single video mosaic that will show all the small occurrences, poetic micro-actions that the participants performed simultaneously and in a loop. This video object resulting from a collective artistic process will later be hosted on the UOU website.

     

     

    PLAN/

     

    Session 1

    Presentation.

    1. a) Framework of the workshop, objectives and working plan.
    2. b) Presentation and setting of the work proposal.

     

    Session 2

    Expository presentation of the working proposal where the supervisors will analyse some contemporary artistic projects that can inform the students’ projects.

     

    Session 3

    Forum to discuss projects and debate ideas. Monitoring of work.

     

    Session 4

    Presentation of the individual projects. Viewing of the videos.

     

     

    Faculty of Fine Arts of The University of Porto (PORTUGAL)

     

    Fernando José Pereira (efejotape@me.com)

    Samuel J M Silva (samuel.jm.silva@gmail.com)

     

  • ARCH + ARTS: competition / research: MATTER ON LINES. MARBLE

    CONTENT / What it is relevant on Architecture and Art, talking about objects is the matter. Matter as a physical substance that create atmospheres, relations and light.

    The proposal for the workshop is to create matter with lines. MARBLE IS A HARD ROCK THAT HAS A PATTERN OF LINES GOING THROUGH IT THAT CAN BE POLISHED TO BECOME SMOOTH AND SHINY. Using the definition of Marble, we are going to create matter with a pattern of lines that could be smooth and shiny.

     

    AIMS / To understand the presence of the matter in our projects.

    To relate drawings, physical models and video as a way to produce an architectonical_artistic project.

     

    METHOD / The students will use the drawing to create matter. We will draw lines and model them to create a space as a matter.

    Finding opportunities of Multimedia Dawing_Model_Video relationships to start with a project.

     

    Part 1: Draw. Individual Work.

    Select a piece of marble and draw the lines that constitute the matter of the stone.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY / “Power of ten”. Charles and Ray Eames:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fKBhvDjuy0&t=14s

     

    Part 2: Model. Group Work.

    Transform the lines into a three_dimensional object.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY / “Cloud Cities and Solar balloon travel”. Tomas Sarraceno:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61fybvkZiDE

     

    Part 3: Video. Group Work.

    Find a Program that matches with the matter of our project.

    BIBLIOGRAPHY / Silk Pavilion – Mediated Matter Group, Media Lab, Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnH1C5rJ94k

     

    SCHEDULE / Easter Workshop:

     

    29 -31 March

    EASTER 1-12 April

    13-16 April

     

    EVALUATION / Jury: UOU professors. 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize.

     

    Alicante University (SPAIN) / Joaquín Alvado Bañón (joaquin.alvado@ua.es)

    + Javier Sánchez Merina (jsm@ua.es)

     

  • ARCH: pop up

    CONTENT / In the Cambridge Dictionary “to pop-up” means to appear or happen, especially suddenly or unexpectedly. This word is also used to describe a shop, restaurant, etc. that operates temporarily and only for a short period when it is likely to get a lot of customers. Similarly, like a three-dimensional folding object that suddenly pop-ups from the book and soon after, when the page is turned, the object disappears. 

    The pop-up phenomenon is an answer to an instant occasions or events that create a space and needs for temporary use. Those events might have both positive and negative character. On the one hand, the growing popularity of the pop-up restaurants or shops brings the new opportunities for local communities and small entrepreneurs. On the other, the instant need for relief in situations such as earthquakes, floods, military conflicts cause an urgency to provide emergency shelters and to undertake other activities that are associated with the emergency situation. 

    Globally, the pop-up movement is connected with temporary use of space or structure that brings a new quality in a short period of time. In urban areas the pop-up installations make use of abandoned plot or unused (or unfinished) buildings, or they complement the urban pattern with new values. 

    The pop-up architecture is closely related to social, technical and cultural status of the space where it occurs. The idea of the pop-up places seems to be fitted in the flexible societies where people are less and less tight to concrete places and look for some constantly-changing physical and cultural landscape.

    In Europe and North America, the pop-up places are the avant-garde in commercial, retail and housing services. Those temporary places which are often installed in urban voids or lands without any identity, have strong experimental character where the new concepts can be tested. The limited danger of large investments allows small entrepreneurs to risk and try new ideas, which will be evaluated in real life conditions. 

    The temporary character of the pop-up places makes them exclusive and limited. This goes together with high popularity in a short period of time. The marketing of pop-up places can be arranged by fast messages sent to the potential customers. Therefore, the Internet advertisement via web pages and social media, and spreading the information by the word of mouth are the best solutions for instant marketing. The pop-up places can also be self-advertised by the means of surprise.

     

    AIMS / 

     

    • The new city observation skills – identity of places with potentials for pop-ups
    • Analysis of the physical and social context of the chosen spot
    • Determination of the pop-up influences on a local community 
    • Identification of the potentials (pros and cons) of temporary architectural interventions

     

    METHOD / 

     

    • Search for potential pop-up places in the local area
    • Observations and analyses of the local community (survey, interviews photos, drawings, diagrams, collages)
    • Development of the architectural design of a pop-up structure
    • Teamwork (3 -5 people in the team)

     

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

     

    Introduction / (What?)

    Development – analytical phase (3 min presentations) / (Where and What for?)

    Final presentation – pop-ups (3 min presentations) / (Why and how?)

     

    EVALUATION / The following process and projects elements will be evaluated:

     

    1. Chosen spot and argumentation (clarity, comprehensiveness, consistency)
    2. Results of the surveys ( e.g. interviews, photos, diagrams, sketches)
    3. Final design and its value in the context of the conducted studies

     

    Bibliography / 

    • Alkisti Eleni Victoratou (2013) Pop-up Initiatives in Athens, Greece Shed Light on Economic Crisis. The Global Grid. Urbanist news. Local views. https://theglobalgrid.org/pop-up-initiatives-in-athens-greece-shed-light-on-economic-crisis/
    • Ella Harris and Mel Nowicki (2015) Cult of the temporary: is the pop-up phenomenon good for cities? The guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/jul/20/cult-temporary-pop-up-phenomenon-cities
    • Marni Epstein-Mervis (2016) The Rise and Rise of Pop-Up Architecture. Curbed. Accessed on 5th Feb. 2019: https://www.curbed.com/2016/3/9/11180920/architecture-history-temporary-banksy
    • Rebecca Burns (2014) Multistorey car park in US transformed into designer micro-apartments. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/jul/09/multistorey-car-park-us-designer-micro-apartments-affordable-housing
      • Paul West (2011) Pop Up Concepts in Hospitality. Ignite hospitality. https://www.ignitehospitality.com/blog/pop-up-concepts-in-hospitality/
      • Laura Powell (2018) Hotels Experiment With Pop-Ups to Attract New Audiences. Skift. https://skift.com/2018/05/15/hotels-experiment-with-pop-ups-to-attract-new-audiences/
      • Robert Kronenburg (2008) Portable Architecture. Design and Technology. Birkhauser Verlag AG ISBN: 978-3-7643-8324-4
    • Peter Jones, Daphne Comfort, David Hillier (2017) A Commentary on Pop up Hospitality Ventures in the UK. Athens Journal of Tourism. Volume 4, Issue 3. Ed. Gregory T. Papanikos, Valia Kasimati, ISSN: 2241-8148, Pages 203-216. https://doi.org/10.30958/ajt.4.3.2
    • Pop-up power: How pop-up outlets are changing the landscape of fashion retail (2018), Strategic Direction, Vol. 34 Issue: 10, pp.7-9, https://doi.org/10.1108/SD-06-2018-0143
    • Gaitan, J. W. (2015). Pop Up: A Deployable Brand in the Urban Fabric (MArch Thesis, Carleton University).
    • Staback, D., Addison, J., Angles, Z., Karsan, Z., & Tibbits, S. (2017). Aerial Pop-Up Structures.
    • Hollwich, M. (2015). Lasting Impressions: Pop‐Up Culture by HWKN. Architectural design, 85(3), 124-129.
    • Rian, I. M., Chang, D., Park, J. H., & Ahn, H. U. (2008). POP-UP TECHNIQUE OF ORIGAMIC ARCHITECTURE FOR POST-DISASTER EMERGENCY SHELTERS. open house international, 33(1).

     

    TUTORS/

    Wroclaw University of Science and Technology (Poland) / Jerzy Łątka (jerzy.latka@pwr.edu.pl)

    Yasar University in Izmir (Turkey) / Mauricio Morales-Beltrán (mauricio.beltran@yasar.edu.tr)

     

  • ARCH: homeland miniatures: a collective digital travelbook

    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 Travelbook” workshop, we will make a collective travelbook 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 travelbook 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 wholistic spatial characteristics. To discuss on the emancipatory character of architectural representations. 

     

    METHOD / The tutor will give a lecture on miniature drawing and travelbooks (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 travelbook 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:

     

    March 12th, 2020 (Friday) – 30 minutes – Introduction

    March 15th, 2020 (Tuesday) – 2 hours – Fragments of spaces, textures

    March 18th, 2020 (Friday) – 2 hours – Layout of his/her miniature drawing

    March 22nd, 2020 (Tuesday) – 2 hours – Finalise the miniature drawing and the text

    March 26th, 2020 (Friday) – 2 hours – 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: evolution of forgotten – ignored wisdoms

    CONTENT /

    The rapid developments of the urban realms and the monstrous evolution of the socioeconomic systems together with the invading globalization deprived the people from the sustainable way of living which was forged by local conditions through the centuries.

    The workshop will revisit existing, forgotten or lost worlds and traditions or vernacular architecture not nostalgically, not just to revitalise them. But rather to rediscover cultures, and vanished wisdoms to facilitate their evolution into the contemporary world.

    Traditional elements such as courtyard typologies, shading devices of Mashrabiyas, traditional irrigational systems and building technologies are among a vast number of traditional wisdom that either was forced to extinction or to a dormant state.

    The students are asked to revisit those ‘dusted’ wisdoms, reconstruct them and reuse them in their evolved metamorphosis in the ever changing and rapidly developing urban built environments for a future of environmental and social sustainability of regional identities.

     

    AIMS /

    To understand and experience the unique architectural qualities of forgotten traditional elements and mechanisms

    To share knowledge and insights from diverse cultural backgrounds

    To develop awareness, knowledge and understanding of extracted wisdom from traditional elements and their potential role in contemporary architecture

    To develop a critical approach towards sustainability and an environmental awareness [of traditional wisdoms and vernacular architecture], as integral parts of a design process.

    To amalgamate research findings in order to stitch, integrate and embed those findings in innovative and radical ways in the future architectural and urban realms.

    To take a stance, and a voice of resistance for a substantial future for humanities against the devouring globalizations and erasures of identities.

     

    METHOD /

    E L E M E N T   S T U D Y    [space, mechanisms, infrastructures, materiality, technology]

    RECORDINGS # DIS-ASSEMBLING # EVOLUTION

    • Analysing and assessing existing condition
    • Drawing and making experimentations
    • Discovering spaces & relationships through a specific methodology
    • Loose and Accurate methods of representation allowing different information to be revealed
    • Chance
    • Evolution

    The intension is to create a new reading of the ELEMENTS which can be seen in various configurations and scales. Experimentation will be tested through hybrid drawings.

    Transformation of the technical drawing becomes a device to read the different parameters and qualities of the dis- assembled and evolved elements.

    Students will develop a series of creative work starting from an existing situation (photo, drawing etc) and leading gradually to a hybrid drawing. Emphasis will be given to the evolution through the layers / depths of the built and human topographies.

    The process of drawings and results in the various stages of the development should be Recorded in a photographic sequence.

    Students will be assigned to work in groups based on their categories of interest [ELEMENTS] by the end of week one.

     

    STEPS

    Week one

    • Investigate, collect drawings, photos and other materials of a chosen traditional element/ wisdom [visit if possible]
    • Create a 2d drawing of the existing element based on your interest [suggestions: sectional drawing, layering techniques, photo collage, cut-outs etc]

    *** Exaggerate and accentuate elements that you want to focus on

    • Choose an unexpected/contrasting existing setting [you may use previous projects, existing landscapes and buildings] where you will apply your intervention

     

    Week two

    • Evolve forgotten wisdoms and facilitate the emergence of their evolution through testing and hybrid drawing investigations

    *** Specific human activities should be presented in ‘distinguished’ (not indifferent) graphic mode, adding to the general unique (not generic) atmospheres of the interventions

    *** We strongly encourage a deep dive-in into radical experimentation and provocation through alternative techniques and ways of seeing architecture

     

    SCHEDULE /

    2-week Workshop.

    Weekly 4–hour class Tuesday 9.00 – 13.00 CET [additional hours may be offered at a later stage]

     

    EVALUATION /

    The evaluation will be based on the following Expected Learning Outcomes:

    After completion of the workshop students are expected to be able to:

    • Examine and interpret traditional and vernacular conditions in relation to their appropriation and evolution in the existing natural and built environment [material and immaterial qualities of space, ambience and innovation]
    • Use appropriate representation and presentation tools, including mixed media techniques to explore a plurality of experiences/ cultures/sites via alternative representation methods.
    • Demonstrate competence in dealing with sustainability, environmental awareness and climatic modification as integral parts of a design process.
    • Experiment with materiality and mechanisms in order to achieve an atmospheric architectural environment, having as a drive the interaction of the human body and space.
    • Identify and critically address the inherent conditions of the site, deal sensitively with the social issues as an integral part of the design process

     

    Bibliography /

    • ‘From Shinto to Ando; studies in architectural anthropology in Japan’ / Gunter Nitscke ; Academy Press (October 29, 1993) ISBN 978-1854902894
    • ‘Modern Architecture: A Critical History’ Kenneth Frampton; Thames & Hudson; 5th edition (September 8, 2020) ISBN-13 : 978-0500204443 [ chapter on critical regionalism ]
    • Studies in Tectonic Culture: The Poetics of Construction in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Architecture ; Kenneth Frampton ; The MIT Press; Illustrated edition (October 1, 2001) / ISBN-13 : 978-0262561495
    • ‘Atmosheres’, Zumthor; Birkhäuser Architecture; 5th Printing. edition (March 17, 2006) / ISBN-13: 978-3764374952
    • Studio Mumbai El Croquis 157

    Websites:

     

    University of Nicosia (CYPRUS) / Markella Menikou (menikou.m@unic.ac.cy)

    + Maria Hadjisoteriou (hadjisoteriou.m@unic.ac.cy)

    + Yiorgos Hadjichristou (hadjichristou.y@unic.ac.cy)

     

  • 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)  

    02 March | 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  

    04 March | Group work: development of ideas and teachers’ feedback  

    9 March | Group work: teachers’ feedback on finalising Mock-up scale 1:50 and  presentations in Zoom setting.  

    11 March | 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) + Joana Vilhena

     

  • ARCH: psychoanalysis of the design process – three paths to a library

    CONTENT / The science on various design methods and processes is a fascinating branch of knowledge which architects perhaps do not study enough. The knowledge of design methods could organise and systematise your work, offer an X-ray vision, real psychanalysis of yourself as well as other designers and your tutors. This science may also help you to overcome design blocks when you are mentally stuck. 

     

    We could provide you a long, detailed and technical lecture about various methods of design, but why not experiment on yourself and feel how it is to become three different creative personalities? 

     

    AIMS / During this workshop we will talk and learn about libraries in the 21st century – this is a fascinating topic with its own unique problems and potentials. However, the workshop is not only about libraries. It is about making you aware about the design process; about who you are… and who you could be as a conscious architect. The seminal book Revealing Architectural Design Methods, Frameworks and Tools by Philip Plowright has a surprising conclusion that there are only three main types of architectural design process which represent three schools of teaching and creation. Architects, architectural tutors and students are often not aware of that so their arguments are actually pseudo-arguments… deriving from confusion on a meta-level. Some ‘big debates’ in the architectural world or academia stem from basic misunderstanding of those three different design processes. 

     

    The workshop is also about ‘fast methods’ for designing options. In the first week, you will be asked to design one option a day following specific instructions. 

     

    The objective of the project is only partly related to designing a library. The main aim of the workshop is for you to reflect on different design methods, your own strength and weakness and on the tools that are available.

     

    During the workshop you will learn about:  

    Problem solving, problem redefinition, exploratory and evaluative thinking, architectural syntax, usefulness of bias, IBD (Intelligence-based design), pattern language, forces, intellectual tools and brainstorming, CPSP (Creative Problem Solving Process), TRIZ (theory of the resolution of invention-related tasks), domain-to-domain transfer.

     

    METHOD / During the first week of this workshop you will be asked to approach the same architectural task – designing a library – three times. Every time, you will design it according to different architectural framework. This will allow you to learn something about yourself as an architect and about your own strengths and weaknesses. In the second week, you will be asked to analyse your work, evaluate the three projects and to refine the best result during group work.  

    …And one more thing… At the end, you will be asked to reflect on the work done and reflect on who you are and who you could be.  

        

    The workshop will be an exercise on fast design. For three days you will follow a different design framework, thus learning about different design methods and tools. As a result, you will create three, probably very different, projects. For now, let’s call the three projects Alpha, Beta and Gamma. (You will learn the real names of these frameworks during the workshop). In order not to confuse you, we will not explain the different methodologies here, but they will be explained on three separate days in special materials you will be sent. 

     

    SCHEDULE/

    Week 1 – Individual design 

    Monday:  Briefing, Preparation: Identify three sites in your city where a medium size building could be designed.

    Tuesday:  Alpha briefing, Visit the Alpha site, Create Alpha design,
    Present Alpha design to fellow students in your groups.

    Wednesday:  Beta briefing, Visit the Beta site, Create Beta design,
    Present Beta design to fellow students in your groups.

    Thursday: Gamma briefing, Visit the Gamma site, Create Gamma design,
    Present Gamma design to fellow students in your groups

    Friday: Presentation of individual projects chosen within groups 

    Week 2 – group work  

    Monday-Wednesday – group work

    Thursday – final group presentation 

    Friday – individual reflection and online submission 

     

    EVALUATION / your work will be assessed according to the following criteria 

    1. Analyses/ How thoroughly and deeply did you analyse the issues and questions related to libraries in the 21st century as well as all the people involved in library life? How well did you formulate architectural questions according to those analyses? Mind that during the process of developing the project you will create several small projects. Each of these projects could have a different agenda, different analyses, different questions and different criteria. So it is important that you formulate this clearly by adding clear annotations to each initial sketch. 
    2. Concept/ How strong and coherent was the response (answer) to a problem (question) which you formulated during the analyses? Mind that in different projects the criteria ‘strong’ and ‘coherent’ could mean something different, e.g. functional, critical, original OR something different). Be clear about YOUR criteria. Clearly annotate the drawings 
    3. Development/  How systematic and rational was the choice of a design path? How many options did you take into consideration? How rigorously (according to your own criteria) did you choose the next step? (Mind that the development will be partly individual and partly group work. Engagement in each part of the work will be evident through peer assessment and the outcome you will have to submit.) 
    4. Presentation/ Did you submit all the required deliverables? How clearly did you manage to convey the final idea and how engaging was it? (The deliverables will be a combination of individual and group work. They should be clearly annotated. A very important part of the individual work will be the final reflection.) 

    University of Lincoln (UK) :  Marcin Mateusz Kołakowski (mkolakowski@lincoln.ac.uk) 

     

  • ARCH: architectural narrative – event

    „Dancing and architecture are the two primary and essential arts. The art of dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves first in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that lie outside the person; and in the end they unite.”

    Havelock Ellis, The Dance of Life (1923)

     

    What is architecture? A seemingly basic question, but actually one that is open to a diverse range of subjectivity. However, it is impossible to conceal that architecture is a positive balance between Science and Art, a point at which the two fields collide yet, finding the right balance is not always so easy to do. An architect should not only be familiar with the architecture and engineering principles but also have the ability to creatively manifest an emotive idea into something tangible. The ability to capture and physicalize invisible elements of our world through storytelling is an art itself. The building is not only the walls, the floor and the roof but also the atmosphere and feelings it celebrates. Many architectural projects are based on creating a narrative and engaging users into this relationship between space and mind. Architecture is an inseparable part of all cultures and the context in which it exists. It has the ability to comment on all the immaterial structures of our societies, such as the social, cultural, economic and political, immortalizing them as physical structures. It is important to identify the greatest needs of your local society and their environment. In architecture, just as in nature, nothing is accidental. Therefore, a discussion on the same topic in a multicultural environment can lead to very interesting and unexpected conclusions, „Quot homines tot sententiae: suo’ quoique mos” eng.: „So many men, so many opinions: to each his own way.” (Terence, 161 BC).

     

    AIMS

    A workshop will be conducted remotely between universities, we wish to discover different approaches to the narration in architecture, depending on the background of the participants. First, try to imagine the feeling of the space(s) you are designing and its atmosphere before drawing the architecture. Each participant will have to discover himself and take his own position in the given topic, devise its greatest needs and respond to them through their work. Through the discussion of the brief and the individuality of each member of the group, we will try to broaden our perception and discover new ways of observing the world to develop material and immaterial storytelling. The drawing will allow us to experiment with scale, proportions, colours material, light and shadow.

     

    METHOD

    Based on the brief issued during Day 1 of the workshop we will define the needs of local society in a given topic and each individually considers the question:

    What is the most significant aspect of the brief that can be reflected in an Architectural narrative?

    Each participant will discuss their initial intuitive response to the brief, their experience, passion, and hobbies, in order to ascertain a narrative for the brief, whilst simultaneously, revealing something of ourselves to the group. To help with the preparation of the narrative, a lecture will be conducted where the topic will be discussed with examples and ideas. Everyone will have the opportunity to exchange their thoughts and discuss an outline with their lecturers, along with colleagues in the group, where all will receive support in the development of their project. We will conclude with short presentations of each narrative and 500mm x 500mm drawing, discussed in the forum. Everyone will have the opportunity to ask questions, comment on other works and provide feedback.

     

    SCHEDULE

    Week 1:

    (Monday) 25 Jan 2021 –   Introduction and Brief Release

    (Thursday) 28 Jan 2021 – Lecture and Open Discussion

    Week 2:

    (Monday) 01 Feb 2021 –   Tutorials

    (Thursday) 04 Feb 2021 – Final Presentation

     

    EVALUATION

    The workshop will focus on drawing as a primary medium. The conclusion piece will be a 500mm x 500mm drawing, exploring a range of mediums. In addition, our global studio will be required to produce a 200-word synopsis to compliment his or her work. Each piece will be considered under the following points:

    • Individuality and creativity in the process of generating an architectural narrative,
    • Understanding and responding to the needs of the local society,
    • Understanding the context and environment of the given topic,
    • Graphical representation of your idea and the ability to include the whole story in one drawing
    • Ability to express yourself through your drawing.

     

    London South Bank University (UK)

    Luke Murray – murral13@lsbu.ac.uk

    Piotr Smiechowicz – smiechp2@lsbu.ac.uk

    Yianna Moustaka – moustay3@lsbu.ac.uk

    Ibrahim Rajah – rajahi2@lsbu.ac.uk

     

  • ARCH: permissive city

    CONTENT / In many cities, globalisation has contributed to the emergence of new urban environments which, over very short periods of time, have replicated similar and homogenous spaces, evacuated public ownership, erased local singularities and produced what may be defined as a generic and franchised city. Most of these cities retain urban environments developed on the long term, where palimpsest spaces give a fair share to public space and where the character and singularity of place are preserved.

    This process raises a variety of questions, particularly that of the appropriation of public space by people in these two ‘versions’ of the city. Considering that the work of time in the construction of urban space cannot be replaced, it becomes crucial to identify the conditions which may accelerate the process of appropriation of public spaces by users whilst encouraging the emergence of uncontrolled and non-programmed uses and spatial arrangements.

     

    AIMS / The workshop will explore how the implementation of more inclusive approaches in terms of public space design and usage may promote more vibrant urban environments

    To this end, two urban fragments, one “palimpsest” and the other “generic”, will be explored through the prisms of public life.  At first, emphasis will be put on identifying the types of public spaces encountered, the variety and density of uses observed as well as the factors that appear to favour or constrain individual and collective ownership of these spaces. Secondly, lessons will be drawn from this understanding to suggest conceptual processes that promote the appropriation of public space by people and allow them over time to develop their own responses and solutions.

     

    METHOD /

    Session 00: Introduction

    Organised in groups of 3 to 4 students, you will introduce yourself with a 2 to 3 minutes video, explaining why you chose to attend this workshop and what urban sites you wish to investigate.

     

    Session 01 – Immersion, interpretation and representation

    You shall choose two urban environments of the same surface. The first one will be a part of the “palimpsest city” where you would usually enjoy dwelling and spending time, the second will be a part of the “generic city”, as described above.

    Using walking as an exploration too, you will dwell through site for an average of 2 hours. You shall prepare the itinerary of your journey beforehand using a map, but you will allow yourself to drift once on the spot.

    Whilst on site:

    – Identify the main types open spaces you encounter (sidewalks, paths, squares, café terraces, playgrounds, etc.) and the forms of public life that take place in them as well as in the spaces visible from them (e.g., outdoor extensions of dwellings), distinguishing between spontaneous and more official uses;

    – Associate keywords with each identified situation;

    – Register your perception and feelings in each place (e.g., excitement, anxiety, boredom, …);

    – Register your perception of time and the density of the uses you observe along the way.

     

    – Seek potential correlations between the shape and location of the open spaces and their degree of appropriation by people.

    Once off site:

    – Process your observations and “findings” by organising this new knowledge in a “narrative” (example: exploration book, graphic novel, comic strip, video, etc.) that clearly highlights your understanding of the issue of public life in your two chosen urban environments;

    – Indicate your route “before” and “during” the drift, highlighting times of movement and pause. When using graphical supports such as plans or maps, use the same scale for both urban fragments.

     

    Session 02 – / Reflexions & projections

    Based on your previous work and if necessary, by referring to existing practices and experiences, define the broad outlines of “proposals” or “recommendations” that could set up and promote a more people centred urban life in your generic city fragment.  Beyond the production of artefacts, you may focus on defining processes which will ultimately contribute to this objective (i.e., alternative urban morphologies / specific spatial arrangements / new urban planning rules / experimentation and prefiguration phases / Post-occupation phases / new “permission to do” for inhabitants / ….

    The presentation format remains free, but shall be in continuity with your previous work.

     

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

     

    Session 00 – Introduction / 15 Feb 2020.

    Session 01 – Development (Immersion, interpretation and representation) / 15-19 Feb 2021.

    Session 02 – Final Crit (Reflexions & projections) / 26 Feb 2021.

     

    EVALUATION / Fulfilment of the requirements of sessions 00, 01 & 02

     

    École Nationale Supérieure d’Architecture et de Paysage de Bordeaux (France)

    Hocine Aliouane-Shaw (hocine.perso@free.fr)

    Workshop idea developed with Yvan Detraz from non-profit organization Bruit du frigo (Bruitdufrigo.com)

     

  • ARCH: treatment

    CONTENT / In many different ways, European cities have suffered a common fate: the compulsive increase in buildings, the financialization of the real estate market, the enslavement of urban space to cars. Despite the diversity of individual national events, these are the distinctive traits of the contemporary city that have left on the ground portions of the territory in disuse, incongruent urban fabrics, open wounds in historical structures.

     

    AIMS / Identify the role of project disciplines to remedy the casual use of territorial resources and the dissipation of the urban landscape that we have inherited from the last century.

    The city of Forlì will be the scene on which the project workshop will be applied with the aim of regenerating / redeveloping the undecided or degraded spaces of the historic city. Students from other European schools will be able to work remotely based on the descriptions prepared by the University of Bologna, or work on similar topics within the cities where their course is located.

     

    METHOD / Students and teachers from different cultural areas of the project disciplines will work together to contribute to the debate on the possibility of transforming urban space and its perception, proposing a different and integrative logic with respect to the social and economic urgencies imposed by the market rules.

    Imagining the shape of the public space by evading the impositions of current utilitarianism means projecting the imagination beyond the horizon of the short range.

     

    SCHEDULE / 2-Week Workshop. Weekly 8-hour class arranged with the students:

     

    Introduction / 17 Feb 2020. Presentation of the city of Forlì and the issues underlying the workshop.

     

    Development / 18-27 Feb 2020.

     

    Final Critic / 28 Feb 2020.

     

    EVALUATION / The workshop is a form of project action based on the exchange of quick proposals. The proposed solutions do not aim to obtain a definitive character but to open debates on the fate of cities in a conjectural and multiple form. By offering points of view distant from the logic and mechanisms that preside over the transformation of cities, they open up a panorama of alternative possibilities capable of conditioning consciences.

    The more different and unexpected positions emerge, the more we can consider the experience successful.

     

    Bibliography / Italo Calvino. Visibility, in Six memos for the next millennium. Cambridge, MA: Harward University Press, 1988, pp.81-99

     

    Bologna University (ITALY) /

    Antonio Esposito (antonio.esposito9@unibo.it)

    Giorgio Liverani (giorgio.liverani2@unibo.it)

    Martina D’Alessandro (martina.dalessandro2@unibo.it)

    Francesco Saverio Fera (saverio.fera@unibo.it)

    Annalisa Trentin (annalisa.trentin@unibo.it)

    Martina Focchi (martina.focchi@unibo.it)

    Paolo Emmanuel Gardelli (paolo.gardelli3@studio.unibo.it)

    Lorenzo Musto (mustolorenzo@gmail.com)

     

  • ARTS: maps of memory (places of remembrance)

    CONTENT / TO COME IN CONTACT with ourselves and with our to have become through lifetime (bonnländer 2019): Places of Remembrance – A practical experiment to reconstruct memories through developing a city map

    People who suffer from dementia, for example Alzheimer’s, suffer from memory loss. Events that occurred long ago, but which can be emotionally significant for us, often lie in childhood. But in what ways can we bring back to life emotionally significant memories for our present life or for the development of new designs for ourselves and for being recognized as a person instead of a patient? How can a world and an architecture for persons who suffer from dementia look like – so that their live can be a personal live? The philosopher, psychotherapist and art therapist Karl-Heinz Menzen says that exercises that support the reconstruction of places from childhood stimulate emotional memory. And that re-associating personal memory with time and space as a system of coordination is critically responsible for the capacity of memory. His practical ideas are based on neurologically-oriented theories of the structure of the brain, of rehabilitation. By connecting to neuronal networking intact brain areas, such as the areas of long-term memory reconstruction of memory performance thus the ability to remember is activated. He focuses on training through a methodical approach in the art therapeutic setting to promote the relationship to space and time and the own personality in its individual and historical aspects. According to Menzen, impulses for the reconstruction of memory, for example are places of childhood – “Our hometown”. With the support of an art therapist, the old people draw streets of the place from their own childhood like an architect on a large piece of paper assembled for everyone and then replicate the houses that were formerly inhabited (Menzen, 2008, p. 63 f).

    Keywords: Interdisciplinary aspects of architecture – Fine Arts, Art Therapy, Memory of Emotions, Dementia, Alzheimer

    AIMS / The aim is to come in contact with our memories and to build a map and to tell about the experience after. The students investigate whether and which memories are brought to life with this method. They observe whether details become more and more detailed, whether there are special smells and colors, surface textures, haptic or acoustic memories. Whether long-forgotten people appear with whom they are perhaps connected by a special event or who have played an important role in their lives. As we sketch and model in ever greater detail, we investigate whether narratives emerge during this process and whether we want to share them with others.

    SUMMARY OUTCOMES To bring together – synchronize – space and time in this specific method support remembering and the ability of being in contact with the own emotions, related to the awoked sensual aspects, that are experienced while creative working – f.e. – hammering – noise, vibration, rhythm – reminding of sounds and sensations of the past, relating to the actual moment.

    Drawing and building the (emotional) objects of remembering in context of space awoke inner pictures and stimulates associated atmospheric memories and so it creates narratives: f.e. from the wallpaper with pattern of roses to the memory of elegant parties, music and athmosphere of the parents house.
    To tell and show after reconstructing promotes the communication into the social group. To listen to the stories and see the visual representations of biografic memories transport them into an actualized space and moment. Both – social space and the concrete perceptive space of the moment relate to past and present of an individuum and of a society.

    This method transferred to a working situation with a person suffering from dementia it enables both – the individuums of the group of clients, and the accompanying artist to make the whole personality recognizable in the relation. Emotions, experiences aspects of identity, qualities of the person / character – of past and present become awoke in the actual relation Architects can reflect on their professional practice in a playful way, getting impulses by both personal and cultural – historical aspects of experienced places and spaces – connected to their own experienced past or to the cultural and historically – different – memories of collegues. (Connert und Bonnländer, 2019).

    METHOD / First we draw and reconstruct a map of the places of our childhood: the streets and places around, the buildings and the environment. We will reconstruct the house of our parents or the people we grew up with, for example with clay. We all work on our own map or city map at the same time. This way we can hear the sounds of the other participants. Afterwards we want to show and to reflect and exchange our experiences and observations.

    Working Instruction: Draw a memory of a residency place in childhood, for example also the pathways to school and so on… – in a map perspective, after having the plan, add memory specific details like situations, experiences, by drawing, painting, or in any other way for example threedimensional with clay or with tape Materials you need: A big paper for the city map, drawing materials – pencils, water colors or other colors, Scissors, brushes or crayons to paint. Materials to build houses on the map, for example clay, cardboard, strong paper, glue, adhesive tapes. Please send the foto of your object in JPEG 200 ppi during the first day workshop to us.

     

    1st day: Introduction, Group work, show the city-map in JPEG 200 ppi.

    2nd day: to show and tell.

     

    SCHEDULE / 2-Week Workshop. Weekly 4-hour class arranged with the students: Introduction, Development and to show part 1 / 16 Feb 2021.

     

    EVALUATION /

    Part 2 Final Crit / 23 Feb 2021.

    1. To sensitize oneself to oneself and others by exploring the importance of memories of childhood places.
    2. Did I succeed in bringing back to life memories of my childhood by reconstructing streets and houses in a map of the place of my childhood?
    3. How does my memory of the place of my childhood change after I have worked out a map of it? What do I generate? What emerges, what changes – memories of events, colors, sounds, objects, characteristics of materials or surfaces, ideas of space?
    4. Are there emotions involved? Which one?
    5. What is the meaning of the fact that I created my city map by my own hand, without digital tools? Please observe your sensuality in your hands, your sense of space…
    6. Students can show and explain their city map to others and exchange experiences with others.
    7. They can reflect on a meta-level and describe how two-dimensional and three- dimensional processes work in combination with biography.
    8. Students deal with related sciences and interdisciplinary aspects.
    9. Explore possibilities of how to support people suffering from forgetting in the field of space and time through sensitive spatial development.

    Bibliography /

    Menzen, K.-H. (2008). Art therapy with people confused by age (2nd ed.), 53-70. Munich: Ernst Reinhardt Connert, S. (2019). Ein Leben mit Demenz im hohen Lebensalter. Beispiele aus der Kunsttherapie.

    Forum für Kunsttherapien – Die Fachzeitschrift des GPK, 47(1), 8-11. https://www.theatertherapie.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Forum_-Heft_2_Lebensalter_Mai_2019.pdf

     

    Academy of Fine Arts Munich (GER) /

    Senta Connert (connert@adbk.mhn.de)
    Katja Bonnländer (bonnlaender@adbk.mhn.de )