The Forms of Transition

This studio aims to develop, define and demonstrate possible projects for a hyper local scale under the scope and conditions of the architecture of transition. We will develop its possible spatial and architectural consequences, from the disruption of traditional inputs working on the project as design method, available resources, instruments for knowledge and reality, to precise and specific architectures under extreme environmental, climatic and social conditions. We expect to learn and experiment by thinking through the project, not to separate them, to make no difference between doing, thinking and designing.

1. METHODS, RESOURCES, INSTRUMENTS AND REALITY
Let´s believe (at least temporarily) that architecture is a direct result of the relationship between: design methods, instruments of knowledge, available resources and reality. And that the project is the common path usually taken to make an indivisible amalgam and “product” made of: 1. Design processes inherent to the architects education or personal interest (Method); 2. Technological capacity and equipment availability (Resources); 3. Available inventories of information and coding (Instruments for knowledge); 4. A particular geography inhabited by a social group at a specific time with particular constraints and opportunities (Reality). Suppose then, that any variation in one of these conditions implies a modification of the way we understand the project and because of it, on how we design and understand architecture.

What happens when the certainties that we usually work with are incomplete? How are we prepared to operate with these variations and conditions?

2. THE FORMS OF TRANSITION
Architecture of transition is made by the built forms that emerge under extreme geographical, social and environmental conditions, it has indeterminate borders and temporary but intense use, it is not mechanically climatized, it is socially porous. It is space is the result of negotiation processes and exchange between policies for social transformation, communities, and their nearby geography. It is the space in-between conditions, technologically mongrel and impure. It emerges from the variations of/or exchange between design methods, instruments for knowledge, available resources and reality.

4. LOCATION
The studio site is Colombia, specifically in Medellin and Antioquia region, where the tropic meets the Andes, and where a wide range of biodiversity and specific microclimates emerge, creating diverse social idiosyncrasies and particular ways of using public space and architecture.