Natural Monument

It would be deceiving to claim a return to nature since there has never been a real departure from it. Buildings complete nature as much as nature finishes buildings (and ultimately erodes and ruins them). Through a self-referential definition of architectonic format, by means of rather basic walls, floors, roofs and openings on them, the studio will explore this fundamental form of reciprocity: a series of cottages for remote locations will be understood as articulation devices to mediate from one nature to another, from a conditioned confinement for a voluntarily secluded couple to an emancipated and vulnerable wild domain.

By “format” we mean a spatial character without particular size, a field of action within a singular outline (in this case, the five formats derived from a rectangular volume, that is: the dice, the plate, the block, the strip and the tower). By “basic” we mean a primary level of complexity for discreet and ubiquitous elements (e.g. those 1:1, 1:2, 2:3 or 3:4 ratio fenestrations one might find in any unpretentious provincial settlement). By “remote” we mean the extreme edge of sublime settings along the Chilean National Park system (perhaps assuming that “every paradise is a lost one”). By “cottage” we mean more than a tent but less than a house (a domestic interior that certainly exceeds our physiological functions to a degree of inutility, irrationality and fantasy). By “couple” we mean the unprecedented current paradigm of a non-hierarchical, and rather intimate, productive relationship (far from Heidegger and his wife and closer to Gilbert & George). By “seclusion” we imply a physical detachment from the urban life without losing communication (therefore influence) with its culture.

All in all, after overcoming the myth of the idyllic garden, the heavenly countryside filled with fruits and flowers became the land for agricultural production overlapped with an original need for pure enjoyment, for the sheer pleasure of unpolluted nature. And perhaps between that labor and that leisure time there is another time, a loose one (lost and lax at once), a temporal space not only for procrastinating at work but also for serendipity and contemplation in solitude. Once more, the paradox is simple: nature is unintentional; artefacts are not.

Following our Naïve Intention program, the studio will speculate on the apparent contradiction between intentionality and chance, rationality and futility, prediction and circumstance. Based on given constrains, every student will elaborate an inventory of architectonic propositions. A selection of them will later be developed in pairs through handmade models, drawings and paintings.

This course has an irregular meeting schedule.

Mauricio Pezo and Sofia von Ellrichshausen will be in residence on August 30 and 31, September 6, and 7, October 4, 5, 25, and 26, November 1, 2, 15, 16, 19, and 20, and December 10, 11, or 12 for Final Reviews.  

The instructors will also be available throughout the weeks that they are on campus to make up for “off-week” missed time.

On Health II: Amsterdam Health Kitchen

The widespread emphasis on healthy living and the demand for creating environments, cities and buildings accordingly has aligned with the ongoing integration of technology into daily life as a means of measuring the performance of the world around us. But despite the abundance of self-monitoring sensor technology that digitally records and measures every move we make, where our built environments are concerned we seem to be unable to substantially change our attitudes towards embracing a healthier lifestyle. These environments have remained mostly unchanged for decades.

Today’s definitions of health are complex and far-reaching. Health influences, informs and conditions an increasingly broad spectrum of our lives. It has evolved as an industry, an aesthetic, an attitude and a mode of design. Health has shifted from the modern paradigm of a seemingly universal social right, to being the responsibility of the individual, meaning the motivation for creating healthy environments for life, work and play can now be both altruistic and opportunistic, and the environments themselves, both sensual and high-tech.

Inevitably, health as a value system and a commodity is being appropriated by a diverse set of players. The economy uses it as a means to attract talent, increase productivity and sell a lifestyle, while the rise of “smart” cities competing for attraction and visibility on a crowded global stage sustains the importance of health as a public service or policy. In the pursuit of creating healthier, more liveable cities, what is the shared responsibility between these sectors and how do they interface? Could a radical urban and architectural proposition balance the increasing deterioration of our wellbeing?

Within this discussion, urbanists and architects profess that one of their core competencies is to create environments that are attuned to the needs of their users; that go beyond areas of tension between public and private patronage, codes, rules and regulations.

This studio will explore the challenges and potentials for Healthy Life in dense metropolitan developments. Amsterdam enjoys a rich history of city development with an emphasis on social emancipation and has served as a laboratory – or as we view it – an “experimental kitchen” for continual interest in the topics of technology, sustainability, health and wellbeing.

The studio will take a position in the discourse in terms of the interaction between built physical and digital systems with respect to human behavior, private initiatives, and public policy through the architectural and urban design of a new city district in Amsterdam– the Sluisbuurt. A field trip to Amsterdam is part of the course.

This exploration into the expanding notions of what health means today brings the discussion to the foreground and frames it as an urgent architectural concern. In so doing, the proposals will necessarily divert from the standard models currently offered by and perpetuated through the building market and refocus towards a future of Healthy Living.

 

This course has an irregular meeting schedule.

Ben van Berkel and Christian Veddeler will be in residence August 30 and 31, September 13 and 14, October 18 and 19, November 1, 2, 15, 16, 29, and 30, and December 10, 11, or 12 for Final Reviews. 

The instructors will also be available via Skype to account for “off-week” missed time.

The House: The Waken Desire

“An old house, a shadowy porch, tiles, a crumbling Arab decoration, a man sitting against the Wall, a deserted Street, a Mediterranean tree: this old photograph touches me: it is a quite simply there that I should like to live.” 
                    Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida.

Architecture is frequently photographed, a way to describe the building. But photographs cannot neutrally translate space into two dimensions, the camera modifies the shape and proportions of the space around. The lens also isolates a small part of a complex environment that the creator manipulates in order to obtain an image that responds to the concept s/he wants to communicate. This studio will explore the relationship between architecture and photography, their relevance in its capacity to construct visual representations and imaginations focusing on one of the most important spaces: the house.

Photographs of Modern Architecture established their position as a “transparent” medium of representation and a powerful communication tool. However, architects such as Le Corbusier and Mies van der Rohe used to carefully selected the frame, avoid the use of human scales, and finally, to airbrush the photographs of their projects in order to show a more aesthetic image. They use to erase distracting elements such as ornamentation or cover surfaces in order to create more sharp geometries. The more striking modifications were the elimination of the context or references of the sites.

The actual image of architecture hasn’t changed from those of the beginning of last century. We have reached the point where we design through perfect Photoshop files. Our aesthetics values had changed focusing in the 2D image rather than the material and sensorial qualities of the space. The studio aim is to examine critically the statement of the contemporary architectural image, and the imaginary that mass media, social networks and advertisements have established about housing. Through photographs students will design the contemporary idea of housing, a space that should be habitable and not just appealing.

A field trip to Mexico City is tentatively planned to visit iconic buildings of Mexican architecture, such as constructions by Luis Barragan, Juan O’Gorman and Mario Pani.

This course has an irregular meeting schedule.

Tatiana Bilbao will be in residence on August 30 and 31, September 13 and 14, November 1, 2, 29, and 30, and December 10, 11, or 12 for Final Reviews.

Iwan Baan will be in residence on August 30 and 31, September 13 and 14, October 4, 5, 11, and 12, November 1, 2, 15, 16, 29, and 30, and December 10, 11, or 12 for Final Reviews.

<span style="font-family:arial,sans-s

Dwelling / Garden / Being, Suzhou

“Poetically man dwells on this earth”, the phrase by Hölderlin inspired Heidegger to write an essay entitled “Building Dwelling Thinking”, in which he reveals how the activity of building and cultivating the earth belongs to dwelling, and the meaning of dwelling goes far beyond a place to stay. By “dwelling” man signifies his own “Being”. This understanding coincides with the perception of “Being” for the intellectuals who envisioned and built their own gardens in the ancient city of Suzhou, centuries ago. The making of gardens represents their quest for the essence of dwelling. “Dwelling” was understood as the basic character of human existence.

Unfortunately, this understanding has long been lost. That man should build out of dwelling, and think for the sake of dwelling has been forgotten. Dwelling is threatened and harassed by the redundancy of housing as real-estate development and the fragmentation of old cities in China. Generations of people have been evicted from their access to earth, from their communities, their “dwelling”.

The mission of this studio, therefore, is not only to gain architectural inspirations through the study of the scholar’s Gardens in Suzhou, moreover, it will confront contemporary challenges of urban revitalization, community rebuilding, as well as the task of searching anew for the essence of dwelling in architecture and landscape.

The studio will focus on a series of real sites in the historical center of Suzhou, including the “Chàng Yuán Garden” and its adjacent courtyards, provided by the municipality of Suzhou. The aim is to transform the half evacuated courtyards into dwelling spaces and public spaces, to explore possibilities of creating prototypes of contemporary Suzhou Gardens not only for private use, but also as communal spaces that encourage social interactions.

Departing from research on selected Suzhou Gardens and analyzing problems and potentials of the given sites, students will make conceptual designs in the first 2-3 weeks, they will finalize their site selections and program proposals (ie, a community art centre, a tea house, or a garden hostel, etc.) during a planned sponsored field trip to Suzhou in the end of September.

Following the studio trip, students will revise and further develop their concepts and designs. Projects will be reviewed in small-scale conceptual models and later in large-scale material studies or detail mockups.

 

This course has an irregular meeting schedule. 

Zhang Ke will be in residence on August 30 and 31, September 6 and 7, October 4, 5, 18, and 19, November 1, 2 15, 16, 29, and 30, and December 10, 11, or 12 for Final Reviews.   

The instructor will also be available via Skype to account for “off-week” missed time. 

UTOPIA/DYSTOPIA: Living Post-Work

Today, at an unprecedented rate, new technologies and global networks (underground, in space, in the cloud) are transforming the ways in which we understand and consume visible and invisible infrastructures that shape our societies. Seamless and technologically connected living has resulted in the collapse of distance and time and the rapid exchange of information which develop alongside buildings at an altogether different pace. The rich and productive friction generated from these syncopated lifespans is disrupted, however, by global and environmental crises, political conflicts, and a dire sense of collective anxiety. And so, in true utopian and dystopian architectural fashion, we take on these troubled times to project our hopes and fears into a fast-approaching future 30 years from now, in the year 2048.

This studio critically reimagines the organizational forces of the built environment in a future where the structures that define our lives today – labor, education, leisure, dwelling – may look radically different. As new technologies and automation continue to reshape our environments, various forms of labor become increasingly displaced and/or obsolete. This phenomenon could challenge current work ethics to produce a world with little to no work, a post-work era. By considering factors that inform architecture, from its embroilment in volatile political economy, to accelerating shifts in technological and cultural landscapes, we ask: what is the role of the constructed environment? How can we express a commitment to living and working together through architectural means?

Framingham, Massachusetts stands out as a site of investigation precisely because it doesn’t: an inconspicuous suburb in proximity to the city of Boston and a limited beneficiary of its urbanity. It is also the home of the Dennison Manufacturing Company building complex, a former manufacturer of consumer paper products, already a repurposed architecture of post-work and the site for our studio.

The semester will begin with an analysis and composite representations of the site conditions, current and projective. The students will then engage in an exercise in “world-making,” a research-based investigation where the student is expected to situate a specific narrative and outline a program based on the notion of post-work society within a utopic/dystopic architectural imaginary and specific to the given site(s). This will become the framework for the student’s architectural project throughout the course of the semester. The remainder of the semester will focus on synthesizing and digesting this aggregated information to further develop a complete design – of a building or system of buildings in a typology of their choice – that is both critical and tangible.

 

This course has an irregular meeting schedule.

Annabelle Selldorf will be in residence on August 30 and 31, September 13, 14, 27, and 28, October 11, 12, 25, and 26, November 8, 9, 29, and 30, and December 10, 11, or 12 for Final Reviews.

The instructor will also be available via Skype to account for “off-week” missed time.