ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION, LONDON 3 - 21 JULY 2017
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ARCHITECTURE 2017! What is architecture NOW, today? What is contemporary? We architects spend so much of our critical and intellectual efforts looking either to the past or the future, we often have little left to reflect on what architecture is now, and what it can be at a time in which nostalgia is an Instagram filter and the future is a shiny smoothing effect. Now That’s What I Call Music began life in 1983 as a music time capsule, capturing the tracks, trends and shifts of each year’s pop music culture. It represented and reproduced the mood and interests of the time in all its multifarious forms of both production and appeal. Now That’s What I Call Architecture will do just that. It will, much like the AA’s famed unit system, embrace the fact that architecture operates across a huge and exhilarating spectrum of ideologies, isms, form-making, political agency, methodologies, and media. We will declare, design, and deliver the architecture of now and we will do it through an understanding of what the contemporary condition is, what its demands are, and how we can best infiltrate and shape it to reflect a true and collective now.
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ARCHITECTURE 2017!
Architectural Association School of Architecture Sum m er School 2017 Director Natasha Sandmeier Programme Co-ordinator Andrea Ghaddar Assistant Co-ordinator Etienne Gilly
UNIT 1 MINIMOU – Land of Stublimeness Antoine Vaxelaire and Ariadna Barthe UNIT 2 HYPERLINKED Nathan Su and Bethany Edgoose UNIT 3 C.R.A.P – Clashing Rubbish Assembling Props Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri UNIT 4 AA SUMMER BOOKS Thomas Raynaud and Max Turnheim UNIT 5 STUDIO STATE Benjamin Groothuijse, David Schmidt and Korbinian Kainz UNIT 6 THE BEAUTY IN THE BEAST Isabel Collado and Ignacio Peydro
FORMAT July 5 ⎯ July 14 2017 FORMAT is the AA’s Summer ‘live magazine’ looking at the shapes that discourse takes. The seventh issue focuses on ‘Power Format.’ From culture’s obsession with rankings and power couples, to media’s throttle on politics, and the architect’s craving for omnipotence, power persists in recognizable and radically new patterns. Invited guests share their Power Formats from the worlds of art, architecture, theory, media and more. ⎯Organised by Shumon Basar WEDNESDAY 5 JULY 2017 ROWAN MOORE and MARK RAPPOLT present the Power Formats behind London’s planning and ArtReview’s ‘Power 100’ FRIDAY 7 JULY 2017 MASOUD GOLSORKI and EMILY SEGAL present the Power Formats that fuel the fashion world and the new power of social media influencers WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2017 TURI MUNTHE and YURI PATTISON present the Power Formats reshaping media, journalism, politics and truthmaking FRIDAY 14 JULY 2017 SHUMON BASAR and PETER CARL present the Power Formats perpetuating David Lynch and Mark Frost’s mythological TV show, Twin Peaks
ALL EVENTS TAKE PLACE IN THE AA GALLERY AT 630PM ENTRANCE IS FREE AND O PEN TO THE PUBLIC www.format.aaschool.ac.uk for more details
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ARCHITECTURE 2017! SUMMER SCHEDULE
WEEK 1 3 July Mon GROUP 1,2 GROUP 3,4 GROUP 5,6 GROUP 1 GROUP 2 GROUP 3 GROUP 4 GROUP 5 GROUP 6 4 July Tue 5 July Wed 6 July Thu 7 July Fri 8 July Sat 9 July Sun
9:15 10:30 11:00 13:00 14:30 14:45 15:00 15:30 15:30 16:00 16:00 16:30 16:30 17:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00
Registration, Coffee + Croissants Introduction Unit Presentations and Selections Lunch Computer Lab Introductions Computer Lab Introductions Computer Lab Introductions Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Tour of the AA Team Announcements + Drinks Design Studio Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio (Free Day!)
36 Bedford Sq 4 Morwell St 4 Morwell St AA Dining Room st 39 Bedford Sq 1 Flr st 39 Bedford Sq 1 Flr st 39 Bedford Sq 1 Flr Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq AA Terrace 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault AA Gallery 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault AA Gallery 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault
WEEK 2 10 July Mon 11 July Tue 12 July Wed 13 July Thu 14 July Fri 15 July Sat 16 July Sun
10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 17:00 10:30 - 12:30 13:00 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:30 - 22:00 18:00 10:00 - 22:00 10:00 - 22:00
Design Studio INTERIM REVIEW ALL UNITS *AA STUDENTS PRESENT WORK Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio *FORMAT Design Studio Design Studio
4 Morwell / Barrel Vault st 33 Bedford Square 1 Floor AA Gallery 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault AA Gallery 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault AA Gallery 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault
WEEK 3
17 July Mon 10:00 - 22:00 Design Studio 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 18 July Tue 10:00 - 22:00 Design Studio 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 19 July Wed 10:00 - 22:00 Design Studio 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 20 July Thu 10:00 - 22:00 Design Studio 4 Morwell / Barrel Vault 21 July Fri 10:00 - 17:00 FINAL REVIEW! TBD 17:30 - late Summer School PARTY! AA Terrace ** WORKSHOP INTRODUCTIONS will take place on a per unit basis on 5,6,7 July ** DIGITAL PROTOTYPING LAB INTRODUCTIONS will take place on a per unit basis on 5,6,7s July ** Individual unit schedules and special events will be announced by unit tutors
AA OPENING HOURS Studio Hours Monday – Sunday 10:00 – 22:00 Digital Prototyping Lab Monday – Friday 10:00 – 18:00 Computer Lab Monday - Friday 10:00 – 22:00 AA W orkshop & Modelshop Monday 10:00 – 18:00 Tuesday – Thursday 10:00 – 21:00 Friday - 10:00 – 18:00 Saturday 10:00 – 17:00 Bookshop Monday – Saturday 10:00 – 18:30 Library Monday – Saturday 10:00 – 18:00 Printing Centre Monday – Friday 10:00 – 18:00 Bar Monday – Friday 9:15 – 19:00 Canteen Monday - Friday 12:15 – 14:30
UNIT 1
Antoine Vaxelaire & Ariadna Barthe
Minimou L an d of S t u b l ime n e ss
Guided Tour by Ariadna Barthe & Antoine Vaxelaire
AA Summer School 3-21 July 2017
Unit 1 Minimou
A STUPLIME LAND MADE OF FRAMES AND THREADS Constructing a new ground in which the NOW will be reveal in its most crude and honest appearences.
The Average Face
Super Symetry
Arty Land
Destructive Calibration
The construction of Minimou starts with the fundamental idea that architectural culture can only exist as the complex interweaving of multiple inputs. Minimou will take this reality litterally and weave a carpet during three weeks. Politics. Economics. Society. Cultural. Meta Physical. Anthropological. We have reach a point in our western culture where the still image seems obsolete; it doesn’t render the complexities of our lives nor does it full-fill our daily need for drama. From news to art pieces, the video format is gaining a very wide audience, forcing all of us to learn new codes of understanding. Minimou proposes to impose this technique upon architecture and push the moving frame paradigm to extremes. What if architects became experts in generalities? What would that mean for the form of our production? Could it still be limited to “buildings” and “cities”? Can one define the culture of the Now through tools that have existed for centuries?
Death of Death
Threads 4 Ever
Tip of the Iceberg
Softness
Minimou Co n st r u c ting Stub l imen e ss
Every student is like a thread in a carpet; both indispensable and invisible. The Still image is as Dead as is Architecture; Time for the Video to Swamp our Lands
AA Summer School 3-21 July 2017
Unit 1 Minimou
STUPIDLY BELIEVING THAT SUBLIMENESS IS IN THE PALM OF OUR HANDS Minimou is nothing else than an endlessly moving Land exposing an absolute Now.
Invisible Infrastructure
Mise-en-Urbanite
INTERCONNECTED
EFFECTIVENESS
CAR P E T
VIDEO
Networking Beyond Facebook
Reality Beyond Thruth
What: Weaving your darkest obsessions of today’s world we will thread a large scale CarpetScape that will ultimetely expose what the Now might actually look like.
What: Your videos will simultaneously record and expose your daily realities. During three weeks, they will give the tempo to our CarpetScape, feeding it with Stupid Truths and Sublime Realities.
How: During the three weeks, the Unit will collaboratively built the CarpetScape. Every day, each student will insert a new thread.
How: Everyday, each student will wonder the streets of London in search of his/her Urban self. The recorded material will be edited and assemble to support the students’ obsessions.
THE UNIT FINAL PRODUCT
MIN IM OU Land of Stublimeness
During a three-week period, we will collectively work towards a common land of the Now. All your individual work will be inseparable from the rest of the unit and will reach its full potential once placed within the large Land of Stublimeness: Minimou.
Minimou S t u b l i m e Te a m
a.k.a A ntoine Vaxel aire
a .k .a A r i a d n a Ba r t h e
+
Brussels, BE, 1986 Antoine first studied architecture in Lausanne before moving to London to join the Architectural Association, where he graduated with Honours in 2013. During his studies he has worked in several of ces in Zurich, London and Brussels. After graduating Antoine moved to Tokyo and Mexico City, where he respectively worked two and one years.
Barcelona, ES, 1985 Ariadna first graduated from Interior Design in 2009 (EINA, Barcelona), to then work as an Art Director for advertising, cinema and music videos. In 2009, Ariadna joined the AA School, where she graduated in 2014. After that she joined Foster and Partners, where she has worked on a wide range of projects, both in London and Mexico City.
In 2016 Ariadna Barthe and Antoine Vaxelaire founded TOI T, a Creative Consultancy. TOI T is a Messy and Noisy multidisciplinary practice that aims at re-inserting creativity in all disciplines of our society. Strongly believing that there is an enormous gap between the people with the resources to act and those with the ideas to create, TOI T is the bridge between these distant sides. Trained as architects, Ariadna and Antoine put architectural knowledge at the core of the office. The understanding of our built environment is the biggest challenge of the decades to come, and architects have a long tradition of both constructing it and understanding its potential. TOI T believes this knowledge cannot remain in the hands of architects, but should be implemented to all disciplines of today and tomorrow. As good Europeans, Ariadna and Antoine work and live between Barcelona, London and Bruxelles; where they are implementing their ideas through various projects and teaching in several programs.
AA Summer School 3-21 July 2017
Unit 1 Minimou
Schedule 3-2 1 J u ly
W
WEEK 0 1
Mo nda y 3
Tu e s d a y
We d n e s d a y
Th u r s d ay
Unit Guest 1 Weaving Workshop
Unit Guest 2 Editing Workshop
Unit Guest 2 Editing Workshop
Unit Guest 2 Editing Workshop
Unit Guest 2 Editing Workshop
Suggested Visit Broadway Market
Weaving Session and Drinks!
Suggested Show Salder Wells´s
10.00 am
Introduction + Unit Presentations
UNIT KICK-OFF Secret Location
2.00 pm
Unit Selections + 1st Unit Meeting
Unit Space Introduction
MasterClass 1 CARPET
Team Presentation
Tutorials Unit Space
Space Set Up
20.00 pm
Drinks!
Unit Dinner
Weaving Session
Weaving Session
F r i d ay
S at u rd ay
S u n d ay Suggested Visit White Cube Gallery
Suggested Meal Maltby St, Bar Tozino
WEEK 0 2 M onda y 10.00 am
Work Session
Tu e s d a y INTERMEDIATE JURY
We d n e s d a y Post-Jury Discussion
Th u r s d ay MasterClass 2 VIDEO
F r i d ay Tutorials Unit Space
S at u rd ay
S u n d ay
Suggested Visit Speakers’ Corner
Tutorials Unit Space
2.00 pm
20.00 pm
Pre-Jury Rehearsal
INTERMEDIATE JURY
Jury Set Up
Weaving Session and Drinks!
Field Trip
Weaving Session
Work Session
Weaving Session
Summer School BBQ
Suggested Meal St. John 26 St John St
Weaving Session and Drinks!
WEEK 0 3 M onda y
Tu e s d a y
We d n e s d a y
Th u r s d ay
F r i d ay 2 1
10.00 am
Tutorials Unit Space
Work Session
Work Session
Editing Session
FINAL JURY
2.00 pm
Work Session
Work Session
Editing Session
Editing Session
FINAL JURY
Weaving Session
Weaving Session
Weaving Session
Weaving Session
End Party!!
20.00 pm
S at u rd ay
S u n d ay
UNIT 2
Nathan Su & Bethany Edgoose
AA SUMMER SCHOOL 2017 - HYPERLINKED
W H Y
H O W
In London, a homeless man stakes out his space in the shadow of Harrods luxury department store. Down the road, a lighting technician emerges from an underground salad farm. A financial executive flies into Heathrow for a rare night at home, next door to the squatting community opposing airport expansion.
The ‘Kuleshov Effect’ is a psychological phenomenon described in film/montage theory. When observing
The city is increasingly a place of departures and destinations. Traversing urban space tends to no longer
be a continuous, connected experience, but rather can be interpreted as a set of discrete, disconnected happenings. The spaces between places are compressed, forgotten, and we slip with surprising speed and ease between vastly different worlds. We leave our homes, descending into the darkness of a subterranean transport system and emerge at our places of work or study. In the familiarity of our hometowns we enter flying metal tubes to emerge hours later in exotic climates, cultures and timezones. As we browse the aisles of a supermarket or the shelves of a department store, we sample fragments of products and ideas from all over the planet. Experientially, we might consider ourselves to already be a society of teleporters. This compression of inbetween spaces sets up new adjacencies between previously un-linked elements. We believe that it is vital to discover and imagine these unexpected and surpising adjacencies, for it is there that we hope that the greatest cultural and design opportunities reside.
two scenes in sequence, we automatically modify our understanding of the second based on the content of the first. In Hitchcock’s famous example, we are shown a baby, and then a smiling old man. Who is he? A kind, caring gentleman. Then we see a girl in a bikini, then the same smiling man. Now he’s a dirty old pervert. Utilising the Kuleshov effect, we will explore how strange spatial adjacencies might generate new meanings. Urban hyperlinks that reveal hidden realities, spin cautionary tales or envision previously un-imagined possibilities. We work with the strong belief that speculative fiction is vital for innovation. We will tell lies that reveal truths, to create strange worlds that mirror our own, and bring together the wild fantasies of imaginary architectures, with the difficult truths of our lives today. Ambitious design – unrestricted by the constraints of contemporary possibilities – will be informed by anthropological ethnography and models of social functioning; examining power relationships, behavioural motivations, and cultural propagation. Our media will be film and animation. We will imply worlds through the careful design of strange and beautiful adjacencies; scenes that reveal, criticise or celebrate our increasingly hyperlinked cities.
//Enter the HYPERLINK. Consider the way we browse. In short bursts we jump from content to content, from video to blog, from blog to news, from news to store. With each click we travel to a new context, a new world. As our online lives continue to grow in importance and complexity, who is to say that the city itself is not much like the internet? A place of weird adjacencies, of displaced and misplaced cultures, constantly shifting, all impossibly close, and all barely visible to one another.
COVER: RIGHT:
Through Leviathan’s Eyes - Nathan Su & Bethany Edgoose 2017 Hitchcock explains the Kuleshov Effect 1964
1
AA SUMMER SCHOOL 2017 - HYPERLINKED
W H A T In this unit, students will collaborate on a short film that explores hyperlinks in contemporary cities. Working in groups, students will script, shoot, and edit scenes that present meaningful adjacencies. The final film will be a high quality piece of collaborative work that explores the communicative power of storytelling, while respecting architecture as a practice that goes beyond the design of physical buildings, and imagines structures, systems, and interfaces that use every possible material at all scales of human culture. We will work towards a public screening of our film, along with an exhibition of the work-process, which will be documented by the tutors over the course of the summer school. We will build skills in cinematography, script-writing, 3D modelling, animation and compositing, all while immersing ourselves in strange hyperlinked worlds we find online, in film and on the streets of London.
A Chinese Click Farm - workers rate apps to raise their status in the Apple store
Concept Art - Cloud Atlas Fabricant Slaughterhouse 2012
Food Production - Still from Samsara 2011
99 Cent - Gursky 1999
Digital Rendering of the Social Media Trend Landscape - The Atlas of False Desires - Nathan Su & Bethany Edgoose 2016
2
AA SUMMER SCHOOL 2017 - HYPERLINKED
W H E N DISCOVERING ADJACENCIES
03-Jul
04-Jul
05-Jul
06-Jul
07-Jul
08-Jul
09-Jul
MORNING
Welcome and Unit Introductions
Workshop - Film
Workshop Workshop - Narrative Introduction to 3D
AFTERNOON
School Workshop Inductions
Design Exercise: Spatialising the Kuleshov Effect
Design Exercise: Constructing Cultural Adjacencies Studio Work/Tutorials Studio Work/Tutorials Field Trip/Shoot Day
Free
EVENING
Film Night: AA Cinema (Cloud Atlas) Studio Work
Film Night: AA Cinema (Samsara) Studio Work/Tutorials Internal Presentations Field Trip/Shoot Day
Free
CONSTRUCTING FANTASIES
10-Jul
11-Jul
12-Jul
Studio Work/Tutorials Field Trip/Shoot Day
13-Jul
14-Jul
15-Jul
MORNING
Studio Work/Tutorials INTERIM REVIEW
AA Student Presentations
Group Work - Scene Development
Shoots/Animation
Shoots/Animation
AFTERNOON
Presentation Prep
INTERIM REVIEW
Group Work - Scene Development
Group Work - Scene Development
Shoots/Animation
Shoots/Animation
EVENING
Presentation Prep
Free
Group Work - Scene Development
Group Work - Scene Development
Shoots/Animation
Shoots/Animation
NARRATING HYPERLINKS
17-Jul
18-Jul
19-Jul
20-Jul
Guest Workshop - Colour & Emotion (TBC)
16-Jul
Workshop - Editing
21-Jul
MORNING
Guest Workshop (TBC)
Film Edit
Film Edit
Rehearsal/Final Production
FINAL REVIEW
AFTERNOON
Film Edit
Film Edit
Film Edit
Rehearsal/Final Production
FINAL REVIEW
EVENING
Film Edit
Film Edit
Film Edit
Rehearsal
PARTY
Virtual sand dunes hijack the city - Through Leviathan’s Eyes - Nathan Su & Bethany Edgoose 2017
3
AA SUMMER SCHOOL 2017 - HYPERLINKED
W H O
W I T H
Nathan Su & Bethany Edgoose have been collaborating since 2013 on architectural projects that reimagine social realities. Nathan is a designer and storyteller, working through speculation, architecture and film to imagine futures from the scale of the home to the city. Bethany is a social designer and anthropologist who works at the intersection of tech-development and society. Their previous work together has included Through Leviathan’s Eyes - a mixed reality city, collectively constructed as an ever changing visual palimpsest, and The Atlas of False Desires, a short film about social media manipulation that was awarded Best Short at Sci-Fi London 2017. They also collaborated with Chong Yan Chuah on Aisha’s Asylum, a short story that received an Honourable Mention in Blank Space’s Fairytales 2017 competition, and Vital Networks, a system of international telemedicine awarded 2nd place in the 2015 Advancing Development Goals Geneva Challenge.
SOFTWARE & EQUIPMENT Where necessary and appropriate for scenes, we can give workshops in the following softwares: Rhino + Grasshopper, 3DS Max, Cinema4D, VRay, Adobe Creative Suite (Photoshop, InDesign, Premiere, After Effects), Vuforia for Unity, Processing, Vue
Nathan completed the Bachelor of Environments at Melbourne University, graduating with the University Medal. He then worked for two years at Melbourne architecture firm McBride Charles Ryan, before completing his studies at the Architectural Association, graduating with Honours earlier this year. He was a 2016 recipient of the RIBA Wren Association Scholarship and his Part I project ‘The Augurs of Slave Island’ was awarded the Grand Prize at the D3 Unbuilt Visions competition. Bethany graduated top of her year from the MSc of Anthropology and Development at the London School of Economics in 2015 and has since managed the Research Analyst and Technical Writing team at cyber security company Darktrace. She has previously worked in Uganda as an agricultural project manager and for multiple non-governmental research institutes on projects ranging from international migration to nuclear security. www.nathan-su.com www.bethany-edgoose.com
In addition to the AA’s computer & AV facilities, we are able to supply a video camera + stabiliser and a drone (if necessary and under supervision). However, if students possess any of the following, we recommend bringing them along: Laptop + Spare Hard-drives, Cameras - DSLRs, GoPros, Point & Shoot (anything is useful) THINGS TO READ (LONG) The Techno-Human Condition - Allenby & Sarewitz You are not a Gadget - Larnier Synthetic Worlds - Castranova The City and the City - Mieville Last and First Men - Stapledon Cryptonomicon - Stephenson (SHORT) The Allegory of the Cave - Plato (The Republic) Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems - Ong & Colliers The Data that turned the World Upside Down - Grassegger & Krogerus (Motherboard) How a Book about Flies Came to be Priced $24 Million on Amazon - Solon (Wired) THINGS TO WATCH (LONG) Cloud Atlas - The Wachowskis Samsara & Baraka - Fricke Her - Jonze District 9 - Blomkamp Manufactured Landscapes - Burtynsky (SHORT) Black Mirror - Brooker Jonah - Factory Fifteen Noah - Cederberg & Woodman Nerdwriter (Youtube Channel) Every Frame a Painting (Youtube Channel)
4
UNIT 3
Sabrina Morreale & Lorenzo Perri
AA Summer School 2017
C.R.A.P Clashing Rubbish Assembling Props Sabrina Morreale Lorenzo Perri
AA Summer School 2017 - C.R.A.P.
KITBASHING KITBASHING is a practice whereby a new scale model is created by taking pieces out of commercial kits. Ready-made fragments are de-contextualized in terms of meaning, proportions and materiality to create a radically new artifact. Nowadays it is particularly relevant, considering the overwhelming abundance of informations, goods, cultures and iconographies that surrounds us. Architecture must become a collision among this multitude of fragments, far beyond its disciplinary boundaries. Architects are now asked to introduce an unexpected order and unconventional hierarchies. KITBASHING is then a design approach rather than just a technique. It is a medicine against the flatness of preconceived architectural references, a recipe to clash aesthetics, technologies and ways of thinking apparently incompatible.
Kitbash (1)-MODIFY
The practice of modifying a model (not limited to toy action figures) to achieve some result other than that intended by the manufacturer.
Kitbash (2)-RECYCLE
To modify any project and crap it up with non-stock parts, often with interesting results. Use of existing or scrap pieces (from just about anything) is usually preferred to fabrication of new ones.
Kitbash (3)-INTERTWINE
A term used in the video game industry to imply something that can be easily created from preexisting assets by a person who has no actual idea of what the job will entail.
Kitbash (4)-CONSTRUCT
The practice of taking two plastic model kits, and using parts from both to make a new model.
Piranesi, via Appia 1756, Fontanelle cemetery, Naples 1660 and Guggenheim Helsinki Design Competition ,Gage Architects 2014
AA Summer School 2017 - C.R.A.P.
AA Summer School 2017 - C.R.A.P.
CULTURAL HYBRIDS Nowadays, the digital kitbashing seems just related to a formal exercise of unlimited ornamentation and articulation of shapes, then made homogeneous in terms of material qualities. However, even these purely technological compounds can be transformed through symbolic appropriation. Looking back at the history, we see less obvious examples of kitbashing as a cultural act, mainly belonging to these two categories:
The world of creatures The Centaurs developed both in the context of classical mythology and in the modern pop culture, can be grouped morphologically according to their constituent features and species. The fact of adding specific animal parts to human beings is always based on cultural and contextual circumstances. The results are different humanoids able to reassure or to instill fear and revulsion just through their aspect. Moreover, fragments of creatures and biological pieces can be used as spatial tools. In the paintings of P.Bruegel, H.Bosch and S. Dalì, humans and animals are dissected, accumulated and distorted to create architectural stage-sets.
Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights 1500, Roberto Ferri, Centaur, 1978 and Dali, The Temptation of St. Anthony, 1946
The world of machineries The Steampunk aesthetics is made of anachronistic technologies and retro-futuristic inventions, deeply connected to the idea of depicting a post-apocalyptic future during which steam power has maintained mainstream usage, or a fantastic world that similarly employs steam power. Merging the genres of fantasy, horror, historical and speculative fiction, one of steampunk’s most significant features is the way in which it mixes digital media with traditional handmade art forms.
Becher, Blast-furnaces 1980, Textile Machine in Prato, 1960, Paolozzi, Robots, 1971 and Halleux’s toys inspired for Tim Burton movies, 2017 AA Summer School 2017 - C.R.A.P.
OUTCOMES AND METHODOLOGY WEEK ONE -Landscape Identify your own field of interest to collect fragments and build your kit, allowing a multitude of different pieces to contaminate it. The hybrid selection is the first stage of your design. Through a series of sketches, drawings, digital iterations and crafted models, a landscape of creatures and machinic objects will appear, setting the basis for further developments.
WEEK TWO -Tapestry The collected fragments are classified, grouped and assembled, then becoming props to be placed on top of your canvas. They create an ambiguous framework, being constrained by the proportions of a background but at the same time exceeding it. The result will be two tapestries - one for each category horizontal accumulations of different objects, in between surfaces and tridimensional spaces.
WEEK THREE -Totem A totem is a spirit being, sacred object, or symbol that serves as an emblem of a group of people, such as a family, clan, lineage, or tribe. It is the ideal outcome for a collective project, aiming to conceive the assemblage of fragments as a cultural act. The tapestries become a single vertical inhabitable space, where iconography and experiential narrative coincide.
Maher, House mirage, 2013, Centre Pompidou, Magiciens de la terre, 1989 and Perry, Map of truths and beliefs, 2011 AA Summer School 2017 - C.R.A.P.
SCHEDULE SCHEDULE Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
10:00 Introduction + Unit Presentations
Introduction to the brief: Architecture is just a meaningful clash of C.R.A.P.
Workshop:
Work Session:
Workshop:
Brick Lane Market:
Selecting and Collecting
Assembling a landscape of fragments on a 2D canvas
Kitbashing digital sampling and 3d modeling
Collecting found objects
Tutorials in Unit Space
Work Session:
Film Session: Hugo Cabret M. Scorsese
Drinks!
14:00 Unit Selections + First Unit Meeting
Seminar:
Work Session:
The world of Creatures vs The world of Machineries
Sketches, collages, handdrawings
Drinks!
Film Session: Kitbash Kid W.Jun’An H.JingYu
John Soane Museum: A world of fragments by candlelight.
Kitbashingdigital totems
Tutorials in Unit Space
Tutorials in Unit Space
20:00
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
Saturday
Sunday
10:00 Work Session: Assembling a tapestry of 3D fragments
INTERMEDIATE JURY
Student Show:
Workshop:
Portfolio presentations
Engraving Cnc + 3D Printing
Tutorials in Unit Space
Tutorials in Unit Space
Tutorials in Unit Space
+
+
+
Crafting Fragments
Refining Pieces
Refining the Assembling
14:00 Pre-Jury Rehersal
Workshop: Layering -
Guest Lecture + Collective Discussion
Work Session:
Film Session: Vatel R. JoffĂŠ
Drinks!
Casting + Moulding
Construction Props vs Stage-Set
20:00 Film Session: Tron 1982 S. Lisberger
Monday
Tuesday
Dinner + Drinks!
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday
10:00 Work Session:
Work Session:
Work Session:
Machineries and Creatures as Spatial Tools
Defining Perception and Experience
Defining Narrative and Symbolism
Tutorials in Unit Space
Tutorials in Unit Space
Tutorials in Unit Space
Work Session
FINAL JURY
14:00 Pre-Jury Rehersal
20:00 Film Session: Edward Scissorhands T. Burton
Party + Drinks!
AA Summer School 2017 - C.R.A.P.
Film Session: Star Wars: Episode IV G.Lucas
Saturday
Sunday
Bibliography 1.Architectural fragments- Typografia Bettini,2005 , by Bryan Cyril Thurston 2.Collage, Assemblage, and Altered Art: Creating Unique Images and Objects Paperback 15 Mar 2008 by Diane Maurer-Mathison 3.Aldo Rossi: Drawings and Paintings Hardcover – 30 Jun 1993 by Aldo Rossi 4.Piranesi, 2 Vol. Hardcover – 25 Oct 2011 by Luigi Ficacci 5.The Altered Object: Techniques, Projects, Inspiration Hardcover – 28 Jan 2007 by Terry Taylor 6.Fragments: Architecture and the Unfinished: Essays Presented to Robin Middleton Hardcover April 1, 2006 by Barry Bergdoll, Werner Oechslin 7.Seamless: Digital Collage and Dirty Realism in Contemporary Architecture Hardcover December 15, 2016 by Jesus Vassallo 8.Sir John Soane’s Museum, London Hardcover – 1 Mar 2009 by Tim Knox
Bio(s) Sabrina Morreale and Lorenzo Perri graduated together from the AA in 2016.
Sabrina (Rome,1990) has worked in many architectural practices between London, Italy, Thailand and Cambodia. She is also collaborating with various magazines as illustrator and with the RIBA as curator assistant. Her projects have always been related to the idea of fragmentation, using different media, enhancing the process of how things are made and assembled together. She taught at the AA Summer School 2016, investigating the Gif as a medium to construct space and ideas. http://sabrinamorreale.com/
Lorenzo (Florence,1989) has worked as a consultant for Inter 7 and Diploma 8 at the AA, while participating to several competitions with international firms. He is a co-founder of the research-based Plakat Platform and the Architectural practice Ecòl, whose work has been recently awarded in Italy and Vienna. Obsessed with geometry and aesthetics, precision and expression, before architecture he studied engineering and classical piano. http://e-c-o-l.it/ Lately, they started working together on several projects, using architecture as a methodology to reach different outcomes: toys, pastry tools and story-telling. They have been in Bolivia for the last two months to organize the AA Visiting School, exploring cultural assembling as a realm where architecture meets identity and folklore.
AA Summer School 2017 - C.R.A.P.
UNIT 4
Thomas Raynaud & Max Turnheim
Thomas Raynaud & Max Turnheim AA Summer Books
AA Summer Books "What is the contemporary?� This is the title of one of Giorgio Agamben's books1 , a transcription from his introductory lecture at the Venice IUAV University. Borrowing directly from Roland Barthes' Mythologies2 , he opposes an "actual" conception of the present to a "contemporary" strategy. For him, there is no way of perceiving one's own time without "being outside of it". It is away from the blinding lights of the present condition, dwelling in obscurity, that one can eventually understand where / when she is. What better way to respond to the call "Now that's what I call architecture 2017" than by invoking one of our most important living philosophers attempting to draw the contours of the present in front of an audience of future architects? Of course, one would be tempted to employ the latest representational technology, to analyze the consequences of Virtual Reality on space, to embrace the dynamic in place of the static. But if we adhere to Agamben's strategy, we must adopt a counter position. That is why we propose to employ one of the most static, laborious and "serious" types of media: the book. Our workshop will be a book publishing one. During the course of this 3-week workshop, we would like to produce at least one book per day. Depending on the theme we will address and the method we will employ, students will have one of these two daily productions: either one book for the whole studio or one book per student (or sub-team). So how is one book per day an acceptable brief? Let us look at what it is not. First, it's not a thesis. In fact, it's the opposite of a thesis. Therefore compulsion is at the heart of the method. Every piece of advice Umberto Eco has ever written down concerning this specific format3 can be turned back on its head (ie. a citation needs no solidity). 1.Giorgio Agamben, Qu'est-ce que le contemporain?, 2008 2.Roland Barthes, Mythologies,1957 3.Umberto Eco, How to write a thesis, 1977
Then, it's not dynamic. Contrary to the media surrounding us today, once a book is published, it is part of the global archive. One can not edit anything anymore. There lies the risk: books matter. Forever. Lastly, our system does not strive to be a replacement for the traditional workflow of book publishing. It is simply a way for us to examine the contemporary condition with the students according to a methodology of daily closure. What this brief is, is an attempt to explore the contemporary condition with the help of a purpously anachronical object, one incapable of strictly following the constant reconfiguration of the political, economical and formal horizon. The book will try to become a benchmark against which to measure change. What are the implications of making books in an extreme emergency? Can we expect to, through the constant closure of projects, get a glimpse of the present? Is it from the location of negativity that we can see ideals reemerge?
METHOD Especially for this workshop, we have developed a tool to automate publishing. It consists of a web platform accessible from a computer or a smartphone where students can write, edit and publish their content. This tool is extremely constrained and leaves almost no room for design decisions. This allows us to focus solely on the content (texts, images, diagrams, tables‌) rather than to spend time on graphical individuality. It also guarantees that, if the content is produced, the book exists. Each day, each student (or on certain occasions, the whole studio) will produce one book (24, 36 or 48 pages). The studio acts as a newsroom: it is a gathering point, a place for review, a writing hub.
Schedule A typical day consists of a work session in the morning ending with the books being printed at lunch time. The afternoon starts with a new brief and is followed by a research session. 09:00 - 12:30
12:30 - 14:00
14:00 - 19:00
19:00 - 20:30
Research
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Mon 3
Intro Session - Brief
Tue 4
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
-
Wed 5
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Thu 6
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
-
Fri 7
Work Session
Printer run
Invited Editor
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Sat 8
Work Session
Printer run
Week Brief - Research
Team Dinner
Sun 9
Day Off
Mon 10
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Tue 11
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Wed 12
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Thu 13
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Fri 14
Work Session
Printer run
Invited Editor
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Sat 15
Work Session
Printer run
Week Brief - Research
Team Dinner
Sun 16
Day Off
Mon 17
Work Session
Printer run
Last run brief
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Tue 18
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Wed 19
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Thu 20
Work Session
Printer run
Brief - Research
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Fri 21
Work Session
Printer run
Final Jury
Team Thomas Raynaud (1976) graduated from the École Speciale d’Architecture in Paris, established his office in 2007. He works in the fields of architecture and landscape and was awarded the Albums des Jeunes Architectes et paysagistes 2010 prize by the French ministry of culture. He has taught in several schools (École Spéciale d’Architecture, Architecture school of Versailles, Porto Academy…) and works on public and private projects in France and Europe. His work was shown at the 5th European Bienniale of landscape architecture in Barcelona, at the 14th International architecture Venice Biennale and will be shown at the 1st Biennale of Orleans FRAC-Centre-Val de Loire. 60 rue des Saints-Pères F - 75007 Paris contact@buildingbuilding.org www.buildingbuilding.org
Max Turnheim (1982) graduated in 2007 from the École Spéciale d’Architecture. He has co-directed the studios École and UHO. He is currently based in Paris and his work focuses mainly on the relationship between architecture and its hosting regime. It ranges from domestic spaces to urban projects. He has taught in several architecture schools (École Spéciale d'Architecture, École Nationale d'Architecture de Paris-Malaquais…). In 2013, he curated Le Terrain a month-long workshop at École Spéciale d'Architecture: he invited 27 international professors to teach 120 students. 9 rue du Sentier F - 75002 Paris mt@uho.com www.uho.co
During this 3-week workshop, we will also have guests visiting us and giving us their input on the produced work. We call them "Guest Editors". Confirmed guests editors Taneli Mansikkamaki, James Taylor-Foster, Julia King, Jack Self, OK-RM, OMMX, Assemble, Max Creasy, Andrew Kowacs, Eddie Blake, Fabrizio Ballabio
The layout of this application was generated automatically using the tool we plan on sharing with the students during this year's Summer School workshop.
UNIT 5
Benjamin Groothuijse, David Schmidt & Korbinian Kainz
LONDON SUMMER SCHOOL ARCHITECTUR AL ASSOCIATION MONDAY 3 – FRIDAY 21 JULY 2017
Studio State or the (im)possibility of a true and collective now “Architecture is the printing-press of all ages, and gives a history of the state of the society in which it was erected, from the cromlech of the Druids to those toy-shops of royal bad taste.”—Lady Sydney Morgan (as quoted by Sir Banister Fletcher’s in A History of Architecture)
In the proposal for a tragic, comic and satyric stage-set, Sebastiano Serlio articulated the relationship between architectural expression and social ideal. The noble and idealised buildings take on a dream-like or visionary quality, a promise of a higher, more perfect reality. Scena tragica, Stage design by Sebastiano Serlio, 1545.
A TRUE AND COLLECTIVE NOW
In the search of a true and collective now, this studio will declare a Studio State on Monday 3rd of July 2017, the first day of the London Summer School. Together we will postulate an alternative society. We will formulate the demands that stem from our communal ideals and will design a state that embodies the dreams and aspirations of a collective now. DEFINING VALUES
What can the architectural language of a new State be and how does this architecture reflect the values that it represents? The Studio will examine the social constructs that underpin identity and representation in architectural expression. John Ruskin’s provocative remark on the eloquence of architecture proposed that we seek two things from our buildings: they must shelter us, and, more importantly, they must speak to us. Buildings speak of democracy or aristocracy, openness or arrogance, welcome or threat, a sympathy for the future or a hankering for the past. While creating our state, we will debate the meaning of peoples, ideas and political agendas. Examining the notion that buildings speak helps us to place the values we want to live by at the very centre of our architectural activity – rather than merely what we want them to look like.
The layer of ice covering the Thames in winter 1683 spontaneously excited a carnival on the water. Sleds, a bull-baiting, horse and coach races, puppet plays and interludes, tipling and other lewd places emerged – a bacchanalian triumph. A Frost Fair on the Thames at Temple Stairs, Abraham Hondius, 1684.
ARCHITECTURE OF OUR STATE
Our Studio State will exist for only three weeks within the confines of our studio and will begin with the ceremonious act of demarcating our borders. By building walls and gates, it will become clear where the Studio State starts and where its sovereignty ends. Over the course of the Summer School, we will develop a material culture for our new State. Through analysis, discussion, debate and, above all, making, we will deliver the architecture of our state’s institutions, constructing them in the inverted setting of the studio interior. These institutions will form the backdrop to a public square at the heart of the studio space in the form of 1:3 facades.
Twentieth-century art historians are divided as to whether the triptych’s central panel is a moral warning or a panorama of paradise lost. The central water-bound globe in the middle panel’s upper background is a hybrid of stone and organic matter. It is adorned by nude figures cavorting both with each other and with various creatures, some of whom are realistic, others are fantastic or hybrid. The Garden of Earthly Delights, Hieronymus Bosch, around 1500 (detail).
WEEK 1: DEMARCATION OF TERRITORY, DECL AR ATION OF STATE
At the start of week 1 we will declare the Studio State – an ideal society that will exist only for the three-week duration of the Summer School. Its ideological basis will be discussed and developed by means of the design of its key symbols and architectural features that constitute its demarcation. The flag as the most immediate tool for primary signification and identification, with spatial implication in terms of ceremonial decoration. The wall as primary principle of delimiting territory. The gate as the articulation and symbolic embodiment of entry or exclusion. The design process will be based on research of demarcation and representation from the pre-historic Menhir in the landscape, to the Ancient Greek city state, to Donald Trump’s border wall – exposing the implicit values that are embedded in the material constitution of these elements. In turn the design of the flag, wall and gate of our Studio State will articulate the key values of our new society. Parallel to the design studio we will undertake excursions and visit places of demarcation in London and investigate their social meaning and impact.
The Happening Fluids was a celebration of the ephemeral character in architecture. Kaprow isolated the experience of the happening while engaging the attention and the energy of its participants. Once erected, the ice blocks were left untouched – “they are left to melt.” Fluids, Allan Kaprow, 1967.
In the movie, Truman Burbank’s discovery of the boundaries of his built environment offers us a metaphor for our current situation. The fake landscape Truman lives in is our own media landscape in which news, politics, advertising and public affairs are increasingly made up of theatrical illusions. The Truman Show, film still, 1998.
WEEK 2: RITUAL , INSTITUTION AND MONUMENT
Week 2 will focus on structures and mechanisms of social order in our new State, its institutions. Everything that represents our state will first have to be designed and built. Through examination of historic examples – real and utopian – we will investigate the relationships between social structures and their architectural monuments, exposing the inherent representational aspects of the architectural artefacts. With the knowledge gained, we will define and build the institutions of our new Studio State that reflect and define the ideal of a true and collective now. Focusing on the main representational component of the elevation, we will study the function of facades as mediators between individual private needs and the common interests within the communal spaces of the city, and as symbolic signifiers of social structure.
Hijacking flag poles and using them to display a new flag; the flag of an imaginary nation for the exhibition “Gnome Sweet Gnome”. A few dozens of these flags (150 x 225 cm each) were screenprinted, and for the duration of the exhibition displayed on all the flagpoles in the Keukenhof park. White Dots, Experimental Jetset, May 2003.
WEEK 3: RISE AND FALL OF AN IMPOSSIBILIT Y
During the last week, the final proposals will be tested, tweaked and built as large scale 1:3 painted cardboard facade reliefs. Together they will form the set for the new Studio State, an idealised architectural framework that will be a direct expression of the social objectives of our Studio State. Throughout the existence of our State, the projects will be captured and documented through photography and a real-time publication process that will result in a document that is at once its manifesto and its historiography. The final day will be used to recap the imaginary and physical construction of the State. As a collective whole, it will be discussed with a range of visiting critics. The concluding party will be the final event of the Studio State, and by means of its ceremonial deconstruction, we will celebrate its ultimate impossibility.
Porta Pia was one of Pope Pius IV’s civic improvements to the city of Rome from 1556. Its breach, shown here in a contemporaneous photograph following the Capture of Rome in 1870, signified the unification of Italy. Michelangelo’s Porta Pia was later the backdrop of a failed assassination attempt on then dictator Mussolini in 1926. The Monumento al Bersagliere, erected in 1932 by Publio Morbiducci was consequently added to the gate on a commission from Mussolini to signify its importance in the construction of the Italian Nation State.
UNIT STAFF
Benjamin Groothuijse is an architect, editor and educator based in Zurich. He studied at ETH Zurich and TU Delft, where he graduated at Tony Fretton’s chair of Interiors, Buildings and Cities. Having worked for Atelier Peter Zumthor and von Ballmoos Krucker Architekten, he currently teaches at the chair of Prof. Adam Caruso at ETH Zurich. As a publisher Benjamin has received several awards for the publication of Dwars Vers, a compilation of translated poems by Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay. He is a regular visiting critic at the Rotterdamse Academie van Bouwkunst, TU Delft and ETH Zurich. David Schmidt is an architect and educator based in London. He studied Architecture, Urbanism and Building Sciences at TU Delft and ETH Zurich. A graduate from Tony Fretton’s chair at TU Delft, his research focussed on the importance of the public interior as venues for sociability in the twenty-first century city. David currently works at 6a architects, where he has led the design of numerous high profile culture and arts buildings in the UK, Germany and Belgium. David has taught at Universiteit Antwerpen and regularly contributes to academic discourse as a visiting critic at institutions in the UK and abroad. Korbinian Kainz is an architect and researcher based in London. Educated in Germany, Switzerland and Sweden, he graduated from ETH Zurich. Before joining 6a architects he worked at Meili Peter Architekten and taught at ETH Zurich, where his research focussed on the shift in national representation in the early 20th century. Together with Prof. Dr.-Ing. Uta Hassler, Korbinian has worked on the project for the 2014 German pavilion for the Venice Biennale. Their research on the origins of polytechnic school buildings in Europe was recently published in a two-volume work on Gottfried Semper’s ETH building. Korbinian has been a visiting critic at numerous institutions including the Architectural Association and the University of Cambridge.
Francis, duke of Anjou, son of the French King Henry II, entered Antwerp on 19 February 1582. The triumphal arch was erected specially for this occasion. The Dutch rebels had invited Anjou to be their ruler. The pomp and circumstance notwithstanding, this intention came to naught. Antwerp fell into Spanish hands in 1585, and the Northern Netherlands became a republic in 1588. The Joyous Entry of the Duke of Anjou, Monogrammist MHVH, 1582 - 1600.
“Gate”. Modena, Luigi Ghirri, 1973.
The dystopian city backdrop was constructed as a 1/3 city. Set design for Metropolis, Fritz Lang, 1927.
BIBLIOGR APHY · Hans Widmer, Bolo’bolo, 1983 · Greg Hill, Kerry Wendell Thornley, Principia Discordia, 1963 · Thomas More, Utopia, 1516
VIDEOGR APHY · Yorgos Lanthimos, Dogtooth, 2008 · Peter Weir, The Truman Show, 1998 · Charlie Kaufman, Synecdoche, New York, 2008 · Ben Wheatley, High-Rise, 2015 · George Lucas, THX 1138, 1971 · Guddu Dhanoa, Big Brother, 2007 · Marco Ferreri, La Grande Bouffe, 1973
WORKS OF ART · Allan Kaprow, Fluids, 1967 · Allan Kaprow, 18 Happenings in 6 Parts, 1959 · Atelier van Lieshout, AVL-Ville, 1995 · Michael Beutler, Moby Dick, 2015
Graphic design by Andrea Evangelista
UNIT 6
Isabel Collado & Ignacio Peydro
THE BEAUTY IN THE BEAST
by Isabel Collado & Ignacio Peydro
aluminum slat dome. black mountain college 1948. tutor: r. buckminster fuller
AA Summer School 2017
@dosiiis instagram account
Flat colourful beauty rules Content is dead and boring to speak about We seek beautiful and tasteful images, we swallow them without digesting them
We search them everywhere, from Instagram to Archdaily Our proposal for this summer school is a dual exercise of creation. We will get our hands dirty to experiment with matter with the only purpose to produce beautiful images of architecture*. The images will be shared on Instagram and tagged appropriately. Poeisis will be practiced in three complementary levels: matter, image and words. * Anything that is made at the AA and is tagged #architecture is considered architecture today.
THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST
Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro
Images need the process to make them. They need the object to shoot. Matter is the beast to be photographed. We want matter that suggests and induces sensations and deep feelings that range from desire to social compromise when we see it photographed. We need the images of material artefacts, details, simple structures, elements, people using strange indescribable material experiments to feed the crave for architecture novelty.
NOW! The platform for sharing architecture beauty will be Instagram. The Unit will have an account that will be fed daily by all of the students. Each post will freeze the time of each specific image. No tricks to change nowness are available. Instant production is essential.
MAKE UP THE BEAUTY We will record and photograph everything we make. All post-production techniques are allowed. We will teach the basics of photography, video recording and image & video edition.
FEED THE BEAST The three weeks of the Summer School will be a marathon of material exploration in which architecture matter will be deconstructed and reassembled.
ALL MATERIAL PROPERTIES WILL BE EXPLORED AND CROSSED WITH FABRICATION PROCESSES Strength, flexibility, colour, transparency, lightness, roughness, heaviness, coldness, mildness, cheapness, glossiness, permeability or smell (ha ha‌ that’s uninstagramable) will all be reached and mutated by several actions. Pouring, spraying, bending, chopping, mixing, melting, painting, heating, cooling, casting, inflating, cutting, exploding, bonding, burning, wrapping will produce unpredictable material artefacts.
THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST
Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro
Materials will be multiple and unrestricted. From paper to gold, from jelly to plants, everything can be used. The student is the one selecting upon the restrictions of each day. We will PLAY, DESIGN, REGISTER AND SHARE. The complexity will be increased with time by the upscaling of size and processes. Our aim is to create at least one FULL SIZE INHABITABLE STRUCTURE to be used during the party on the 21st of July. If it fails, the beauty of its failure will produce an architecture image of longer prevalence (ask Bucky at Black Mountain College). Other routes for the creation of architecture remain open.
Uncertainty shapes our days We know what we want We hate what we don’t Let us play to search and select What we’ll get will be great Even if it leaks or decays
FLOAT. the hard inflatable. AA Summer School 2015 Tutors: Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro
METHODOLOGY Play & experiment. The intention of our unit in this Summer School is to provide the students with the capacity to create both sophisticated material artefacts and beautiful images that document the processes of creation. We want to make the unit A WORKSHOP OF INNOVATION WHERE CREATIVITY IS TRIGGERED SIMULTANEOUSLY BY DRAWING, MAKING AND DOCUMENTING THE PROCESS. Images will be shared in Instagram to create a repository of actions, material species and production systems, an instant phylogenetic classification of what happens in the unit.
UNDERSTAND MATTER AND FABRICATION Casa V (DOSIS) Construction process of CNC molded concrete slab
PART 1 Each day of the first half of the Summer School (until the interim review) we will explore specific design & making techniques related to material properties to help understand the differences in the creation of architectural matter. The complexity and dexterity required to fulfil the tasks will evolve in time.
1.
TRANSFORMING & CONNECTING
B. C.
Stiff objects and components Limp objects and components
What: This first family of making techniques will cover cutting, folding, bending, nailing, screwing, welding, bonding, sewing and knitting. When: 4 of July Why: Set the basis of manufacturing. Techniques learned can serve for direct production of final object and for auxiliary production (formworks, frames, panels, etc.) Materials used: cardboard, plywood, plates, glue, screws, nails, fabric, plastic foil, plastic bags, thread and bonding tape.
FLOAT. The Jellyfish. AA Summer School 2015
2.
SUBTRACTION
3.
ADDITION
4.
COMPOSITES
What: this family of making will explore the transformation of matter through processes of elimination like milling, carving, burrowing, burning, chopping, drilling and exploding. When: 5 of July Why: Explore the possibilities in transforming the volume, shape, texture and appearance of existing matter by elimination and destruction. Techniques learned can serve for direct production and production of moulds for other processes. Materials used: clay, play dough, wood, soil, EPS foam.
What: this family of making will explore the possibilities of creation by summing matter through the processes of repetition, pouring, casting, spraying, gluing, bonding and any of the processes learnt in the first family that help connect multiple parts. When: 6 of July Why: Learn the evolution of materials that change viscosity and hardness and how they change in time. Explore the possibilities of creation of textures and new surfaces through the repetition of identical objects. Materials used: plaster, concrete, silicone, PU foam, resin. Nails, screws, plastic cups, straws, bottle caps, other cheap & standard objects.
What: Composites are materials that combine multiple materials to create a higher performance one. Concrete, fiberglass and carbon fibre combine viscous matter that becomes hard when dried with aggregates, filaments or fabric of a material that has good tensile strength and flexibility. We will experiment with the combination of various components. When: 7 of July. Why: Understand how the combination of different components can create materials with new properties, appearance and resistance. Materials used: cords, wire, nets, sand, gravel, cement, plaster, water, resin, silicone, glue
THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST
Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro
5.
COLOUR & LIGHT
What: this section will focus on the optical properties of matter, which are independent to mechanical properties (the later ones have been the base for the previous workshops). Reflection, refraction, transmittance, transparency and luminosity will complement colour. This section opens a wider sphere of material exploration that will complement the four previous ones. When: 8-10 of July. Why: Understand that appearance is independent to mechanical and thermal properties. Colour and optical properties are independent layers of material systems that directly affect perception. Materials used: Paint, water, varnish, pigments.
Konokono-Turkana vaccination facility. Developed by MIT MArch students as a semester design project. Tutors: JosĂŠ Selgas + Ignacio Peydro
PART 2 After the interim review we will play, design and make in order to generate at least one full size inhabitable structure. The final size, shape, material, texture or colour of it will appear with time. The lessons learned on the first part of the Summer School will serve as a base to set new paths of exploration and help decision making. We will revisit them as many times as needed. The unit will be split into small groups with common interests in order to focus efforts and amplify results. The groups may eventually match tectonic families and construction systems (i.e.: structure, floors, walls, roof‌). 2.1. DESIGN We will do brainstorming sessions followed by design workshops to develop initial ideas. Each student will have the freedom to explore personal interests and to contrast them with other members of the team. By the end of these two days we will have (a) clear project(s). When: 12-13 of July 2.2. DESIGN DEVELOPMENT & DETAILING Students will team in groups to develop the details and methods of production to be used. The number of projects will determine the number of students per group. When: 14-15 of July
THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST
Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro
2.3. PRODUCTION Once the project is clear enough to start production we will begin making it real. When: ASAP. 13-20 of July PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO Simultaneously to design, production and material exploration we will constantly document with photography and video all of the processes and its products. Each day there will be a time slot dedicated to collect images and videos, select them, edit them and describe them. We will explore image production and manipulation. Recording the present is the way to guarantee its presence. SHARING & PUBLISHING The decision to share content in Instagram is related to the conception of nowness and the assumption of the laws of a media that has a dual temporality. On one side it demonstrates the fleetingness of the interest of people, it constantly needs to be fed by new content, and on the other it becomes a historic visual archive that can always be revisited, once the image has been published it instantly becomes an object of the past, nowness lasts only some hours.
WHO? WE LOVE
OURRESEARCH PROFESSION TEACHING We are so happy to be back at the AA Summer School! We loved the experience back in 2015 and we believe that we will create an even better unit this year. While in 2015 the material exploration was limited to the knowledge of inflatables, our intention this year is to expand matter experimentation processes to a system that cross reference multiple variables. This widening of material possibilities creates an uncertain spectrum of results. We feel confident that the quality of the production of the unit will transcend our preconceived expectations. We very much look forward to doing it! Since our time as tutors at the AA Summer School of 2015 we have been working intensively, creating, thinking and producing architecture of diverse nature. We have created Second Dome, a reconfigurable pneumatic structure that has instantly activated multiple parts of London. It was chosen by Domus magazine as an example of the best architecture of 2016, awarded as 10 best temporary architecture of 2016 by designboom, and shortlisted by ArchDaily as one of the 5 best small architecture projects in the 2017 Building of the Year award. We are currently working on a multi-purpose workspace building in West London that will open in the summer of 2018 and will transform the area where it is placed. We have led a design studio unit at IE University. Ignacio read his PhD dissertation and is now a doctor of architecture, but above all, we have had a lot of fun exploring unknown territories. THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST
Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro
Isabel Collado studied Architecture at the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) where she taught Architecture Design Studio from 2006 to 2008. She obtained the Diploma in Advanced Studies (DEA) in 2010 and is PhD candidate in the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) in the knowledge field of Theory and Practice of Architectural Design and is currently finalizing her dissertation ‘Towards a Weightless Architecture’. She is Architecture Design Professor in IE School of Architecture and Design. Before establishing Dosis she worked in Sancho & Madridejos Architecture Office in Madrid, developing, among others, the library for Nantes University and a health center in Murcia; and with Frechilla & Lopez Pelaez developing, among others, the restoration of the Spanish Academy in Rome. She is co-author of the books ‘Memories of Adriano from the Ville Savoye’and ‘Theory and Practice of the Project’. Ignacio Peydro studied Architecture at the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) and at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London and received a SMArchS, a post professional advanced master degree, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He graduated with honors with a final thesis project that obtained the ‘Universidad Politécnica - Fundación MAPFRE Prize’, the ‘Alejandro de la Sota Prize’ granted to the best final thesis project of the Madrid School of Architecture, and the First Honorable Prize in the Pasajes – iGuzzini National Architecture Prize. He obtained a PhD in the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) in the knowledge field of Theory and Practice of Architectural Design with his dissertation ‘Contingency in Post-situationist Architecture’. He has been Architecture Design Professor in IE School of Architecture and Design, Architecture Design Graduate Teaching Assistant and Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Associate Professor of Architectural Design and Theory of Contemporary Architecture in the ‘Francisco de Vitoria University’ in Madrid and Assistant Professor in the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM). Before establishing Dosis he worked with Mansilla + Tuñón in Madrid, developing, among others, the project for the Museum of Automotion in Madrid and the Hotel and Restaurant Relais Chateaux ‘Atrio’ in Cáceres awarded with the 2011 FAD Architecture Prize; and with David Chipperfield Architects in London, developing, among others, the project for the British Film Institute in London and the City of Justice in Barcelona. He is co-author of the book ‘This is Tomorrow’.
DOSIS
Together they establish, , a laboratory of creative processes that is committed to pushing the boundaries of the built environment with innovative architectural solutions. In each of their projects, the design strategies and solutions are a reflection of design research, using practice as an experimentation platform in which architecture navigates a wide scope of design interests that transcend basic pragmatic requirements. Each project is undertaken as an opportunity to explore creative design methodologies, strategies and solutions, always driving our attention towards the feasibility of building technology, structural systems and sustainable environmental strategies. Their projects have been exhibited in London, Geneva, San Francisco, Paris, Madrid and Valencia and have been awarded the Europe Encouragement Prize in the Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction 2005, the First Prize in J5 2008 National Prize for Young Architects or the First Prize in the MEGa Museum International Competition, among others.
Second Dome. London. Photo: Iwan Baan
THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST
Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro
NOW THAT’S WHAT I CALL ARCHITECTURE 2017! UNIT SELECTION FORM Please write YOUR NAME in block letters below
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We try to ensure that all students are placed into their first choice units, but in some rare cases this might not be possible, so please also include a second choice unit. Write the NUMBER of your two first choice units below
1ST CHOICES
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Write the NUMBER of your second choice unit below
2ND CHOICE _______________________ UNIT SELECTION FORM