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B EATRIZ VIL LAN UE VA CA JIDE BEA@BRIJUNIARQUITECTOS.COM +966 (0) 53 198 76 33 +34 619 04 13 46 SKYPE: beabrijuni
Highly skilled and accomplished architect, interior designer, curator and scholar with seven years of teaching experience and twelve years of experience as a self-employed architect.
TEACHING AND RESEARCH PHILOSOPHY My view of teaching architecture is strongly influenced by the fact that I put everything I learned in school into practice when I founded my own office with Francisco Javier Casas Cobo after I graduated. In my practice I find that my designs are heavily influence by architectural theory. That is the reason I find it is essential for students to learn not only technical skills but also the history and theory of architecture. Understanding the issues related to Theory of Architecture and Design are fundamental to develop their own ability to design as architects. The theoretical dispersion architecture has sunk to since the end of the last century as well as the emergence of "iconic buildings" as a model to follow, has caused an radical change in the concept of our discipline. The lack of positivist models in architecture joins the particularities of the so called "society of information". The old master has become more of a kind of content´s catalytic converter stimulating students to do research and learn how to develop their own architectural thought. Theory and practice in architecture must be learned in parallel. My thesis "Architecture and Commitment. A critical review on Architectural Manifestoes" studies how Manifestoes (understood as primary architectural theories) affect the development of architectural practice. Being an architect is not just a profession, it is also a particular way of understanding the world and students should be introduced into the discipline while being free enough to express themselves according to their personal development at the time they are acquiring technical knowledge. The reality surrounding us must be called into question during the workshops: movies, books, music, video games, apps ... everything should be studied and dissected so that from this understanding, we can develop the architecture that could be more interesting from us in the future. I always try to mix theory and practice during my lessons so that parallelism remains clear from the beginning. The way of expressing architectural thinking should be free and each student must be supervised in the most personal way possible to help them to find and develop the architectural tool that is most favorable for them. For example, when I arrived at Riyadh I was really impressed by the interest the iconic buildings awakening in the population and therefore, in my students: they all wanted to design something unique and original but they did not understand which ideas were behind the design of these buildings or what social benefit we can or can not obtain from them or in which particular cases they could work. I decided to suggest a Design course, parallel to the one aboutTheory of Architecture I was also teaching that, under the title of "deconstructing iconic building" propose a radically different view on the subject. From the idea of Antoni Gaudi´s famous working models, made with threads and weights, I proposed to my students a series of "handmade parametrics" where they could see by themselves how, by introducing different parameters (location, climate, program winds. ..) in a basic structure it could be easily transformed manually in a similar way of what "star system architects" do by using avance software such as Rhino or Grasshopper. Everything was called into question: the need of the building itself, the cultural program understood in five different countries, the issue of sustainability ... and above all, how to understand the architectural result: each group of students developed the project differently: the building could be understood from a succession of models, from traditional architectural panels, explained in a comic book or in a collection of essays and poems, videos...everything could be use as far as the architectural process remains clear. This is just an example of how I always try to customize the way of teaching depending on the particular environment, in the way that, through a combination of architectural theory and design processes, we reach Critical Thinking, the !1