PORTFOLIO Library Of Babel “It serves for the study and meditation of intelectuals, who in a spot closer to the sky and the stars feel more inspired.” Librar I have traveled in my youth; I “ Like all men of the Library, have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible.” Jose Luis Borjes, Library of Babel, Fictions
architectural projects by Caterina Miralles Tagliabue
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2013 . 2017 Architectural Association School of architecutre
N A M E
Caterina Miralles Tagliabue
B I R T H
24 May 1995
C O N T A C T
caterina.mirallestagliabue@gmail.com +44 7507 790779 (UK) +34 608 762 795 (ES)
19 St Augustines rd. NW1 9RL London, United Kingdom c/Mercaders 24 pral. 08003 Barcelona, Spain. c/General Flores nmro 30, depart 308 Providencia Santiago, Chile.
. EDUCATION
Escola Frederic Mistral-Tècnic Eulàlia . 2011 – 2013 (Curs de Baxillerat) Pere II de Montcada, 8 - 08034 BARCELONA Tel. 93 203 12 80 Fontbonne Academy . 2011 930 Brook Rd, Milton, MA 02186, USA Architectural Association FOUNDATION course . 2013 – 2014 36 Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3ES Architectural Association INTERMEDIATE course . 2014 – 2017 36 Bedford Square, Bloomsbury, London WC1B 3ES
. WORK EXPERIENCE
August 2014 . José Antonio Mmartínez Lapeña & Elías Torres Architects Summer 2016 . Enric Miralles foundation . EMBT architects August 2017 . Smiljan Radić
. EXTRA CURRICULAR ACTIVITIES
October 2017 entry for competition Architectural Project MNHN, Santiago, Chile July 2017 nomination for RIBA bronze medal 2017. London, UK 2017 Performing at AAschool event Round and round the old ken toad, Mark Fisher Scholariship. London UK 2013 – 2016 Life drawing course at Candid cafe London, UK. 2015 Lugo Land photography workshop, Lugo, Italy
. LANGUAGES
Spanish Catalan Italian English
. SOFTWARES AND PROGRAMS
Rhinoceros . 2D, 3D modeling, Rendering Vray Aoutocad . 2D drawing Ilustrator . 2D drawing Cinema 4d . Modeling animation, Rendering Photoshop . Drawing, animation Indesign . Book binding Adobe Premier pro . Video editing.
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Disfunctional Beauty 2017 . Architectural Association RIBA bronze medal nomination
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“The human brain is the most complicated organisation of matter that we know. If this, then is suffering from any mental disease it becomes a universe by itself” - Isaac Asimov For this projects architecture aims to erode the boundaries that surround the existing site with the city where its sitting; Genova. Not only those physical between the site and the city itself yet those of a stigmatic nature which exist between the staff, public and patients themselves. To achieve this, borrowing from Asimov’s notion of the complex mind I conceived the project as a set of mechanical components, instrumental in altering and defining how the space in inhabited. This sets of machinery become alive according to the use the people give to it. This composition, then, becomes a metaphor of what it is to live inside a world that, in the same way as the dysfunctional brain, works following its own rules. In this case, architecture wants to trigger the agent of discovery towards its users, it wants to be explored to then analyzed and understood. Users have to play and experiment with it. Playing, in this case, becomes a form of language, rather than “something fun”, it exists within our primordial human nature.
Foor plan garden
“It is play that is universal and that belongs to health. Playing facilitates growth and therefore health; playing can be a form of communication (...) Psychotherapy and psychoanalysis had been developed as a highly specialized form of playing in the service of communication with oneself and others” - Playing with reality Donald Winnicott By playing this series of artefacts come together performing inside the heart of the asylum. Lending from the beauty in the dysfunctional machine.
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Study of the site; pictures and models
01 This project is composed mainly for this series of mechanical rooms, structures and objects; Acting in different ways according to its usage. The reason behind the language of their design is the fact that its mechanical nature already transmits very clearly its function. They are designed to talk, to be very clear to its users. As well I think it’s worth to mention that the aesthetics of the machinery (probably because of the strong impact on the Russian industrial revolution), has always been linked to the symbol of unification.
View of the gallery and the garden, with the cafe closed
Floor plan garden
The Reading Room
Partial magic i
“It serves for the study and meditation of intelectuals, who in a spot closer to the sky and the stars feel more inspired.” - Fictions, Jose Luis Borges
“ The place, a dream or the form of a dream Cervantes...” - Partial magic in the Quixot
Library Of Babel “It serves for the study and meditation of intelectuals, who in a spot closer to the sky and the stars feel more inspired.” “ Like all men of the Library, Librar I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. The idealists argue that the hexagonal rooms are a necessary a form of absolute space or, at least, of our intuition of space. They reason that a triangular or pentagonal room is inconceivable. (The mystics claim that their 59 ecstasy reveals to them a circular chamber containing a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure. This cyclical book is God.) Let it suffice now for me to repeat the classic dictum: The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible.” Jose Luis Borjes, Library of Babel, Fictions
Partial magic in the Quixot “ The place, a dream or the form of a dream of Cervantes, passes judgment on Cervantes. . . In his intimate being, Cervantes loved the supernatural. Paul Groussac observed in 1924: "With a deleble coloring of Latin and Italian, Cervantes' literary production derived mostly from the pastoral novel and the novel of chivalry, soothing fables of captivity." The Quixote is less an antidote for those fictions than it is a secret, nostalgic farewell. Every novel is an ideal plane inserted into the realm of reality; Cervantes takes pleasure in confusing the objective and the subjective. The world of the reader and the world of the book” Jose Luis Borjes, Partial magic in the Quixot, Fictions
Therefore the project is conceived by this series of mechanical moments; all of them inspired on the imaginative texts of Luis Borjes. Inside this Library, architecture and literature want to be as close as possible, collaborating to create a little world conceived by a series of kinetic objects that don’t follow schedules but their function is directly linked to the human usage.
and library
View of the gallery and the garden, with the cafe opened
Garden of forking paths
in the gallery
Elements in the garden.
m of Cervantes, passes judgment on t, Jose Luis Borges
“I recognized the name of one of our consuls and I replied, disconcerted, "The garden?" ,"The garden of forking paths." she replied” - Garden of forking paths, Fictions
Garden of forking paths “From the rear of the house within a lantern approached: a lantern that the trees sometimes striped and sometimes eclipsed, a paper lantern that had the form of a drum and the color of the moon. A tall man bore it. I didn't see his face for the light blinded me. He opened the door and said slowly, in my own language: "I see that the pious Hsi P'êng persists in correcting my solitude. You no doubt wish to see the garden?" I recognized the name of one of our consuls and I replied, disconcerted, "The garden?" "The garden of forking paths.She replied” Jose Luis Borjes, Garden of forking paths, Fictions
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Artificial gardens of Khulna 2016 . Architectural Association
02 This project is a speculative solution, projected for 2022, regarding the issue of cyclones and catastrophic floods in the villages at the border of the Mangrove forest (the Sundarbans) south of Bangladesh.
Changes In the surface of the landscape, non permanent elements
The situation there is that every 5 to 7 years the swampy land gets devastated by a cyclone, demolishing all the small villages in the area. The problem is that due of the increasing effects of climate change this will keep on happening more and more often. The inhabitants of the land, the Mongla people are Hindu tribes who live from what the land offers. Every time there is a cyclone they have to hide for 3 days inside the cyclone shelters provided; spread and positioned ever 1.5 km radius along the land. When the storm has passed they reconstruct their homes, agriculture and rice fields from the traces and landmarks of what was left after the catastrophe. In order give a solution to this problem, to avoid this constant lost and reconstruction of the villages, the ONU provided a village made of elevated concrete houses, strong enough to resist strong storms and cyclones. Now days this village is abandoned. The tribes of the Sundarbans refused to live there giving more importance to the relation and the proximity they have with their land. Observing and learning Country of Bangladeshfrom this fact I designed my project. The aim of this project is to provide a solution that can be beneficial for both the land and its inhabitants. The artificial gardens are this series of structures, where the tribes will be able to use as agriculture fields that won’t get flooded due that they are slightly elevated. At the same time the structures provide little spaces to place some of the seeds that grow in the structures. Like the mythological animal of the Fenix, when there is a cyclone, the seeds inside the structures will spread through the territory allowing some rebirth of the land.
District of Khulna
Diagram on how the shelter and the topography stay. Everything ese on top of the surfasce of the land changes over the years.
Mongla village
Cyclone Shelter
Population diagram, people, farm animals and shelters Cyclone Alia 2008
Sundarban Mangroocve forest
Land after the cyclone
Conditions of the village after the cyclone 0
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Spread of the seeds speculation Spread of the seeds speculation
Cyclone Map on how the seeds spread Spread ofsimulation; the seeds speculation
Overall view of the gardens sorrounding the shelter
Common owers that will be spread
Due that the only two things that stay after a cyclone are; as the manmade the strong concrete shelter and as the natural the topography, this architecture wants to be a blend between this two. A clearly manmade steel structure inspired from the abstraction of topographical lines of the surrounding terrain. The structure, as well starts from the direct surrounding of the shelter, but as it expands trough the lad it penetrates to the closest villages. Acting like a path, this structures want to becomes lines of reference, in order that when the moment to reconstruct the town comes, this axes could be used as guidelines to preserve their collective territories.
Spread of the seeds speculation
Common owers that will be spread
Common Common owers that owers will that be spread will be spread
Spread of the seeds speculation
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Classes taken in the gardens
kids playing
Classroom inside the existing cyclone shelter
evated gardens
While the shelter is not being used it brings different functions for the society: During the day it mostly serves as a school, then it can be used as a church, a space to perform ceremonies and a space to storage food.
2. Elevated gardens
Rodogame Goma
Shared elements of the structures
2. Elevated gardens
Main owers cultivated in the gardens
Bai chatra
Kushmi
Dohi Etelop
Lau Padu, Tai Padu
Champa tula tula
Sacarojatna
Chola, Labula
Inside the shelter
Rodogame Goma
3. Hanging bags
1. Elevated steel structures
Rodogame Goma
Chola, Labula
Champa tula tula
Escalators
Front view
Seed cmpartments
Catalogue of shapes of each structure Steel Structure
Seeds placed inside the bags Columns
2. Elevated gardens
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Nets, for the plans to grow
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Rodogame Goma
Vegetation Escalators Shared elements of the structures
2. Elevated gardens
Main owers cultivated in the gardens
Escalators
Bai chatra
Dohi Etelop
Kushmi
Lau Padu, Tai Padu
Sacarojatna
Champa tula tula
Different staircases Chola, Labula
Rodogame Goma
Escalators
3. Hanging bags
Steel Structure
1. Elevated steel structures
Overall structure Escalators
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Steel Structure
Seeds placed inside the bags Columns
Different elements of each structure.
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Lifestok storage
People from the town who come to enjoy the site
Back view
Villagers who ocme to enjoy the site
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Thank you