DIAseries #3 - After Geometry

A F T E R G E O M E T RY

Dessau International Architecture School

Anhalt University of Applied Sciences Department of Architecture, Facility Management & Geoinformation (AFG)

Prof. Arch. Attilio Terragni DAAD Guestprofessor DIA master studio first semester 2014-2015 special thanks to Jhon Warwicker for the graphic inspiration special thanks to Peter Magyar for the critic inspiration

ISBN-978-3-86011-096-6

AFTERGEOMETRY STUDIOTERRAGNI SELECTED STUDENTWORKS

“THE WAY TO TRANSLATE ARCHITECTURAL IDEAS FROM MIND TO IMAGE IS AN ACT OF EXPRESSIVE CREATION.”

Well known architect Attilio Terragni joined DIA from Milano in 2014 as a distinguished DAAD Guestprofessor.

The way to translate architectural ideas from mind to image is for Attilio Terragni an act of expressive creation.

His activities in Dessau started to enchant both students and staff immediately.

Especially this detail makes his studio work at DIA so special.

This publication gives an insight into his way of working and expressing architecture as well as demonstrating his view to students.

It is a result of his personal search into architecture as well as his relentless engagement with his students.

Prof. Alfred Jacoby Director DIA

“TO EXPLORE ARCHITECTURE AS A KNOWLEDGE MEANS TO ENLARGE OUR EMPIRICAL WORLD”

Welcome to After geometry studio!

I would like first to thank the University for giving me the opportunity of teaching here.

It has been a fantastic and creative 3 months period and I hope you can appreciate the work that has been done. Thanks Alfred.

I also want to thanks all the students of the studio because I’m really proud of them. They have been able to work in between individual and team, one of the most difficult task in architecture. It might be that architecture is this in between individuals and team work‌

Together we have been trying to explore architecture as a knowledge, according to Lakatos scientific research program (the logic of discovery, the models, the success, that means to enlarge our empirical world).

Words are nothing compare to experience.

So take my description of the studio as words coming from a journalist.

They never able to report what really happened, because it is impossible.

Attilio Terragni DAAD Guestprofessor DIA

STUDIO TERRAGNI The studio work as been done in 3 phases (3 as the number of the diagonal of the unknown).

Phase 1- rizomatic research about the new abundance of the virtual world. (according to Feyeraband architecture has been always a process of reduction of the abundance of the empirical world. We have been exploring the contemporary abundance of the the virtual world) Phases 2 - connections, variety and metamorphosis.

Drawings are presented as a serial succession that constitute our fundamental form in the graphic logic thinking: the experience of misuring opposite to experience of counting (according to Rienmann parameters for an after geometry).

Phase 3 - visions, to create models of spaces where things can happens.

We look to models that point us some rules to follow for future development (according to Lakatos we are exploring how to transform that first intuition ( conjecture) with a more contents, how to see the conjectures into the space: any conjecture is in the spatial).

Phase 1- plans of consistency

CREATIVE MAPPING TECHNIQUE UNDERSTANDING CREATIVE MAPPING TECHNIQUE ABONDANCE AND RHIZOMATIC TECHNIQUE It is impossible to understand space independent of time.

The creative mapping technique embrace improvisation, contingency, errors, indeterminate characteristics, no centered quality, non hierarchical figure, as new questions of mapping. A cultural activity includes important aspects of perception and cognition, usually excluded by controlled schemes of ideological models that drive the failure of contemporary urban planning.

Drawings, imagines, figures are hold together in a plan called by Deleuze and Guttari “ plan of consistency”, a surface structuring the open ended series of relationships creates by exploring the graphics tools of the computer without any architectural, formal or functional connotations.

Students are asked to place the origin of their space explorations in such a plan which reaches its consistency troughs various tentative using the notion of coherence and “pathos” of the unique, as dynamic tension of linees and figures always trying to reach a unity without a completely success. In this phase a great attention to the quality of even a very small can that directs our interest towards the enlargment of our every day experiences.

According to Medieval painters, who saw the city from the God eyes, creative mapping tecnique represents space including the notion of time and forces as primary elements for shaping any visions.

It is not an aesthetic experience, usually adopted in this researches, but the aesthetic notion is exactly what is disappearing in the process, in favor of an experience of the unknown, of a map that we have founded without doing it ( like a message in a bottle that comes to uzs with an incredible intensity of dreams for future experience).

Phase 1- plans of consistency

Phase 1- plans of consistency

Phase 1- plans of consistency

LAYERING, METAMORPHOSIS MAPPING COMPLEXITY Instead of linking the project analysis “on the ideal forms of understanding“, we have been trying to adopt a compositional sensitivity, with the aspiration to produce architectures outside any geometric abstract order, trying to reduce its supremacy over sensory world.

What characterizes this production of architectural layering and metamorphosis?

First of all the instruments we use. Instead of using classical references to fixed figures and pre-existing geometric hypotheses, such as grid, axes, symmetries, analogies, etc., we explore the possibilities of compositional readings (“emerging readability”) applied to the graphic spaces of the creative mapping of phase 1 (liquids spaces, textures, conditions and effects of pattern fields).

In essence, instead of imposing a program to define the place, we use design tools to generate linear graphical texture and diagrams.

These are tentative to see coherences and figures in the mapping into a world designed only with linees, taking in account the ability to simultaneously maintain the specificity of all singularities.

The process transform the map into vectors. From hands drawings with natural effects on the paper surface, from photograph layering, collage, or any other artistic mode, we move to linees entities that have mathematical definitions.

The result of this matamorphosis reflects the condition at time zero, and is open to new readings, while at the same time reflects the individual approach to free imagination.

The artistic ability, who has a great part in the history of architecture, allowed students to confront each personal expression in a world of architecture vectors, seen as a place between two and three dimensional space.

The computer is used to create a final vision that don´t reflect the individual and artistic origin of the process, even if the process depends on this origin.

Layering and metamorphosis process propose to avoid scientific strategies at the beginning of an architectural knoledge, with clear decisions for one or another extreme, for order or disorder. Instead they work in between every extreme with process of metamorphosis that represents an open condition of the “in between order and disorder�.

The graphic spheres shown in this studio portfolio are the results of this process: open drawings for potential description of possible relationships among figures that cannot be seen without the others..

Each of them is a reading machine of how things could behave: maps of possible worlds. T heir main utility for the architecture is to include, within them, both formal and programmatic configurations, thus avoiding the traditional opposition between form and function, between form and content.

The spheres should be read and not interpreted.

This is because, contrary to the classical compositional theories based on imitation, diagrams of abundances they do not represent objects or existing systems, but anticipate the possibility of new organizations.

SPACE AND CITY VISIONS MAPPING COMPLEXITY

The city is the greatest dream in human history. From the ancient world we see the city growing with various strategic operations emerging from desire and reason, from faith and memory, linking together a layering and a metamorphosing process that still address that magical origin.

With mapping complexity we want to try to respond to the question: are we still able to imagine future cities and urban development in Europe with an alternative and convincing strategy to the impositions of state-controlled scheme that are destroying the European cities, imposing on our land the biggest periphery ever seen in human history?

In other words: every citizens understand the failure of the bureaucratic regime of the city and landscaping planning, but current techniques have also neglected any strong effort to embrace new urban mapping and new operational technique. The difficult is less a crisis of possibilities of design production: we are in the informatics era in which we can produce an almost infinity graphical proposal: the difficult is hidden in the “transfiguration” from this graphic opportunities into a meaningful practices and new operational instrument.

For instance, all the people visiting medieval cities, walking through these open-ended streets space, through indeterminate building strategy, feels their common destiny with the city, enjoy a concept of complexity that cannot be exported or imported all over other places in the globe. The medieval cities still exist and with their presences of contingency, improvisation, errors and uncertainty of urban border, raise the big question: why are we only able to plan late capitalism singular buildings? Why we lost this ancient knowledge of mapping the city through the timely relevant metamorphosis of our time, so to say been in between our reason, memory and faith?

Space and city visions support a topological knowledge of the roofing and of the streets, display the city as a body showing outside irregularity and regularity, forms and malformations, wonderful allegories and ethical “otherness”.

Phase 3- Space and visions - Federation Square: model of the atrium

LAYERYING The superimposition of layers is liberating the graphical capacity of an initial re shaping of the world.

- Land topography - Height of building topography - Color topography - Sound topography - Green topography ( gardens, forests, park, biotope) - Street topography ( pedestrian, bicycle, auto, electrical vehicle,) - Void topography - Public open space topography ( reason, faith, memories) - Public building space topography ( theatre, atrium, schools, university) - Water topography ( lakes, fountains, rivers) - Building topography ( private) - Piazza topography - Commercial topography ( market, shops, bar, restaurant, hotel ) - Porches topography - Energy topography - City gates - Monuments and sculptures, public painting - Flowers - Meeting places ( pavilions, observation - Towers and shards - City walls - Space that cannot be use - Domes - Faรงade decoration - Negotiations areas - Literature, music, paintings, dance topography

AFTER GEOMETRY CLASSICAL

CONTEMPORARY HISTORIAN EVOLUTION STATIC A LOGO LANGUAGE A MULTILOGO MONOLOGUE AN AFFIRMATION AN IDEA FINITE INFINITE TO BE DISCOVERED KNOWN GESTURAL EXPERIENCE RELATIONAL SEPARATE EXPANSIVE REDUCTIVE MULTIDIMENSIONAL LINEAR OPEN CLOSED MEMBRANE A BARRIER LIVED ABANDONED TRIP FIXED CONNECTED ISOLATED

DESIGN STUDIO

THE DRAWING EXPLAINS ITSELF ......................

........................

MOVING - THE CITY OF MULTIPLE LAYERS, EVGENIIA ZHUKOVA, 2014 THE CITY OF MULTIPLE The idea of the city based on combination of multiple layers of curved surfaces.

Some surfaces are grouped in sets, intersecting each other in XY axes direction and overlapping in z direction. So as no one horizontal surface intersects another.

The main set of surfaces that cover the whole city’s area has regular curvature.

That gives the city feeling of moving, as being ruled by natural forces. Smaller parts are added to the gig piece, providing complexity, dynamic of the city’s structure.

Layering allows multiple usage of the city.

Different levels are connected by bridges, inner part has a lot of open spaces. Using bridges is the shortest way to get from one place to another.

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

Top view of the 3d model

Plans and assonometric view of the different layers

View of the 3d model

Elevation and view of the interior

BEING SPACE - THE CITY OF EXPLORATION, CHRISTIAN PURWADIHARDJA, 2014 THE CITY OF EXPLORATION

Created without any concern of context and purpose of solution, it is the matter of positive and negative, the existence of something and the inexistence of anything. Started from exploration of patterns, layers and intentions, this 3 dimensional composition is generated not to lose the same quality of ‘desire’ which was previously captured in the 2 dimensional composition.

The whole composition is constructed by plenty of layers which each layer evokes a particular ‘desire’ (predisposition), and within each layer itself contains a series of form. Every single form is unique, they are different one to another, and each piece has a certain relation to the other piece.

If perceived as a single piece, it conveys no meaning instead of the shape itself, and gives no further intention. But once it is located in its particular position in its layer and as part of the whole composition, it serves certain role and intention, to be in its role and to implicate the desire as layers and as a whole composition.

This complexity of overlapping layers is not able to be perceived as a whole, in a way it is only perceivable by experiencing part of it, which gives hints of the layers and the whole composition. However in every frame of experience itself contains intersection of those layers. Those complex intersection of pieces and layers are expected to give the understanding of the space, which practically be perceived as the soul of space.

In this experiential perspective, light plays the biggest role to the physical space to be perceivable sensibly. Light strikes, reflected, bounces, renders, colors each and every single point, surface, and form, making what appears in light and shadow in the frame of experience.

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

Left: phase 2 layering- the sphere. Above: space and city viosions: 3d model

THE MATRIX THE CITY OF EXPLORATION, GABRIELA AGUSTINA PASCOTTO, LYNNA HEDLI, 2014 THE MATRIX

We inhabit a world of non-inclusive cities. The Matrix is a city where diversity, multiplicity and complexity play an essential role. The Matrix works as a binding substance for the unknown and the unexpected. A place where everything can happen.

SPACES OF FREEDOM The interconnection of spaces along the matrix make the citizens go through a loss of perception where there is no possibility of understanding where the North, South, East or West side really is. A redefinition of the hierarchy of space.

TOUCHSTONE There is not anymore a point of reference. The matrix encloses an endless ground.

Therefore, citizens free their mind about the concept of spatiality being correct. There is neither preconception nor prejudgment. It is an unknown space. Open and closed. Solid and translucent.

Unclear. It is a way of understanding an unknown world, diverse, multiple, ambiguous, complex. A city as an expression of freedom for people.

Everyone can find himself reflected in The Matrix due to its complexity. We live in an oppressive system, maybe complexity can save us...

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

Left: phase 1- phase 2 final layering. Above plans.

View of the model.

ECCENTRICITY THE CITY OF UNCOVENTIONAL SPACES, DUNDUBISWANA JINKA, 2014 THE CITY OF UNCONVENTIONAL SPACES This is a city with unconventional spaces.

The space is an enclosure of forms which seek new direction of dimensions and perceptions.

The buildings stand trying to make a statement. Each building is in its own way unique and has its own character.

It is mostly an experiment with forms. What would happen if the building twisted, twisted at different angles or elongated and stretched at certain points.

It adds to the complexity and it could surely be persevered to explore new spaces within these spaces.

They are spaces within unconventional spaces.

Treated with unconventional forms and that’s why the city takes the name eccentricity.

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

Left: view of the model. Above masterplan.

NOBUBU THE FLOATING CITY, JACOB GEORGE, 2014 THE FLOATING CITY Architecture is forever bound to time and space.

And therefore architecture is ever changing. Just like us.

We are here today because of our will to survive, our ability to change and our willingness to adapt.

We can never predict the future but we can always be prepared for it and defy the boundaries that limit us.

Perception of architecture is therefore naturally subject to change.

There will be a time shortly where earth will not be able to accommodate all of us.

A time and space where we will have to adapt yet again for survival, through ways we once thought were impossible. And often we seem to surprise ourselves when we have no choice.

Nabubu is a city designed for such a time, where we define our own space. Where all the three dimensions are at our disposal for our creation. It is a floating city that celebrates our ability to adapt and survive.

Phase 2 final layering. The sphere.

Musical metamorphosis of the layering process.

View of the model.

CITY BETWEEN WATER AND EARTH, HEGHINE KOTANJYAN, 2014 THE FLOATING CITY Architecture is forever bound to time and space.

We are now in the planet and the planet is in us, as the totality of a hologram inscribed in one of its details.

So, every morning, the grains of the coffee I drink come from the highlands of Central America or those of Abyssinia, the tea in my cup was caught back in Yunnan, my grapefruit juice has been squeezed from Florida or Israel.

I blow my nose with Egyptian cotton or paper coming from Canadian forests handkerchiefs. I’m listening to the information from my Japanese transistor; I write the first draft of this book with the South African or Siberian gold of a fountain pen, I type on my Japanese Canon, expecting a Macintosh from America.

During each of my meals, while reserving my glass to France, I have America, Asia and Africa in my dish.

As now the texture of our lives contains a large part of the planetary one.

We are, in fact, in the planetary age and the planetary age is in us.

(Edgar Morin)

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

View of the 3d model

View of the phisical model.

3d model: general view and details

CITY OF FOCUS, SHIVENDRA SINGH, 2014 CITY OF FOCUS City of focus is about one centre.

A space which is built in the center of the city.

It is a giant Monumental void at the center of the city, surrounded by the dynamic sector of the ground.

The Void is the focus of the city which is a natural and free of any built structure.

This space acts as a monumental space of the city built by secotors.

The built blocks are the continius green eviromental only pedestrian.

Vehicular access to them is underground street network.

These built spaces are radianting from city center.

And there height goes on increasing as it gets closer to the center.

Phase 1- mapping tecnique.

Phase 2 layering- the sphere

View of the 3d model

THE CITY OF LOST MEMORIES, JAIDEEP ACHARYA, 2014 CITY OF LOST MEMORIES The city is designed as a long forgotten space in an age where technology has reduced man existence to virtual space.

The city is an attempt to bring back the sensory experiences od space that man has forgotten in his quest for technological ease.

The design turns an abandoned city into a surreal urban-scape.

The city is composed of different architectural spaces wich enflame emotions, highlighting the human insensitivity to its relations with the outdoor.

A series of Walls and openings along the pathways allow people to in some spaces while prohibiting them from some others thus activating their enquiring minds.

Walking througt the Arragment of narrow tall closely spaces block to contrasting large scale piazzas create a sense of achievement and ambiguity, both phisical and emotional.

This perception is futher enhance by the use of familiar materials like concrete, bricks etc. and only proportions and scale in the urban setting.

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

Masterplan based on phase 2.

View of the model.

THE CITY OF WONDERS, AYAN DATTA, 2014 CITY OF WONDER What does it mean to design for the wonder? Historically, Architects and designers have always had their mind on the future.

These architectural visions push the limits of how the city, and the buildings that comprise it should function for the individuals they serve. We’ve seen some epic failures and great successes in design, the failures never tend to stay long, but the successes redefine the future they inhabit.

Whatever the era or century, designers are always looking to solve a critical problem of the present and future through design. This is of course happening today too.

The city and the buildings that make it can actually be a solution. It will take some inventive design to solve the issues that are sure to come with such dense living. When looking forward, one should first always look back to see the successes and follies of the past.

To the ancient city of the past like the Greeks and the Romans made people wonder, may it be on sea or on land.

The imagination that makes you wonder in a city through the various emotions of the perception of the space.

To the colosseum to the modern Al burj the wonder of space and structure always kept baffling the perceiver.

The idea was to design a city that can create the sense of astonishment that have always been to the key sense of architecture. To find the inspiration of from the lost city of Atlantis like it once rose from the Atlantic and created the sense of wonder in the mind of the travelers. A city to rise up from the water glaring it’s reflection always creates different mood.

The city that is integrated to the water that becomes a part of the sea itself. An entity by itself that makes the space an experience rather than just a living city. The wonder of space as you walk through the streets, the boulevards, the skyways,the ramps and the green.

The green as it flows through the city like nature itself, like the falls running through the stone; carving it’s way out in the ocean. That what creates the sense of wonder; through the sheer spectrum of the space.

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

View of the 3d model.

CITY OF MY DREAM, KSENIA CHERNOBROVTSENA, 2014 CITY OF MY DREAM The City of my Dream (ComD) appeared on the base, which was produced by hand. That is how planned cities starts opposite to that, which grown from settlement of a few people.

Maybe this implanted idea lead me to create a city, which area is thirty sq km and therefore has more village way of accessibility by pedestrian or bike.

Therefore, transport transforms into something, which main purpose is not to move person from A to B as fast or as slow as possible, but into something, which is used only in necessary rare cases. Touching tactic of development of the city, I also went back to origins, when there was no industrial, residential or public zoning. Everything is mixed. So this two points (about roads and mix of use) blends into whole city as unit, which is divided by roads into districts with a different function, plus (in sense of movement of a person ) the district itself divided by pedestrian path which sometimes goes through solid volumes.

Perception of outer space by human being concerns about resonance between hight of volumes and his own tallness. I preferred low buildings. Maximal hight of an office building is 50 m, appearance of a residential housing is not defined by me, but only have a plots and restriction according number of the floors, distance between windows, etc. Landmarks helps to orient. Geometrical center of the city is occupied by void.

And how to avoid “ futuristic” idea about that person would not like to leave place which I projected because “it is so good made”? But it is good only according my preferences, therefore I can imagine, that ComD will be inhabited only with my twins.

Here I find geometrical multiplication of an architect’s personality in a process of designing. Inside the City I dream to see not pretentious houses, well looking buildings of public use, a lot of sky and air, and a landmark, which not reminds about time but about possibilities to look further.

Left: phase 1- mapping tecnique. Above:phase 2 layering- the sphere

Diagramms of the city of my dream

Masterplan

INTHISW

WORLD TOGHETER

Studio Terragni 2014. First semester. DIA. with Peter Maygar

Room 153- DIA

Hegina Kotanjan

LYnna Hedli

Ayan Datta

Ksenia Chernobrovtsena

Jacob George

Augustina Pascotto

Room 153- the blackboard

Room 153- DIA

Dundubiswana Jinka

Shivendra Singh

Augustina Pascotto and Evgeniia Zhukova

Jaideep Acharya

Christian Purwadihardja

Room 153- DIA

PETER MAGYAR

TOBECONTINUED

DIA series Š 2015 after geometry - creative mapping tecnique - Studio Terragni

DIA series Š 2015 Anhalt University Department 3