EASA TOURIST 2019 - final zine

Villars-sur-Ollon, 2019

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THE MANIC MOUNTAIN

text by Boris, Bosnia&Herzegovina illustration by Adriana, Greece

An unassuming young ______ was travelling along with a group of friends, in midsummer, from the native _____ to Villars, in the canton of Vaud, on a two weeks trip. From _____ to Villars is perhaps a long journey, though not too long for such a stay. As you arrive in the Lausanne, the route gets cut up and you take the train, but only as far as Bex. Here, after a brief wait in a charming alpine station, you mount a narrow-gauge train, for the station of Bex is at a relatively low altitude, but now the short, wild and rocky route pushes into the Alps themselves, the most exciting part of the journey.

A days travel separated the youth - still too young to have thrust roots firmly down into life - from own world, from everything considered as own duties, interests, cares and prospects.

Home and regular living lay not only far behind, they lay fathoms deep beneath, and the group of companions continued to mount above them. A magnificent succession of vistas opened before the awed eye, of the solemn, phantasmagorical world of towering peaks, into which their route wove and wormed itself; vistas that appeared and disappeared with each new winding of the path.

Soon, the tracks met level ground; the top of the col was reached and the train rolled smoothly in front of a small station. It was about three o´clock, and the sunlight had washed over the station and the hill towering over it.

Stepping out of the railcar, the group looked cluelessly around for something that might signify

the end of the route before setting their eyes on a chalk-written pointer on the station floor saying EASA↗, showing the way to another pointer and so until they reached a wooden hut overlooking the path they were on. The hut, housing the EASA info point, was swarmed by youngsters and their baggage; a short distance away a circus tent was being raised, the people shouting as they tensioned the cables and attached the colorful tarp to the construction.

The group nervously dragged their bags to the hut, observing the other EASians that hung around on the stairs and the patio of the hut while waiting to sign the waivers so they could rush to the showers. Flocks of newcomers were arriving at a steady pace, spreading themselves around the foot of the hill as the space in the tents was being divided by countries. Slowly, the valley was getting filled with clouds, and the rain started, first as a faint drizzle, intensifying to a shower within a minute. The bunch poured over into the tent in search of shelter and started changing themselves into warmer clothes. As the rain didn’t seem to be nearing its end, people started leaving the now so dreaded tent in their raincoats and forming the first paths of the EASA up the hill to Le College and down to the town of Villars, between the Grand Salle, the cable car to Roc de Orsay - the network of EASians had begun to interweave itself into the mountains.

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(based on the Intro to Zauberberg by Th. Mann)

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Migra Birdo, 02.08.2019.

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Invisible Tales, 02.08.2019 8

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SECONDSKIN interwiev with Saagar, India led by Mihaela, Croatia

U: SECONDSKIN is a workshop that blends many different principles but the end product is a multipurpose garment of quite a specific design. Is that something that was created during the preparation for EASA TOURIST? S: The technique was developed before the assembly. Now, we are using the method to create the final objects, so the design is being done at EASA. The technique was developed by one of our co-tutors, a fashion and textile designer, to connect fabric and fabric in a very simple way without using stitches, machinery, sewing, zippers... He calls it Button Masala. The idea was to take that simple joinery and apply it to the joinery of fabric to objects, fabric to structural elements... We realized we could create transformable objects which are multifunction and can easily be made, not by the designer but the users themselves.

U: What was the motivation behind the project?

S: The first idea came when Shreyansh, my other co-tutor who is an architect, and I were discussing the project from the fact that we did not want to do construction. The context of this EASA, the limitations force you to think light and simple. That led us to the idea of utilitarian clothing that you put on once and forget about it for a year. It takes care of you. That is where the name SECONDSKIN came from. So, now you don’t have to worry about clothing again.

More than just architecture and fashion design, it applies to groups like refugees and the homeless. If they have access to a system of design they don’t have to purchase from the stores, or a product that doesn’t have to be distributed to them; if they can make it by themselves with the objects and material around them, you are supplying good design.

Soon we met our textile and fashion designer Anuj. Together we tried to prototype a jacket that turns into a tent that turns into a storage system. It worked really well, which validated the idea that multiple functions are possible. What we are doing at EASA is just one palette of functions - jackets, sleeping bags, shelters, raincoats - that supply the context we are going to face after the Hannibal day.

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Villars-sur-Ollon, 2019 U: You talked about how you didn’t want to patent this. How come?

S: The most important aspect of this project is that it is open-source and I think that is the only way to spread the idea. Another motivation is that people use it, build it and make it better. If we patent it, it is always going to be this one specific product that needs to be distributed to people in need, or needs to be bought by them, which is not okay.

Then it’s not going to be successful.

U: There is a lot of design specifically in response to the refugee issue.

For example, Ikea has it’s own line of shelters. They are not actually gaining money from it but it is still a trademarked design.

S: The intention of these products is correct but the only way to give them out is for Ikea to make them and distribute them. Open-source design, on the other hand, can be picked up by anybody, developed by anybody and evolved by anybody. I think that’s what makes opensource beautiful.

U: You are using one fabric at the moment, right?

S: Correct. Again, for this context, because we have to camp, we are using two types of fabric. One is a weatherproof fabric, super light, which is the outer layer. The second fabric is a slightly thicker weatherproof fabric that we are using for putting on the ground. We are trying to limit ourselves to these two, but again the idea is that any material can be used.

U: What is the plan for spreading word about the idea?

S: As of now, we started an instagram page @secondskin.project. We are trying to upload everything there for but once we collect all of this data, the documentation, we will figure out the best way of publishing it. We will talk to magazines, of course. I think that is one way to propagate the design within the design community, but obviously this has to go beyond that. We want to push it outside.

U: How do you feel about your workshop at the moment?

S: We have some beautiful participants. There is no set design so it takes a bit of extra effort from them to figure out what they want to do. We did this exercise where we asked the participants to define the user, their problem statement, and then define their design brief.

For example, a girl from Serbia has defined the user as a young Roma mother who is homeless and needs a waterproof shelter and a baby port. So, now she is designing a wearable raincoat that also has a baby port inside of it and it converts to a tent. Another girl from Turkey, whose users are refugees who are running away from economic crises, war zones, etc., is creating a life-jacket from thrown away bottles which, again, turns into a shelter.

U: The more workshops you do you will probably reach out to even more creative people who will think of new uses.

S: And the best part is that you don’t have to do workshops. People can just pick up the idea and start creating.

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Secondskin, 05.08.2019.

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UNCONVINCED [filtered thoughts of an architecture student] One of the most exciting and terrifying things that all EASA participants have to go through every year is choosing a workshop that they will be a part of and contributing through to the community in the upcoming days.

I was sitting with one of the young brains of our generation, watching the innocents play, when he said: “Football is architecture. The ball spinning in space”, he looked at the distance of his mind.

“Everything is architecture theoretically”, said another with a sound of a contra argument coming our way.

This one was no exception.

That day tiredness from the previous night was not a problem, for early in the morning Grande Salle turned itself into a workshop fair looking like a busy ant nest.

“Someone could take a shit on this grass, back it up with a theory and it could be architecture”, he continued.

Minimalist clues about what the workshop will be about, wondering heads and wide eyes of participants, facing the poker faces of tutors, thinking “This workshop can be ANYTHING!”

The words that followed, showed a cleared message: “He was not convinced. (Enough)” Some other thoughts followed: “There are more layers to architecture, the same way skin has them. The deep one is the building process, the fundamentals per se, and the only visible to a man is the final space we consume.

What is in between should be emphasized more.

But they were all very different, some great better, others even better.

Why is that so - that we can use words, stories and theory to make a concrete subject something it may not be? Can an idea or buzz-word hold us awake every morning when we are bound to be awake to make another wired paper mashed stone for the female cave?

There are two directions for connecting the base layer and visible layer. And only one is correct. You can take a shit and glue a theory on it. You can make a project and use buzz words to “back it up”.

Every start up today is saving the world.

But only some will save it. The ones who really live the theory.

That is the correct direction: from the depth towards the upper level.”

When is the story actually connected to the “final product” and is it acceptable that it is sometimes not? Is it our need as architects to have a story around things that some would perceive as “concrete” matter for whatever reason (to them unnecessary to know) taking place in front of their eyes?

“It all starts from watching people... observing their needs but through critical lenses, searching for purpose and being thoughtful every step of the way. Researching their culture, and real theory behind it.”

It seems like architects find architecture in EVERYTHING. An episode showcased it: Couple of guys were playing football in between their workshops. They were lost in the moment... running barefoot, catching the ball and a little rain on their foot while sun was slowly setting on their wet foreheads.

“After all - we are what we design.”

collected by our field correspondent 13

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www.easaestonia.ee info@easaestonia.ee

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Villars-sur-Ollon, 2019

If we adapt this mindset of viewing the EASA community as this arbitrary family, then it is a JATO of people. A JATO that migrates to different places in the world, welcomed by the local community with great hospitality, which we impact, while leaving the environment intact. A JATO that links previous EASA experiences in continuity.

Jato in Macedonian can directly be described and translated in English as FLOCK. During the ten days of the event in the village of Trpejca we will center the attention on the opportunities for gaining experience by putting the EASA flock into context, merging it with the locals of the village. The NCs will be accomodated by all the locals of Trpejca, so it will become a temporary EASA village. Our aim for this concept and experience is to be useful for both the local and the EASA community.

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POLYCLINIC IN SLAVUTYCH

SESAM 2020

Poly - : many : several : much : Clinic - a conference or short course on a particular subject.

Architectural poly-clinic for a modernist mono-city.

The Polyclinic of Slavutych, Ukraine’s youngest city built to rehouse the population of workers from the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant (CNPP), has been closed since 2014. Slavutych, a prime example of late modernist architecture, designed to heal the trauma of those most affected by the radioactive cloud, has a sealed off modernist ruin of thousands of square meters in its urban core. The closure of CNPP, meant the crash of the modernist utopian dream in this (post)-atomic town. In the time of an identity disintegration, we have to turn to Slavutych’s architectural past to establish its future legacy.

For this reason, we will use the Polyclinic as the base for the SESAM 2020 (28th May - 7th June 2020). Much like Slavutych itself, that was built in 18 months in 1987 by leading architects from 8 different countries, a ten-day SESAM 2020 will bring architecture students from more than 50 countries in the biggest architectural experiment of modern Ukraine. We will gather the Assembly to perform thorough diagnosis of the illnesses of architectural profession, of the city and of the modern urban society. Architects will inhabit the space of the Polyclinic at the very heart of the city, aiming to cure its foundational crisis, turning its uncertainty into freedom of action and new self-determination.

They will intervene in its space in the form of workshops, activating and using it as a communication platform, proposing experimental architectural projects within the walls, yet directed towards the city and the world. Through the activation of this hospital, we hope to situate Slavutych again at the centre of avant-garde architectural discourse, much like it had been in its beginnings.

We see SESAM as the first event of a series of yearly activations of the building, in the form of an architectural festival, spread across a multiyear timeline. It will become a yearly event for young architects from all around the world to come and experiment with new forms of living and co-creation, interacting with the voids of the hospital and experimental interventions of previous years, thus accumulating the value and knowledge.

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As working architects with different backgrounds in anthropology, urban planning and architecture, the tutors used their knowledge to observe together with their participants the transformation of human behavior during the two weeks of EASA. We talked to the tutors about their motivations for the workshop, what they learned and how they think the workshop will impact the future EASA events.

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WATCHING THE EASIANS conversation with tutors Clothilde, Perrine and Samidha led by Mihaela, Croatia Clothilde: EASA is a nomadic community whose place and organisers change every year. It’s interesting to see what are the basics of this community. We always talk about the EASA spirit but we never truly go into analyzing what it means.

Through this workshop we are trying to understand the basics of the community infrastructure, how people inhabit these new spaces and how spaces transform the human behavior. Mundane things that are regular part of life are often overlooked while managing spaces for events like these. We try to analyze these things, such as observing the queueing system or quantifying the space and length of line needed for drying clothes.

and community. They are going to be presented in a booklet with scanned drawings that will be stored in the EASA Archive for organisers to use anytime.

Samidha: Our participants go around the event, watching, listening and documenting situations.

They analyze the behavior of all the different people that are part of this event in ways you generally don’t think about as an architect.

Clothilde: When you start doing this kind of observation, you see new ways of drawing and your way of drawing as an architect changes. Now when you draw, you automatically think of all the ways people use space, ways you could not even imagine.

It enables you to think in a multifunctional way.

Samidha: The point a community starts functioning, it starts dealing with different kinds of problems.

These problems to us are in a way a threat to the community. We are looking at the things people do spontaneously to mitigate those threats in a bottomup approach to understand each others’ space and belongings. In our workshop we also analyze how some rules were mutual understanding between people that would be formalized only later on, and how people react to the formalized rules.

Perinne: The idea of the workshop is to create proper data for the next EASA. Every year EASA is hosted in a different space with different organisers. With our data they can take a step back and see how they can use this information for organising the event. The organisers already have the typical management information, but they don’t have any specific data on the transmission of human behavior. That data relies on the three same topics EASA Forum studied – work, infrastructure,

Perinne: It is interesting because at first the participants were doing architectural drawings – buildings, windows, walls. Then after some time their way of drawing changed as they started to draw the activities, the movement, the spontaneous gatherings.

Samidha: We as architects try to design space.

Human nature is very organic, and you don’t know how the human being will use space. Space should be very flexible in terms of giving people the opportunity to use it in different ways. The moment you restrict the space you lose a lot of opportunities and creativity.

Clothilde: You can especially see it in renderings these days. It’s always about the aesthetics and not about the way space will be used. After all, architecture is for the people.

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National evening, 01.08.2019.

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National evening, 01.08.2019.

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IMAGINED PATTERNS

by Andrea S., Croatia

I am much closer to the sky here, in the folds of the Alps. To be precise, at 1273 meters above sea level, that is more than a 1000 meters closer than where I am usually kept by everyday life. The lights of Villars disrupt the vast and sublime darkness densified by the surrounding mountains.

Only if I am caught in the grip of valleys and peaks, wandering out of town in the night, having left behind the polished gloss of the small tourist town, my eyes are met with the sky speckled by celestials - The Moon, the planets, the stars. Too many to be counted.

Since the beginning of humankind, people have been looking to the night sky to position themselves in space and time. They traced outlines in it, imagined patterns, found connections that weren’t really there, but they helped break up the sky into more managable parts.

These patterns are called constellations. Farmers, in particular, relied on constellations among other things to tell what month it is, since different constellations are visible at different times of the year. For example, Scorpius is only visible in the northern hemisphere’s evening summer sky. They used these kind of mnemonics to determine the perfect time to begin the planting or the harvesting.

Polybius writes that Hannibal was making his way thorugh the Alps “near the period of the setting of the Pleiades, when the snow was beginnig to be thick on the heights.”* The Pleiades are a group of stars in the constellation Taurus, of which six are visible to the naked eye in the northern sky. This is how we are able to claim that the crossing of the alpine pass took place at the onset of the winter season.

The idea of a constellation implies a bond between different entities that remain autonomous in their own right. The connection is not real. It is imagined, but it is constructed for a very specific purpose - to serve as a constant, a fool-proof point to orient oneself by in space and time. These found patterns are retraced in relationships we make and connections we establish.

Much is the same here, in the folds of the Alps.

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*Polybus, Bk. Ill, Sec. 54-55

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DĂŠdalo

La

Spero

Designing the Future

L’Atelier

Tonic

F3 Arquitectura

-Los

Tristotrojka

Klapstuk

Nu

Uman

Kreatura

Patio de Sombras

@archipelago.network 28

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Written, designed and curated by the Umbrella workshop and various contributors. Photographic film and developing by courtesy of the Ad hoc floc. National evening photographs by courtesy of EASA Vogue.

Set in Sitka and Montserrat.

Villars-sur-Ollon, 2019