Federico Ortiz
Curatorial
Where’s Class?
Exhibition With Corinna Anderson, Albert FerrĂŠ, Megan Marin, and Yuma Shinohara Canada 2018
Today, more than ever, we learn by going online. While distance education has been around for decades, the internet now takes us to class in just a few clicks. At the same time, many important lessons are learned by gathering together as a group. Drawing on a selection of photographs, drawings, publications, and documents from the CCA collection, Where’s Class? shifts focus to the offline experience of attending class in order to capture the collective aspect embedded in getting an education.
No Ball Games
Installation (35 m2) With FXXX BXXXXX United Kingdom 2016
As part of Open House London, together with British artist FXXX BXXXXX, we proposed an intervention in the Argentine Ambassador’s Residence, central to both Argentinian and British identities, and part of their historic rivalry and colonial history. Bringing a typically outdoor activity into a fragile indoor space, our proposal consisted of the installation of an especially designed football pitch in the ballroom. We understood the football pitch as a social space for interaction, a space in which visitors to the house, even if rivals, met in a spirit of participation.
Relecture
Public Program United Kingdom 2016
Lectures have been an essential medium for transmitting ideas in architecture. But once a presentation is over, voices and images recorded in old VHS tapes or DVDs, are forgotten. Then what does it mean to watch and listen to a person lecturing years ago, today? Relecture focused on the theoretical, conceptual and performative aspects of talks that have taken place in the last 30 years at the AA. By misplacing ourselves in time and space, we discussed all these aspects and experienced again a good old-fashioned lecture from the AA Archive.
every Tuesday 6pm AA Cinema
reLecture
. reLecture
Changing Places / Espacios Revelados
Performance / Installation (200 m2) With Magdalena Arau Argentina 2015
In the XVIII century a Spanish ship sunk in the port of Buenos Aires. While the foundations for a real estate development were being dug, the ship was found in 2010. For the international art festival Changing Places/Espacios Revelados the artist Magdalena Arau created “The invention of the ship is the invention of the shipwreck� a live performanceinstallation that revealed the story of the boat. As an exhibition assistant I worked on its staging in three locations (an archaeological site, a bunker, and a tower), producing models and drawings.
El Acampe
Exhibition / Installation (200 m2) With Javier Samaniego Argentina 2014
According to the myth, Higado García was a wrestler who died of hepatitis in the forest. Working on the borderline between reality and popular mythology, the artist Javier Samaniego created “El Acampe” (Camping), a three-part installation consisting of a conference room, a forest and a sacred altar. The main task as exhibition assistant, was the development of a graphic identity, the conception and assembly of the installation, the organization of a conference-performance and the production of a publication.
Architecture
Beach House
Residential (140 m2) Argentina 2017
For this summer residence the client had only one request: to build a family house with four shipping containers. The main idea was to expose the shipping containers in the most basic and obvious way, thus the external configuration is simply the four of them next to each other, avoiding any kind of volumetric composition typical of houses built with shipping containers. On the other hand, the inside seems to reject them completely. The interior creates an autonomous configuration liberated from the containers’ dimensions.
Tierra del Fuego Cultural Centre
Culture (25000 m2) With Estudio Bares Argentina 2014
Conceived as a central space with a strong ceremonial character, influenced by local native communities, the space condenses and articulates different programs, unified by a continuous envelope. This polyhedral surface, its digital and physical modelling and fabrication, was the main commission. Additionally, part of the task was the development of documentation for both design and construction phases.
SchÜren Hochhäuser
Residential (150000 m2) With BP+Partners AG Switzerland 2013
Two towers in between the urban and the natural landscapes of Basel. Each volumne reacts to this condition by breaking into three different blocks according to three concepts: green groundscape, living in the heights and urban panoramic skyline. The facade, thought as a 360 wrapping envelope, not only responds to these premises but also proposes a specific inside-outside relationship to each block.
Suburban Garden
Landscape (120 m2) Argentina 2012
In Argentina gated communities are transforming agricultural landscapes, modifying river beds, and eradicating productive land. For this garden in a single family house in a private development in the suburbs, the main focus was on the inside and outside relationship. The garden reintroduces tomatoes, squash and other products of the outer agricultural landscape. A series of strips are organized according to the inner specific context: opening to views, providing shadows or sunshine, and connecting or disconnecting areas.
Wohnhaus Binningen
Residential (9000 m2) With BP+Partners AG Switzerland 2012
Conditioned by a very steep slope, instead of creating horizontal apartments with panoramic views, the project proposes a vertical experience of the existing conditions. Each apartment can enjoy a specific view of the city and all the rooms of each house can enjoy this view in a specific way. Every room becomes a private viewing platform, while being at the same time part of a three dimensional spatial cascade.
House & Studio
Residential (120 m2) Argentina 2006
How to create the maximum useful space with the minimum volume in a small lot in a dense city? The house is the whole lot. Inside and outside are equal. A virtual structure reveals the former maximum volume and contains, in between a landscape of crossing lines, the minimum. Like a livable three dimensional painting of Mondrian, the house is the space in between that becomes the whole space.