Gio Rech Academic Portfolio + CV by Gio Rech

ADDRESS: 5 DALRYMPLE, WESTCLIFF, JHB. 2193 TEL: 079-519-8333 INSTA: @GIO_THE_RECH

PORTFOLIO

PRACTICE AND ACADEMIC

DATE: 01.09.2021 BIRTHDAY: 19.11.1997

GIO RECH

“BORROWLAND” 1st ISLAND. BUYING A FISHING PERMIT AT THE DOCKS

Plains of Cut and Folded Paper, Rocks, and a Traveling Door from my First House constitute a city on a shipwrecked aircraft carrier.

“Making” has always been at the centre of my focus, growing up in a family of architects, engineers,conservationists, master carvers and family cooks. This interest feels like a privelage that cannot be spent on only glorifying myself.

Before studying architecture; furniture making, scultpure and illustrations was where I thought my life would head. I completed my Architectural Undergrad at UCT (2018). Surprised to actually be studying architecture given my childhood interactions with Practices, I found the proffession to be excatly what I was made for. (kind of a “well duh” moment). Special projects include: a preschool for blind children in which echolocation and textures teach the child to orientate themsleves in a dangerous world; and my final project was centered around rebirthing the legandary Luxurama Theatre.

I am 24 years old living in Johannesburg, studying my M Arch (prof) at the GSA.UJ My final thesis questions the role of a home and how homes are made in extreme circumstances of flux. I recogise my “home” to be in many places and feelings and am interested in how architecture can help to enable this non-geographical phenomna. I was born in JHB but spent most of my childhood on consturction sites in Central Africa, wandering through site and staff village alike. Sticking out like a sore thumb and with no one the same age, baby grinders and whittled animals were my toys. Living in the Seychelles and at age 3 I taught myself to swim by throwing myself into the ocean and letting the waves bring me back. I would like to think that this trend stuck with me and how I approach new projects.

ABOUT GIO

Interested in the intimate relationships of apprenticeships, working for my parents - as well as with the GSA - has been an amazing opotunity to grow and learn under guidance.

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INDEX

DESIGN PHILOSOPHY

“OUR THINKING IS

HOUSED, OUR EXPERIENCE IS HOUSED, OUR SUBCONSCIOUS IS 0.1 M ASTERS WOR K (GSA.U14 . 2021) The notion of Home is more complicated then traditional concepts of Home as a Place and Home as a Practice. The term “Homing” is framed as the seeking and reading into space of Home. Within this notion is a power triangle between the I’m/migrant, Beacons and the Documents which describe incorporeal territories. The project seeks to speculate a way of reading Home as something in tremendous flux, fearful of becoming stuck, anticipating the future.

0.2 HONOURS WOR K (GSA.U14 . 2020)

HOUSED, NOT IN SOME

CARL JUNG

ABSTRACT GEOMETRICAL GRID,

The project was interested in the intersection between Hallway typologies, ones idea of leisure and implicit privileges. Avoiding the obvious example of Johannesburg’s affluent armatures; for a more temporal corridor - the archival hallways which allows power and knowledge held in objects to be transfered through time.

BUT QUITE LITERALLY IN ALL

0.3 UNDERGR A D WOR K (UCT . 2016-2018)

THE SPACES THAT WE HAVE IN-

Two projects : Layer cake Carpentry Factory, Mowbray. + Luxurama Cinema Reborn, multi-functional train station, Lower Wynberg. A choice was made to hand-draw all my projects at UCT, including Technology, History and Environmental Studies. All models were chiseled from precious woods and boards.

0.4 OFFICE WOR K (SR LC . 2019) Internship at Silvio Rech + Lelsey Carstens Studio involved three high pressure but delightful competitions; three long term site installations such as working on Saseka for almost two months; and a “starter-pack” project which needed full design, rendering, construction and council drawings as well as regular site managements.

0.5 PERSONA L WOR K ( - 2015) Growing up in a family of architects, engineers,conservationists, master carvers and family cooks defined making as a purpose. Before studying architecture; making Dynamic Furniture, self-portrait Sculptures and modulated Technology was a form of seeking out this purpose.

HABITED, ALL THE PLACES WE HAVE NEGOTIATED, SUPERIMPOSED ONE ON TOP OF EACH OTHER.” - FROM THE BASEMENT TO THE GARRET

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MAKING MY THESIS FINAL MASTER’S THESIS_HOMING BOTTOM LEFT : COVER (BACK - SPINE - FRONT)

legislative powers like the Bill of Rights to “blueprint” future homes. The term’s apparent disjunct for those forced to live precariously in the margins, organising societal structures themselves, calls for a spatial reinterpretation of the South African Constitution.”

TOP RIGHT: PRINTED THESIS The copy contains all the work from my Masters year and a few peices from my Honours year. Each copy was printed with Prefect Binding on custom A4 paper with a hardcover. On the back a blurb reads : “Homing Lines” is interested in navigating legislative limbos in those between border conditions; where constructs surrounding land can trigger seemingly invisible traps and left for dead zones. The project defines the act of HOMING to ambitiously reframe views on immigration and how we might live together.

BOTTOM RIGHT : FOLD-OUT FEATURES Within the book are several pages which fold out, blooming into wide landscape drawings. They were made by slipping A3 pages into the manuscript.

This project is subversive of usual definitions of home as place or practice; Drawing on elements not typically considered architecture to solve issues of home and where it fits between reality and indexical expressions.

Suprisinlgy, more than ten copies were made since family, supervisors and even other lecturers from the GSA wanted a copy!

Homing speaks of two conditions: a navigational tendency in which features such as beacons, architectures and incorporeal systems are used to read home in fluctuant landscapes; and second, the approach of formal

GIO RECH

HOMING : DELINEATING LIMINAL CONSTITUTIONS

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MASTERS WORK HOMING - DELINEATING LIMINA L CONSTITUTIONS The notion of Home is more complicated then traditional concepts of Home as a Place and Home as a Practice. The term “Homing” is framed as the seeking and reading into space of Home. Within this notion is a power triangle between the I’m/migrant, Beacons and the Documents which describe incorporeal territories. The project seeks to speculate a way of reading Home as something in tremendous flux, fearful of becoming stuck, anticipating the future. “BORROWLAND” is a project which speculates the an alternate future for 90 000 P.O.W. in WW2, following how they might have negotiated home aboard the naval ship. The Beacon is revealed to have a conditional dimension and the document is seen as the component which is key to defining this preference. The existence of either the beacon or the document imply the existence of the other. When processed, the prisoners were given an M/E number which depending on the time of day would see them shipped off to a distant colony such as Bangladesh, Australia and South Africa.

The latest drawings titled “BORROWLAND” speculate what if the ship carrying the P.O.W.s never arrived in Durban Harbour, but instead became stranded in the False Bay on rocky bank existing in satellites blindspots. Severed into three parts and sitting just behind the fogline outside of Cape Point’s view, the crew negotiate homes out of the wrecked aircraft carrier. The city-to-be is neither of Italian nor South African identity and evidence of it is speculated from items washed ashore. At the mercy of the tide, the dynamic and transient city is consolidated out of warped ship metal, kelp netting and rock mined from underneath. The myth goes that one day too much rock will be hauled up and BORROWLAND will dislodge and fall back into the sea.

DR AWING SERIES: “BOR ROW LA ND”

“BORROWLAND” 01. Attilio’s sheet metal house on the 1st Island. 02. Low tide brings the 3rd Island a full 3m of depth, meaning stairs protrude into the sea waiting to be activated.

Interested the paradoxical condition of Between Borders created by the M/E number, the construct of an alternate past is speculated.

“BORROWLAND” Full Paper Model: Cut and Folded paper, stones, window sections and a Traveling cupboard door from my First House constitute and 3-part island city on a shipwrecked aircraft carrier in the False bay.

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: MUSCLE MEMORIES

“BORROWLAND” Muscle Memories/ Bill of La(n)ding Twelve sheets representing each document found and type of BOL is worked into and its components transferred and re-altered across the city.

The citizens’ law has no concept of property; but rather the movement, splicing and bifurcation of the ship is constituted in the Bill of La(n)ding. This document is the legal waybill for all cargo onboard, their modal transportation, and transfer of rights. This translates into an architecture of shifting facets reflected in amendments to the Bill. Portraying my grandfather’s alternate pasts as he witnesses a range of negotiation grounds reveal the power

triad between citizens, their documentation and architectures. An indexical model in which four documents are held in keyhole scenes was constructed to render the city. These documents are an ID, postage stamp, currency (nails) and fishing license. Taking from C.J Lim’s idea of two and half dimensions, each document is revealed from a different side of the model and their interlacements from the axonometric view. 12

In this model you can see moments where citizens make home on jagged metal ridges in the residential area; exchange currency for kelp pasta in the food district; catch fish at low tide and renew their ID’s at the Capital. The nuance of the traps ability to hold incorporeal “homes” has been dictating the country’s geopolitical strata in the negative way. And our methods for protecting these “homes” has proved destructive. The MDP is focused on pushing this notion that home is a far more fluid con-

struct which can be read, negotiated and programmed into space other than its origin. It wonders if restricting architecture to anticipate this post-property system can aid in the im/migrants reluctant unfurling of home, surpassing the meaning a space for its potentialities.

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: SECTIONA L TITLES

01 ENGINE ROOM The heart of the city, cannnot run without the Prison- ers’ labour to feed and maintain it.

SECTION .02 - CAPTAIN PARADIGM A cross section through the ship reveals an exisiting heirachy between the Captain and the domain. From his vantage point the Captain can observe all traffic, trade and movements. Beneath the Captain, Prisoners toil away and incomnig Hunters bring goods and trade. Above them all is the Auditor - or rather the Auditor’s note - acting as a pressence to hold each role safe. However, similar to the Captains blindspot, a different reality is evident.

A clear chain of command moves downwards to the Engine Room, where the Prisoners operate. The heart of the city, the Engine cannnot run without the Prisoners’ labour to feed and maintain it.

they feel comfortable in. Within the Cap- tain’s Blindspot, Prisoners and Hunters collude, shifting peices of the ship, bending and wrapping, redirecting heat from the engine room away from the tower and back into their homes.

They cannot leave, their lives in this role are to precious. But Hunters coming in can bro- ker deals with Prisoners, giving them more agency to or- ganise a a home

In the .00 Section (Auditor’s Paradigm) the reader will see this evidence.

.02 SMUGGLERS Hunters offer a secret way to bring items into the city - and a way out. 15

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: SECTIONA L TITLES

SECTION .02 - CAPTAIN PARADIGM In the .00 Section (Auditor’s Paradigm) the reader can evidence from some of the other sections. This leakage/ reapperaacne is due to the flattening of multiple perspectives.

Altering something like the Constituion isnt so simple and a broadest scope must be used to propoerlly gauge the ramerfications and manifestation of the amendments.

Their apparent proximities which can not be seen in individual perspectives reveals an interconnectedness of consequences, agents nd factors.

01 HUNTERS DOCKED Multiple hunters are lifted into the City and unload thier stock. . 02 LOADING A loading rig is used to “handle the fish”.

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

The latest project titled “Reluctant Homes: Negotiating with the Folly” follows my grandfather’s story as an Italian Soldier walking across Russian occupied Eastern Europe. From being captured by Allied forces and processed at the Suez Canal; to being scripted a new future in a South African Prison Camp named Zonderwater. Many

DR AWING: MUSCLE MEMORIES

species of traps were overcome to reach what he considered home, only for this to entrap him further. With his village politicised and altered, the soldier finds himself caring home in memories, rituals and feelings rather than a specific locus.

The atlas-like drawings are constructed in four indexical layers. Fixed features and celestial bodies are printed onto the page, trap structures are set onto this in yellow bumf, sites of home marked in blue letter paper and negotiating documents in red parchment. Each map is constilated at a different scale and time, starting from traveling

across several countries over nine months to a single moment where a meal is shared. The drawings are constructed in this layered way as a means of working through how documents like passports are built.

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: R ELUCTA NT HOMES

RELUCTANT HOMES: PORT SAID, SUEZ CANAL, Nov.1942. P.O.W.s were processed at the port over a rotation of 8 day cycles including stripping of uniforms, sanitation, prisoner fatigues and coding new futures.

DR AWING: “ONSETTING” TR A PS

DR AWING: SPECIES OF TR A PS

There are many species of traps in architecture. The Fence The Bait The Kazoo The Net The Trigger and Projectile The Gate and The Terminal.

TERMINAL TRAPS. The final result of a video describing reciprocal manoeuvres and counter actions of a “trapper” and its “victim” resembles a traditional trap in which woven fish basket is placed in a stream with guiding walls to either side.

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: PIGEON CH A RTS

as well as an anticipated scenario which binds the two together. If this notion can be extended to the built environment then architecture itself is an act of trap making.

Alfred Gell states in his paper the Vogel’s Nest that traps are a form of artwork in the way they are not only a tool but a diagrammatic construction of both the hunter and its prey’s psychologies - and that art is a form of a trap too. Using Gell’s explanation and my findings from a device, which reprogrammed the user’s identity to that of the drifter, I’ve defined the trap as a construction which embodies the mind of its author and the nature of its victim,

Now the im/migrant and the pigeon can be defined as a body which moves from one position to another, often due to a complex intersection of objective factors and subjective circumstances. They are a voyager of liminal space, often crossing multiple borders and shifting position in terms of class / cast / privilege. They fall victim to many species of traps which are specifically designed to exist in their blind spot.

Previous Page: The project, On Setting Traps identifies 10 archetypal elements of a trap, exploring them through the same notational sections as before.

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: 13 WAYS TO R EA D A PIGEON

13 WAYS TO READ A PIGEON_10-12: THE FOLLY. Concerned with what home is to a homing pigeon, and why they choose to return to what inherently is a traumatic space. The folly stands as a counter home.

+ This project is concerned with the fluidity of homes. It investigates the role of a changing landscape and how its features; such as beacons, architectures and incorporeal systems, effect the first generation im/ migrant’s psychology. The term “HOMING INSTINCT” reflects reactionary home-seeking, both permanently and temporarily. The project is currently questioning

which rights bring home to the im/migrant, conjuring counter-Traps. The pigeon’s path was tracked in a contingency log which highlights these different phase shifts and decisions as if they were four revolving doorways which the pigeon could enter, resulting in different behaviours and outcomes.

Home, is politicised by Bonnie Honig who explores the violence of disparities between a home vision and the Other who threaten this aspiration. Here a third condition is suggested: “Homing”: the constant searching and reading for home. This dynamic action, allows the im/migrant to conjure crucial aspects of home amidst fluctuating contexts within the diaspora.

1_3. Home is where I want to be 4_6. But I guess I’m already there 7_9. I come home, she lifted up her wings 10_12. I guess this must be the place... 13. I cant tell one from another

HOMING - THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: FLIGHT OF P.706

FLIGHT OF PIGEON.706 01. ORIENTATION 02. PREP. TO LAND 03. LEAVE IMMEDIATELY Each page corresponds with a dialogue between P.706 and several air traffic control entities (instincts)

Through observing the pigeon’s ‘hunt for home’ the project questions what is drawing the pigeon to home? and why is relocation elsewhere not an option for the bird? As well as questioning how architecture might manipulate our instincts? Proposing that home is not a fixed state or grounding, but perhaps home is located in those temporary breaks in between. The last set of drawings is three notational sections transcribing the pigeon’s manoeuvres when gaging its bearings; approaching to land; and leaving in an emergency. Expressing theses manoeuvres as spatial moments established in the air and on the ground. The choreography is based on a transmitted conversation between the pigeon and several air traffic control stations. The folded paper is manipulated to conceal and reveal the pigeons expanding and contracting lens and different instinct triggers whilst augmenting the way time is represented.

ings, approaching to land, and leaving in an emergency. The manoeuvres were expressed as spatial choreographies following dialogue between pigeon and various air traffic terminals. The folded paper is manipulated to conceal and reveal the pigeon’s expanding and contracting lens regarding triggered instincts and augmented time.

The project asked: What does home become if the pigeon’s original home is a site of trauma? How is this homing instinct used to seek new homes? Struggling with a centre-less navigational system whilst deciphering beacons becomes the pigeons new condition.

To briefly explore the lay-by, a series of notational sections transcribing the pigeon’s manoeuvres when gauging its bear-

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HONOURS WORK

TOTEMS.GIF - INHERITED LEISUR ES The years work has been focused around the topic of inherited leisures and the influence this has on our conception of a leisure matrix. We inherit our leisurely customs and behaviours from our family and community and our needs, understandings and relationship with leisure is inferred from this profoundly influential force. Slavoj Zizek describes this “unknown known” as the “subconscious programming - the ideology.” I explore this matrix through the Leisurescape, a mental repository coloured with cultural artifacts, family customs and tacit knowledge. I sought to ask what spatial mechanisms facilitate the interaction between leisure matrixes and merge their different landscapes? Whilst exploring the theme, topics of privilege and dominance featured majorly in the form of the museum — a supposed “keeper of knowledge” which is often instated by foreign powers. From these topics two obstacles were identified : access to the archive and control of the narrative mechanism. Colonial supremacy has placed its own leisure matrix

DR AWING: A RCHIVA L H A LLWAY as dominant over our city, still controlling many aspects of our every day lives and rituals. The investigation into subverting these obstacles was conducted through a parasitical architecture; using methods of replication, non-verbal story telling and a board game instrument. Using the analogy of the house as a place which reflects our matrix, we can see the entrance hall as a mechanism which mediates between our private world and the public exterior. Each entrance hall is filled with a family’s antiquity and heirlooms, as well as a specific series of silent commands and rituals for passing through it. It is a palimpsest of multiple fictions of reality existing on top of each other compressed into a spatial confluence.

MODELS: LEISUR ESCA PES

DAVID CARSTENS BOXER / BUILDER, LA, USA. The tokenisation of David’s lasting journey to the 1932 LA Olympics features as a corner piece of the TOTEMS.GIF game. A combative space where occupants slog it out for ideological preference.

THE MANY LIVES OF A FAMILY HALLWAY (Extracted from 13 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, Holborn) Depicts the hallway’s ability to hold multiple uses and activities whilst receiving traces and evidence for later occupants.

TOTEMS.GIF - INHERITED LEISUR ES

DR AWING: INCOR POR EA L COR RIDORS OF PRIVILEGE

John Soane’s home/museum was explored for its polarised reception with regards to the majesty of Soane’s collection and the countless travesties and persecutions which must’ve taken place for such a collection to have been extracted. This Archival Hallway is seen as a potential counter space to the centralized museum of leisure as it has the potential to go beyond a uni-linear narrative of history. An instrument designed to use the movements and actions of two matrixes to visualize their spatial qualities of time was proposed in the form of a humble board game.

TOTEMS.GIF - INHERITED LEISUR ES

DR AWING: THE ASSIMILATORS

THE ASSIMILATORS 01.DOOR (HAND)LE 02. COAT (HOOK) 03. THE HEARTH 04. A BRIEF VISIT Three components involved in priming the visitor for Soane’s breakfast room sit passively in the hallway. They mediate between opposing leisure matrix’s through an autovoilitic processing. The visitor is asked to withhold ideals, sign away rights, “strip” themselves of identities and accept tokens of gratitude to be allowed into the opulent sanctuary. A sanctuary built on colonialism and extraction. A mirror sits opposite the visitor, displaying their ideological overhaul.

TOTEMS.GIF - INHERITED LEI-

DR AWING: LEISUR ESCA PE, THE GA ME

CYANOTYPE PRINTS 00.15.39.50 + 00.42.27.05 Shadows of Gameplay are captured in translucent sheets, a freeze of the game’s most permanent territories and long lasting corridors of power.

It proposes an interactive instrument designed to produce the tactic knowledge of the User into drawings. It comes in the form of a themed board game as it has the ability to generate multiple complex scenarios simultaneously and at random The game is designed to make the players’ identities bind with the actions they take in the hope of shaking lose traditional cobwebs and exposing some of the more sinister commands within our hallways. The project is positioned to take an introspective stance, assessing artifacts and stories of family members so as to form the basis for recording and manipulating. These recordings will be used as a starting point to “story map” space time’s complex construction and tell us ways in which the museum’s methods of storytelling can become far more multiple.

A player’s turn is broken into three steps: 1. Each turn a player will draw a card which describes a lived experience with in-game consequences. 2. Then they roll to move one of seven totem tokens across the board and collecting an artifact from the territory they land on, stacking them onto the token. 3. Last they can move one territory to a new space on the board, recontextualising the relationship between the territories. 4. Pieces returned to the spawn point are collected and stacked up vertically into a totem.

Game play is constantly recorded through three mediums so as to produce a living archive of players’ participation. These recordings are a temporal visualisation of moments explained in the game and form as the basis of this counter-museum methodology. 1. Underneath the board is sheets primed with cyanotype ink, recording the movements and shadows of each move in the game. These prints act as tacit blue prints of how players react to each other and circumstances, revealing their inner workings and cultural matrix. These prints are light sensitive and take roughly 7 minutes to render. Every seven minutes the sheet is changed and a new round begins. These print’s blue-white quality highlights and everything in between capture a portion of time in a spatial plan, displaying permanence as white negative.

2. Each round the board pieces will be cast in wax and played on whilst still wet. Rounds are stacked on top of each other to construct a large physical model of all previous game play. 3. Cloth impregnated with wax wrap is pressed onto the surface of each round, capturing the topography in that instance to be photographed with photogramatry technology to construct a digital archive.

TOTEMS.GIF - INHERITED LEISUR ES

DR AWING: COR RIDOR OF UNCERTAINTY

CORRIDOR OF UNCERTAINTY + OPEN PLAY SPRAWL. Drawings made from the layering of multiple recordings of the game, constructing analytical cartographies of players’ internal leisure psychologies.

TOTEM.GIF THE GAME is an interactive instrument which relies on a player’s personal interpretation of leisure, privilege and inheritance. It is personal board game with rules left intentionally vague. The Vagueness allows for the players to negotiate how they see the game’s rules and how objectives should be played out. This makes for a unique scenario of migration, and the modes through which one can acquire / keep their cultural wealth and privilege via stealing, battling and ultimately controlling the game’s arena. Inheritance’s fragility and robustness is stressed though the game’s inherit conflict mechanisms. The instrument is designed to use the vast range of possibilities described as “randomness” as way of generating drawings, images and unexpected comparisons about the portrayed archive. Playing the game highlights how complicated our spatial relationships to time truly are when it comes to contending with fright histories and questions of inheritance. The game is themed after my own family lineage, displaying all the components involved in

making up my current inheritance scaling from a family member, a place associated to them, an activity and the objects used. Within the game board and rules lies all possible realities and combinations for my inheritance. It consists of a 7 x 7 grid will 15 territories inside of it (The original layout was to mimic the ancient Royal Game of Ur as it pitted two players against each other in a narrow hallway like space, but the open grid was favoured for its stage for uncertainty) These 15 inherited territories move around the board like rearranging archipelagos. Players traverse the board by organising and moving these territories into chains and temporary conglomerates in order to retrieve artifacts from the landscape as these artifacts are symbolic of vessels each containing a wealth of specific cultural knowledge.

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UNDERGRAD WORK (UCT) PROJECT - OPER ATION LAYERCA K E

DR AWING: CA R PENTRY SECTION

Operation LayerCake proposed a layered mixed use building in Mowbray, in an empty plot just by the bus rank.

MODEL: NEGATIV E SPACE + LIGHT STUDY

NEGATIVE SPACE: JELUTONG, ASH, LASERCUT PERSPEX

Sunken one story down, each layer of the building explained a hierarchy of production. The Ground floor factory which produces a range of items for the retail stores, library and offices above it is sunken almost a full story down so as to allow for its large roof-scape to become a sheltered public square. Light wells are punctured into the slab and light wells reach up to the “true roof’s” height so as to draw light down in brilliant vertical channels.

A block of jelutong was chiseled and segmented until a sectional model appeared. Used as a light study for the buildings cavernous feel.

Carved out of the earth, the walls of the factory space reflect the building’s schema: a palimpsest layercake of historical layers and geographical strata. Vertical bricks are wedged into the wall with steel anchors so as to hold up the walls and spaces lining the factory. A large lift acts as the front door to the factory, flooding the space with southern light when open.

CARPENTRY FACTORY IN OPERATION The moody section focuses on rising and falling ground plains to construct spatial layout and hierarchy, further demarcated with light from above

LUXUR A M A R EBOR N - 3R D YR FIN

DR AWING: SITE PLA N A ND CONCEPT PUMFLET: ‘LUXURAMA’ (2018) By Ilze Wolff and Team - Pumfleteers Collective

a am ur ux [L ]

The brief for the 3rd Year Final Project was to design a mixed use, semi-residential, four storey building on Wynberg Main Road. At the time I was researching the Apartheid regime’s use of the cemetery and railways as a segregatory device, questioning if it could be subverted. Informed by the Pumflet issue on the Luxurama and its proximity to the railway track I decided to diverge from the brief, shifting the site to the open plot by the tracks.

The concept was to bury the Luxurama into these tracks, using it as a programmatic hearth. Located at the top of the high-street, near the train station, the site was recognized as a potential nexus point which sits in relation to the busy area at the bottom of Lower Wynberg. The train station is extended into the square that the new Luxurama looks onto with broad public stairs extending from the platform to the ground level. 42

Opposite the site sits a busy church, one of 35 in Wynberg actually. The station grows a large Wynberg archive and library whilst sitting opposite the new Luxurama and adjacent to the church. The road splitting this triangle is paved over into a larger piazza lined with oak trees and benches. A parking garage sits under the site and all earth excavated is used in the buildings constructed rammed earth exterior. The proposal uses large stereot-

omic forms to emulate an object of durability, arranging them in such a way that the interstitial spaces has the ability to hold intimate environments. A small music hall is placed on the left side of the site opposite several creches and the home of the leader of community band.

LUXUR A M A R EBOR N - 3R D YR FIN

Top Section reading from left: Small raised lawn and herb garden, small music hall with dug-in amphitheater and skylights, service lane, New Luxurama Theatre .2 with twin housing layout above, New Luxurama Theatre .1 with twin housing layout above, New Luxurama Theatre Lobby with

DR AWING: LONG + SHORT SECTIONS [A-F]

residential street above, Theatre Entrance, dug-in piazza with broad stairs, tunnel to Upper Wynberg with train station platform above, Lower Wynberg Library and Archives, Library outside terrace, Parking entrance ramp.

The entire site is excavated as if preparing a tomb for the remains of the Luxurama. All excavated material is reused in the construction of rammed earth walls which encase the New Luxurama Theaters.

The Library is a simple roof construction which features a large waffle slab, sheltering both the library and train station.

LUXUR A M A R EBOR N - 3R D YR FIN

DR AWING: A PA RTMENT ROOF DETAIL

DR AWING: A PA RTMENT PLA NS

DR AWING: COMPACT THEATR E SECTION

LUXUR A M A R EBOR N - 3R D YR FIN

The two theaters are made of suspended timber elements which hang from the ceiling and walls. The stepped flooring sits on large timber joists which tie into large timber columns which feed into the concrete slab above. The rest of the proposal is predominantly rammed earth with concrete beams and columns and steel/timber roofings capping

the residences above. The theatre lobby is made of a super large waffle slab with light fixtures and acoustic cushions in the recesses. The Southern corners of the apartments are capped with a cubic skylight window (Scarpa detail).

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OFFICE WORK

Two Renderings of the Gabon Single Villas were made with the intention of placing family activity and togetherness at the center of the proposal. Gabonese woods’ warm and soft colours invite clients to enjoy their rooms for longer, hopefully spotting hippos on the wild and fluctuating beach front.

COMPETITION: PETIT LUA NGO, GA BON

R ENDERING SERIES: SINGLE VILLA

Working at Silvio Rech + Lesley Carstens studio had three key projects: Competition for House B in Namibia, “intern starter-pack project” named a House for a Student, and Competition for Gabon, Petit Luango Nature Reserve and Lodge. Petit Luango, a lodge made entirely out of wood milled from the Gabonese forest near by and sitting in front of hippo/croc infested shores made for a unique proposal on boundaries and sustainability. An seemingly endless forest protects the lodges rear, making for an immersive barrier between Back-of-House operations and living spaces. The competition was won and since then eight versions of the camp have been drafted. The project taught us how to what we had to make a proposal in contrast to the projects vast expanse. SketchUp, VRay and a few skew shots of the site was all we had access to.

P.L. VILLA 02. “TOUGH BOX” A flat pack design to be CNCed in the Gabonese mills nearby is transportable by small ferry to the site. A separate bathroom makes for easy privacy and a view.

DR AWING: BEACH VILLA R EV.6 SECTION

COMPETITION: PETIT LUA NGO, GA BON

P.L. VILLA 06. “FLYING HAT” A large drummed roof structure is made on site from easily transportable timber members via the shoreline ferry is hoisted onto stronger leadwood columns, inviting air into the rooms

The Petit Luango site is on accessible by shoreline ferry and the entire construction should be able to fit into that ferries loading deck or if special - helicoptered in. Villa revision 06. Featured a large drummed roof structure made on site from easily transportable timber members via the shoreline ferry is hoisted onto stronger leadwood columns, inviting air into the rooms. Labeled the “FLYING HAT” for its rotated axis.

The drum has two halves, a protected and a transparent. The transparent half, clad with timber latte, shelters over the bed area to throw dappled sunlight onto sheets and carpet. Charted in grey line is a study conducted on sound, echoes and repetitiveness of the site. It showed a correlation between cooling air and falling sound. Strange.

HOME FOR A STUDENT

A Home for a Student. The design brief was very simple, construct a semi-sufficient parasite structure which emulates the materiality of the rest of the house whilst holding its own separate identity. A dynamic tension between the occupant and their family had to be held. As their time in the space was known to be limited, the design had to think of future occupants and their possible relations with the family as well. The buildings primary objective is thus to hold a dynam-

PUBLICATION: ELLE DECOR ESP. COV ER

ic boundary between the whole and the auxiliary, choosing when to mimic and assimilated and when to turn away, distance and self proclaim. Future uses such as a green house, private studio, tranquil meetings room and serving pavilion had to be anticipated for. The finished product relied on the programmable quality of light. Using several versions of a screen typology, privacy is mediated between several shifting facets and plains, each with specific opacities and diffusive abilities. 54

PUBLICATION: INTERIOR .03

The room connects to the rest of the house via a removed window hole leading to a semi en-suite bathroom. The interior is filled with calming diffused light which floods the space. The occupant asked for early wake-ups and the eager eastern sun does just that. Curtains are used purely for privacy in this building. To echo this pure white space, the floor was laid in white epoxy screed which was further polished and sealed.

The thick Oregon Pine Columns shy away from touching the ground and roof, sitting on grey steel brackets. One brick wall sits to the one side, shielding the occupant from the loud and busy kitchen near by as well as providing structure for a built in steel cupboard.

HOME FOR A STUDENT

DR AWING: ELEMENTA L SITE M A P

DR AWING: EXPLODED CONSTRUCTION MODEL

Construction of the building is in five layers.

Home for a Student spills out of the existing home’s bathroom window. Separated from the house, light and shadow studies were made, ranging from early morning eastern sun, sheltered midday and the West’s golden light flooding the room in the evening.

01. 02. 03. 04. 05.

Corresponding with this, a study was made on the shapes and shadows projected from the surface of the room’s Interior objects.

A concrete floor is poured out of an existing window. Large timber posts placed at each corner. A steel frame hugs the outside of the timber posts Translucent plastic sheets wrap the dual-frame A composite roofing panel caps the structure.

Later windows and an epoxy floor screed were fitted as well as furniture and electronics. 56

HOME FOR A STUDENT

DR AWING: DOOR PA NEL TECH. SECTION

DR AWING: TIMBER COLUM N TECH. DETAIL

COMPETITION: HOUSE B. ERINDI, NA MIBIA

R ENDER SERIES: SITUATING LA K E

Mr B, a Mexican client asked a rancheros to be built within the Erindi nature reserve. The large lake was chosen as the perfect nucleus for the site, complimented by large mountainscape behind in.

SITUATING MOUNTAIN

Photos, models, environmental studies and traced drawings were made of the proposal and this drawing series aimed to show the synthesis of multiple mediums, situating the project within the existing site. Emphasis on the scale of the home in relation to the landscape was hugely important.

SITUATING: Helicopter photography, SketchUp, VRay, Traced landscapes and paper inlays were used to construct six situating images of the site and rancheros for House B.

0.5

PRIVATE WORK DAVIIID - TR A NSPORTA BLE DESK

Private projects have always been a great source for intuitive improvements and discovering important role models.

When I was 10 years old I found a book which pushed my understanding of materials, it was on Shigeru Ban’s paper buildings. In my grandfather’s workshop I tried to make my own “Paper House” out of printer roles and waxed cardboard. The project on the right is another piece built in that workshop, aimed at accompanying me on my university experience at UCT. Knowing that I would be moving at least every year, a six legged table which can be separated and flat backed into a cricket bag was built. Recessed groves, a smoothly plained surface and 860 mm wide the table is tailored for large drafting projects. The bottom is supported by transverse fishbelly beams which in-turn transfer weight to the central leg(s).

DAVIIID : LEG JOINT SKETCH The six legs are connect through by a separate spine structure using a mortise and tenant joint to transfer load and resist the tendency to sheer

M ATRIC A RT : SUR PLUS/SCA RCITY

INHERITED OBJECTS: “GOLDEN CASTING of SUN CITY PALACE ROOM ELEPHANT 434” Sun City, a strange mirage of simulations / masks stands as a memory of an opulent ideology inherited by my generation. When looking behind the facades one can see the ruin and decay of these spatial objects. These leakages in parallel to Sun City’s ruin-like aesthetic heightens the idea that the object and what the hold is in a state of flux.

SCULPTUR ES: ICE + POR KBELLY + R ESIN

MATRIC ART FINAL PIECE .02 “BULLY BEEF” An anatomical section of a cow’s skull is tattooed onto a piece of porkbelly (SPAR; R85.00) In response to the “Cat meat” scandal in JHB, the project contests prevailing stigmas of animal meats whilst using ambiguity to explore the violence, brutality and spirituality of the global practice. The tattoo process requires the skin to be stretched and wiped, resulting in the illustration warping to resemble a horse’s anatomy. 64

MATRIC ART FINAL PIECE .01 “EVERYTHING THAT I AM, INTERNALISED ARTIFACTS”

The work was exhibited at the UJ 2015 Student Art Fair and won second place.

Clear Resin was cast into a mould of my torso and arms in thin layers. Portions of objects which project outward are painted on corresponding layers so as the produce the illusion of objects submerged within the body. 65

HOMING : THE TR A P YOU CHOOSE

DR AWING: MUSCLE MEMORIES

3THRIFTY5 THRIFT STORE GRAPHIC DESIGN WORK:

01. BIOSCOPE MOVIE NIGHT POSTER + TICKETS

Involved in the marketing of the Johannesburg based thrift store’s variety of social events; logos, posters, business cards, tickets, coffee merchandise, custom jerseys pop-up installations and an Autumn / Winter Lookbook.

02. STUNTIN’ SATURDAY 26.10.2019 POOL PARTY POSTER 03. 3T5 ROASTED COFFEE IN COLLABORATION WITH 4th AVE. ROASTERIES 80g BAG.

0.*

REFERENCES

R0GUE R00TS H0ME Unit 14: Rouge Roots Graduate School of Architecture University of Johannesburg www.gsaunit14.com

LETTER OF REFERENCE FOR:

GIO RECH 13 September 2021

FROM: Thireshen Govender & Jiaxin Yan Gong TO: Whom It May Concern THIR ESH GOV ENDER : URBA N WOR KS + U14 LEA D

JIA XIN YA N GONG : URBA N WOR KS + U14 LEA D

thiresh@urbanworks.co.za + 27 (82) 886 2998 55 St Andrew St, Birhaven. JHB 2196

yan@urbanworks.co.za + 27 (83) 452 5200

This serves as a letter of reference for Gio Rech, a current student at the Graduate School of Architecture. We are writing this in the capacity of his supervisors, who have had the privileged of working with him over the last two years (BArch Hons and MArch). In his time with Unit 14 at the GSA he has continuously produced work that not only challenged his own understandings of architecture, but prompted new ways of reading and making architectures within the Unit’s framing. He is highly productive and often delivers beyond the expectations of what is asked, thus he has been an exemplar among his peers. Gio has had the privilege of being exposed to a range of experiences throughout his life and these feature strongly in his intuitive responses. His intuition is often guided by lateral thinking, prompted by rigourous depths of research that span across numerous related disciplines of architecture, art, and philosophy. Through his body of work produced over the last two years, he demonstrates the ability to think independently and critically about seemingly mundane architectures such as the Home, where he questions the role of a home and how homes are made in extreme circumstances of flux. He is able to use his robust foundational skills (analogue and digital) to translate complex thoughts and ideas in a methodical and rigourous manner that often generate a primary outcome supported by numerous other probes which are all produced with care and purpose. He is very open to feedback and responds with intention. Gio has consistently performed with excellence and is able to manage himself and his work, which is evident in his attendance and engagement with his design research and his peers. He is open and confident in sharing in discussions that often uncover alternative perspective and layers to both his and his peers work, enriching each others practice. His practice and ways of working is deeply embedded in who he is, thus he has shown a willfulness to learn from every opportunity presented as a chance to grow as he seeks to forge a career of his own.

LESLEY CA RTSENS / SILVIO R ECH : SR LC

For the reasons above we would be confident in recommending Gio Rech to be a valued member of your team.

adventarch@mweb.co.za 082 900 99 35 / 083 935 9840 5 Dalrymple Rd, Westcliff. JHB 2193

Sincerely,

Thireshen Govender Unit 14 Lead 68

Jiaxin Yan Gong Unit 14 Lead 69

In disbelief, the pigeon studies the card further, so hard in fact that it doesn’t notice a shadow like alphabet soup cast from the window into the cabin. These words spell out : c o l l i s i on ! ! !

The pigeon ﬁnds the orangoutangs in a large spacious clearing but they appear to have arrived just before the bird. One orangutang ask the pigeon for directions.

species of reader / seeking home within the drawing / home : intersection between two readers (where the message is delivered)

The cabin shudders as it goes through the clouds. The pigeon takes out the airline safety card and examines it. But something is odd… all the procedures are modelled by orangoutangs…

In seat 13G a grey pigeon sits with its tray table folded up, looking out the window. It reads a book with pictures to keep itself occupied whilst the vessel takes it thousands of kilometres across the country to surprise its lover. It buries itself in the book so as to not get consumed by anticipation and daydreaming.

The orangoutangs take in the details of the low flying metal bird and its determination to fly across great destinations. They blink in the sunlight. They get on the bus, still fixed on the bird, tracing it through the sky as it darts between the clouds and buildings and they pass through tunnels and over hangs — sometimes searching in the reflections for the bird. Words plume out of the window as there is talk and chatter and gesticulations discussing what they see.

The old page with new lines constantly being drawn on it is beginning to look like a map with courses and trajectories of shapes being ﬂung across its surface only to return to their origins through a series of complicated twists and turns. Are these lines being drawn with an intention and a predetermined route or generated from little decisions along a route of unknown length and outcome? A little bit of both, but you would never know, your goal is not to decipher an author’s method, you just follow waiting for the “X”

A pigeon flies across a countryside. The pigeon is observing the landscape not how we do, although the scenery is beautiful. To the bird, the landscape is a field of markers. Some of these markers are warnings, some are “good signs” and some are traffic symbols left by orangoutangs. The bird suspects that it lives near these orangoutangs and follows their tracks, sometimes deviating or abandoning them in favour of its own instinctive navigation; but always the tracks reappear to affirm the pigeons that they are looking for the same thing. The primates have many symbols which they make with leaves and bent saplings and small rocks : turning left here, non-nutritious soil here, resting here, DANGER, walking here, etc… The pigeon can read these symbols, not perfectly but an accurate inferring at least. (the truth is the orangoutangs are slightly lost too, happily wondering through the landscape in search of an interesting home).

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler is not one novel but ten, each with a different plot, style, ambience, and author, and each interrupted at a moment of suspense. Together they form a labyrinth of literatures, known and unknown, alive and extinct, through which two readers, a male and a female, pursue both the story lines that intrigue them and one another.

Seven Orangoutangs wait at the bus stop, behind them is a poster advertising Italo Calvino’s new book. An aeroplane ﬂies above them, casting a shadow over the street. They are traveling downtown to their home by the airport.

[ This piece of text is an architectural model ]

Lines on a surface dart around to make shapes on a page with the words : “I read, therefore it writes”. This page is an old page, but the lines are new and what this relationship means to me will be different to you. The page is the site, our eyes its inhabitant and somewhere in-between is a shelter.

[ This piece of text is an architectural model ]

Incipitamation : Pt 2 Orangoutangs take the bus and Pigeon Flies Economy

Incipitamation : Pt 1 Following Pigeons Following Orangoutangs Following

DAVE-SHOP_exc. 3

FIN.

MASTERS (GSA), PRACTICE (SRLC), HONOURS (GSA), UNDERGRAD (UCT), MATRIC (SJC)

PRACTICE AND ACADEMIC

ADDRESS: 5 DALRYMPLE, WESTCLIFF, JHB. 2193 TEL: 079-519-8333 LINKEDIN: @GIO_THE_RECH

DATE: 01.09.2021 BIRTHDAY: 19.11.1997

GIO RECH