URBAN INTIMACY PORTO ACADEMY ’13 SUMMER WORKSHOP 51N4E
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PORTO ACADEMY ’13: URBAN INTIMACY SUMMER WORKSHOP
My week with 51N4E at 41N8E
A wandering tourist or passerby probably didn’t pay any attention to it, but those who know what they came for, have certainly spotted, photographed and shared it on their favorite social network: on one of the steep slopes of Porto, an anonymous artist used a black spray to ingrave a stencil saying 'Keep calm and love Siza' in the gray sidewalk. Above the letters proudly stands the logo of the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP), one of the most famous architecture faculties of Europe who owes its reputation to this living legend, Alvaro Siza. A hundred yards further down the street, just around the corner, you arrive to the campus designed by his hand. On the summer of 2013 Indexnewspaper organized a summer school named ‘Porto Academy’ at Faculty of Architecture of the University of Porto (FAUP). Porto Academy consisted on a workshop with Anne Holtrop, Camilo Rebelo, Go Hasegawa, João Pedro Serôdio (Serôdio Furtado), Johan Anrys (51N4E), Nuno Brandão Costa, Pascal Flammer, Pier Paolo Tamburelli (Baukuh), Raphael Zuber and Thomas Raynaud (Building building). It also included ten lectures from those architects 3
plus five master classes from truly legendary guest architects: Alexandre Alves Costa (Atelier 15), à lvaro Siza, Eduardo Souto de Moura, Marcos Acayaba and Milton Braga (MMBB), exposing thoughts about "Porto and Paulista Schools". Architecture students from around the world were in no time persuaded to participate in this workshop. None of the newcomers remained unmoved by the impressive school building, located on the quay of the river Douro. Siza draws flowing lines and places his towers with exact precision to frame the beautiful view of the Portuguese countryside and seperate the building’s courtyard from the street. There is a large commitment to the environment. On the ground floor you are at any time in direct connection with the river and the mountains. Although
the differents volumes seem
fragmented, they are connected by an underground corridor to keep the continuity. The framework that the school offers, made everyone immediately enthusiastic. Everyone immidiately felt connected, and conversations in diverse languages quickly filled the courtyard terrace. The next two weeks, we will spend together in this amazing university, attending master classes, working closely with renowned architects, spend nights in the studio to build models. We worked hard (and partied mayber even harder)!
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Masterclasses By our first guest speaker, Portuguese architect Alexandre Alves Costa from Atelier 15, we were given a fascinating insight into the concept of the School of Porto, from which we would be enjoying the following weeks. The School of Porto thanks its respected reputation to the many architects that studied at their university to later on become a worldwide reference in architecture schools and repeatedly prove its educational, scientific and artistic transfer throughout modern day architecture. One of the famous outcomes of the school is Eduardo Souto de Moura. Those born in Porto architect graduated in 1980 from the FUAP after which he immediately started his own agency (as recommended to him by Alvaro Siza) . He continued teaching at the Faculty of Architecture in Porto and won a Pritzker prize in 2011. During his talk, our third night at the university, we were given an insight in his Burgundian life style. His large stature, his loud voice and his choice of subjects are equally impressive. While he enjoyed describing his favorite kind of wicked, he showed little or no interest in some potentially very enriching questions asked by the audience. When asked which of his works his favorite project was, he replied that normally his answer would always be “the next project�. But that in the current financial situation, he hardly doubted his next project 5
would be nor soon, nor as interesting as his previous work, so he went without much further explanation for the Braga Municipal Stadium that he designed in 2003. It might not have come as such a shock to many, and he might be disappointed by some recents developments in architecture, but it seems unnecessary for a pretentious Pritzker winner to discourage a group of young architects as if there are no chances left for them. Is is not the old guard that should seek in us for new visions and new ways to design? The next guest speaker, the Brazilian architect Marcos Acayaba, tried harder to get us motivated so search solutions. He was born and raised in Sao Paulo and studied there from 1964 to 1969 to the FAUUSP, where he also obtained a doctorate in 2005. His more than thirty year of experience in architecture, both by teaching and exploring through his own office, makes him one of the most respected creatives in the current Portuguese architectecture scene. He gave us an inspiring overview of the social problems that he’s been tackling in booming Sao Paulo over the last years. The city is in permanent construction and rapidly transformed form a pleasant little town to a giant world metropolis . Sao Paulo is also the hotbed of Milton Braga (MMBB), fourth master in row. Just like Acayaba, he studied at the FAUUSP and in 2006 obtained a doctorate in architecture and urban planning. Since 2001 he leads a private agency that has been 6
awarded several prizes and has appeared in exhibitions and publications worldwide. MMBB is a remarkably versatile office. Their vision of urban development (mainly conducted in Sao Paulo) is very contemporary and explains and exposes the core of a series of current problems without losing the joy of it. Our patient wait is finally rewarded. On the last night we finally meet Alvaro Siza... Meanwhile, more than half a century ago, he graduated from the University of Porto. Meanwhile, he teaches at the most prestigious schools of architecture around the world, but remains true to his home base. Everyone here therefore agrees that he is an architectural genius and a great example for all students. Unfortunately he could not satisfy everyone’s high expectations. Our generation is apparently not used to listen to the level of rational discourse as Siza brought us. He brought us rather dry information about the subdivision, building style and materials of some of his projects and that surely, for some of us, broke the mystery around his figure. His speech lacked the poetry he’s so often praised for and offered no insight into his way of thinking and/or designs. The lecture was perhaps not a great enrichment, but a week spent in its design has been an inspiration and motivation that will undoubtedly have a great influence on our future work .
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Workshops But we didn’t only get to listen. In the individual workshops, we got the chance to work face to face to some very admirable contemporary architects. An overview: The first visible results came from the studio of the architect Anne Holtrop. While most participants closed the first day at the bar with a refreshing bottle of Super Bock, his students immediately got to work. Based on his clear briefing they filled the large windows of the cafeteria with white lines, circles and shapes. This was the first step in a workshop that explored how we can, in a literary way, convey spatial attributes. For their exercise, each student received a text. Their formal interpretations of this text would later on become beautiful models in black cartboard. He gave a first impulse, but other than that the students were free to create whatever they wanted and the results showed a very personal approach to each text. Camilo Rebelo asked his students to literally dig a litte deeper. To address the problems of our increasingly crowded earth's surface, he undertook a journey to the center of the earth. Each group went to work on a specific natural area like a mountain landscape, a forest, an ocean, a desert ... and were allowed to decide which program would best integrate with the conditions that come with these underground structures. 8
The models, cut from black polystyrene, showed a rather normal exterior with deep inside some very interesting spaces, providing light and air to never before reached places. The studio of João Pedro Serôdio, who studied at the University of Porto, was an investigation into the relationship between architecture and nature. They created a group of buildings that were closely linked to an existing environment. The models were completely in white styrofoam and it was not always easy to distinguish the landscape from the building. French Thomas Raynaud showed how architecture, landscape and water meet. Their work domain: the islands around Venice (where in 2008, Raynaud together with Cyrille Berger, developed a project for an ecological urban park). Each student chose his/her area and was completely free to design a project based on the properties of this island. The major focus was the concept of such an island. Boundaries were scanned, the position facing the lagoon examined, as well as the relationship and the interaction that occurs between the other neighboring islands. It therefore didn’t remained only the island as a separate entity, but it was as their mission to aproach the archipelago as a whole and create the infrastructure that could connect these islands with each other.
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Raphael Zuber succeeded with his group to make an inventory of architecturally interesting buildings, put down between 1992 and 2012. In addition to the " classics " of the history of architecture, we also discovered less iconic buildings that still proved to be very controversial and showed evolutions and trends less noticeable . Pier Paolo Tamburelli & his team undertook a virtual pilgrimage trip to Fatima, a religious landmark in Portugal. Attention was drawn to a scientific study of this ceremonial place , and how to use an architecture with deep significance and magnitude. Based on the data collected, the students made one-shot presentations of interpretations theyr formed through the statistics of Fatima. In the studio Nuno Costa students were put pairs as an architect/client. Their mission was to design something inside the faculty, meeting the requirements of 'the client’. The realistic relationship that was created, gave students an insight into the necessary negotiations and almost inevitable clashes during the creative process. Ultimately, the results were received with great joy and only a few people said they wouldn’t live in their new place. Go Hoosegow, together with his group, studied every side and angle (and even the roof!) of Siza campus. All their inspiration and interpretations were shared daily on a huge room-large piece of paper on which the drawings of the 10
different students were overflowing into each other, resulting in something he liked to call “Siza-ness". They repeated their daily activity live during the final presentation to the happy tones of "All you need is love" (a reference to a movie in which Siza while drawing is humming this famous tune by the Beatles). To see the drawing being created, was like a hugy choreography and got us guessing which elements of the FAUP, abstract and concrete, we could recognizable! The workshop that Johan Anrys prepared for Porto Academy, existed in seeing the city as a bigger picture by focusing our attention on small, personal events. Somewhere along the way, it seems that we have forgotten the public space is there for us to occupy. Following the formal reglementation, we primarily use and design it in a functional and efficient way. But by continuing to reach out, we could create a public space with personal commitment. Using the poetic , the human and the surreal to form our shared environment. Using the working method of 51N4E, we investigated the question rather than to examin ourselves to find a solution. Without strict instructions, we had to collect, in the form of photographs, sketches and texts, and capture what struck us in the way people of Porto were inhabiting their city. We went in search of a lexicon of how people make sense of their own intimate life by relating it to the public space and vice versa. 11
We were looking for places where the public space meets the private lives of its inhabitants. Numerous examples were after deliberation by the whole group, summed up in a thirty themes of which we each developed one individually. The result is a list of concepts, situations, coincidences. More often than not reaching much further than Porto itself. Some ideas vague and abstract, others defined very precisely and concretely. A complete compendium that will guide you in design that not only refers to itself, but has the capacity to build our own urban intimate world. In short, a study that made us think about what it means to occupy a city as a resident ? How do we make sense of the respect we have for our environment, and with others? And how to use these non-architectural references as inspiration to understand the term ' living.
A heartfelt thank you goes out to the organization, volunteers, architects and students of the Porto Academy 2013. 12
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PUTTING IT OUT ON THE STREETS People are furnishing the public space in order to create an informal atmosphere within the stricly organized city life. Sometimes the sidewalk and street are treated as a prolongation of the interior space, with a purpose of appropriaton of the shared public space. Sometimes these situations turn up spontaneously, wherever and whenever there is a lack of formal, official solutions. Both cases bring the everydayness to the street, a way for inhabitants to occupy the city and establish a relation with their territory. In such a context, the boundaries between what is private and what is public are blurred. The distinction of what belongs to one individual, to a family or to the community is difficult to recognise from the outside and it varies, according to time and particular situations.
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SALDOS! HALF TIME SLEEPING PLACES
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SALDOS! HALF TIME SLEEPING PLACES Allong Rua Julio Dinis, one of the arms of the Boavista roundabout, every couple of neighboring shops share a small covered entrance port with facing doors, including a third door accessing the apartment block above the shops. The cosy room created by this setting is, during the nighttime, used by a group of homeless people in order to pass the night in a more or less comfortable place. Being inhabited here becomes the result of a process of creation and re-creation carried out by the inhabitant, a process of adapting and re-adapting between space and society. We are being faced by a dynamics in which space is constantly created and re-created, a dynamics which itself defines the phenomenon of inhabiting.
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