Porto Academy Summer School 2018 :: SO-IL Studio

SO-IL

PORTO ACADEMY FAUP

2018 20–27 JULY

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The House today is in crisis, and a fertile site for critical discourse. The subject being described is conceptually destabilized under increasing stress, which sets the stage for the emergence of entirely new species of domestic spaces we will come to inhabit.

To move forward, we ask the most elemental questions. What do we do in our homes? We sleep, we eat. We keep ourselves busy and then we rest. We need room for privacy as well as to socialize. We need to put our books and clothes somewhere, but sometimes, we also need to be away from them. And what about in our houses? Where does work begin and where does play end? Who has access to our homes, for how long?

The challenge to reimagine domestic space today is to reclaim the house from the economical, and to liberate the home from the technological. It is to contemplate its architecture as a process to knit labor, ownership and identity together. It is to restore the house as a social tool for making cities as well as the home as a site for making culture. By interrogating the spatial and material relationship between the self and the other, we investigate the possibility of a society formed out of domestic spaces and lives lived productively here.

Sampling Siza

During the 60’s and 70’s, Álvaro Siza produced a number of single family homes. The designs of the homes are at first glance vastly different and reveal a variety of approaches from Siza when it comes to the single house problem. One would not directly realize they are from the same author. Yet when one studies the designs more carefully, one starts to discern a highly personal, yet charateristic approach.

Siza’s design process, is one of system and freehand. Or of order and context. Throughout the process one can see a push and pull between the systematic and the “idiosyncratic”

1. Siza woud “channel” some of the “masters”, using both his historic knowledge (time) as well has his personal feeling.

2. He would design (sometimes) houses as if they were already extended upon, so although it was built at once, it has an implied layering of time.

3. He would change the design during construction while visiting - so a new level of insight.

All this is to say that he did not design things with some completely finished fixed notion, but that the outcome of the building was the moment the process of designing and building was temporarily frozen.

Siza’s first works were heavily developed through the design of the plan (also in section with the slopping roofs and false ceilings).

Most of his projects begin with a kind of typological base (the historic referential) that then is manipulated to the point that sometimes is hard to acknowledge where it all began. A lot of the times it is the physical circumstance, the plot and its topography, that imposes changes. Others is his own formal desires and memories (the idiosyncratic hand of the designer).

Amir Halabi //mesh_pavilion Porto is a city with a potential for many distinctive building typologies. The element that is most interesting is the sloping landscapes that subdivide the city’s infrastructure. The site of the mesh_pavilion is located on a downward slope, discovered in a less populated area, while still accessible from the central urban fabric. The approach to the site is monumental, as the thresholds narrow out towards the top of the slope.

The pavilion embodies the concept of communal programs that encourage further social behavior and exchanges. With no permanent user, it is designed for the passerby with the possibility for temporary accommodation. The spatial configuration is a narrative, with ramps that cut through and around the program that visually and spatially connect the users, which allows for the merging of public and private spaces. These counterparts are further combined through a net that meshes above the common spaces, shaping a more diversified interaction between users.

Andrea Zavala Torres The concept of the project was to redefine the idea of housing by proposing a building that shapes the way people live. Dividing the program in private and public activities allows the personal living space to be reduced to the minimum, encouraging users to use the common areas on their daily activities like cooking, dining and watching tv.

This promotes a sense of community, frequently lost in contemporary housing buildings.

Another thing explored in this exercise is the spatial relationships between spaces not only in the horizontal plane but in a vertical and diagonal axis. This allows a spatial continuity between the apparently floating volumes and the outdoor terraces.

The openings, as in Ă lvaro Sizas buildings, are designed to frame the landscape. Volumetrically, I got inspired by the fragmented composition of his House in Mallorca project and the way it adapts to the steep slope.

Andreea Druga House for a botanist Le jardin est la plus petite parcelle du monde et puis c´est la totalité du monde. Michel Foucault The project´s idea brings together a garden for the world but also an oasis for the client. The plot is situated nearby the Botanical Garden and numerous university buildings.

The client is a botanical researcher who loves the outdoors and studies various types of plants and flowers. He likes to feel that the garden is around him when he works, therefore the biggest space of the house is dedicated to working area. He has colleagues/students who come sometimes work with him. He can read/write his paper/ give a class to students indoors or even in the garden. The house is “invaded” by transparent units that hold the trunks and roots of the trees, the nature becomes the structure of the house.

He wanted to give away a part of his plot to the community. The roof of the house becomes a public garden, accessible to everyone in order to increase the social and cultural activity of the individual housing neighbourhood. His private garden has perennial flowers, vegetables and becomes an inacessible oasis, visible from the rooftop.

The community garden has various vegetable and flowers maintained by locals, students.

Inspired by Alvaro Siza the entrance of the house starts with a ramp, the researcher does a long walk through the garden to get inside the house.

The roof openings represent another Siza sample. Made of translucent glass, every opening is orchestrated to bring light and serenity to the working areas, kitchen, bedroom.

The project intends to change the common individual identity of a house to a shared community space.

Emilie Froelich In Alvaro Siza architecture as in the contemporary human behavior, we can find an ambiguity between publicity and intimacy. Indeed, we are increasingly becoming public persons through social media. I took this statement as a starting point for my reflexion about this project.

Therefore I imagined the inhabitants of that house as stereotypes of bloggers or youtubers.

They gathered to share a house to create a “public room” to share their passion in real life with the public. I traduced that demand by an half-circular space completely glazed becoming a giant screen on the street. The location, just next to the international bus station also allows a maximum of “followers” to take a glance, watch, comment, or come in and participate.

At the same time, the four couples sharing the house all have their specific needs of intimacy to explore their passion on their own. In that way, the “marital” bed isn’t necessarily the most intimate space.

In a Siza way, you can find in this project everything these imaginary clients asked me for. However, through a labyrinthine continuous space [the house is designed without interior doors], I also wanted to explore the “in-between” [the spaces we share in community] letting some spaces undefined to permit new interactions.

Hannes Siefert House for a philanthropist Porto is located in the estuary of the Douro valley which is very steep and therefore very difficult to build on. The empty plot which this project is planned on is located on a high position in the valley next to the Crystal Place park. It offers a great view towards the Ponte d’Arråbida and the ocean. Because of its topography, the site is surrounded by stonewalls to support the sloping ground, one of which cuts through the site. The house is designed to play off of the different elevations created by the the sloping barriers.

The room program is made for a single elderly man, who likes to have a lot of friends, and guests; with a particular taste in art. The building is divided in a very private manner for the philanthropist himself, and a public typology with an open kitchen, a dining room, a living space and four guest apartments.

Four massive building volumes made of rough concrete are located orthogonal to the wall . These boxes seem to puncture through the hill, shaping the main structure of the building. With stairs and corridors crawling through the volumes, the hill and the walls act in a subtractive manner. Between these volumes and walls, a light wooden structure forms an additional space on top off them.

The differences between the clear and rational wooden addition as well as the playful caved massive structures define a special character, which is best noticeable by walking through the vertical landscape they are forming together.

Lore Hoppenbrouwers + Mariana Antunes Intimacy in co-housing The proposition was presented: “By interrogating the spatial and material relationship between the self and the other, we investigate the possibility of a society formed out of domestic spaces (…)”. The aim of this proposal was to go in search for new possibilities of uses for the domestic spaces, according to a new paradigma where people, nowadays, are constantly changing their lives and the way they live, more dependent to new temporary shelters. Therefore, flexibility is an advantage when we think about the people that inhabit this houses in a temporary period, allowing to create different possibilities within every private cell, according to the needs of the different users.

This co-housing system satisfies the several needs, between the private sphere and the common living, by creating a kind of monastic structure, organized in similar cells around a gallery, that surrounds the common space, a pavillion like structure, more abstract and very wide and opened to the green areas around, in comparison to this more domestic structure.

The development of this solution was accompanied by an intensive study on Álvaro Siza’s work, not so much on how would he solve a co-housing solution, but by searching, learning and reinterprete the ways to guarantee some needed privacy to create this micro-cosmos inside the complex. Therefore, this would explain why this complex turns his back to the dynamic Avenida da Boavista, connecting to the interior of the plot where the community meets, which has some resemblances, somehow, with the scheme that is used in some of Siza’s early housing projects. The way this solution creates his privacy is more complex than that: while searching for some intimacy, the entrance to the interior is filtered by the thick and heavy walls that close all the volume to the exterior and the deconstructed volumes of the caretaker’s house, which creates some boundaries to transpass to the inside of the community. This lesson, learnt from Siza’s work, answers the problems that such typology of housing would raise.

Magdalena Sapunar Schneider House for Five Perhaps, if there is something shared by all the houses of Alvaro Siza, it is his concern for the experience of space: the changes in the scale of the volumes and the control of privacy through his disposition in the field, defining the possible human relations inside the building.

Sampling Siza today, implies first understanding the user who would inhabit their homes in this days, which is undoubtedly different from their first residential projects. Nowadays we need to think about different kinds of families, more like communities, with people related by affinities, not by blood.

House for five, is a project that seeks to make a house for five friends that would share their life. The main idea was to configurate several spaces surrounding an area for their common interests, free time and fun. As independent persons instead, they want to share somethigns and reserve anothers things, that is why the project is concibed as an acumulation of rooms with differents hierarchy, articulated with transitions given by the rotation of each volume, and the gaps inbetween them.

Melodi Esgin In today’s age, we live among individuals that are raised, or have been raised, in a house or an apartment. The limited spatial typologies which are imposed on us become forced, therefore prescribing how we should live rather than unlock the various spatial possibilities that may become available for a variety of users.

In this house proposal, a single man who owns and operates a vineyard who enjoys the company of his friends, but when travel is necessary, he rents his home to Air Bnb users. The aims of this project are to create a cohesive understanding between private and common spaces, which allows for social gathering, as well as localized privacy. The rooms are positioned towards the common areas, connected through windows and sliding doors. Through the inspiration of Alvaro Siza, many discrete entrances catalyze the experience in the house, and interior spaces come together using patios and optional spaces that cater to nature.

Min Su Ji 0 The origin of a house consists of a room that has many functions.

Since then, there have been changes in architecture.

And they could not be defined in one order.

In the process the details gradually deteriorated.

Architecture should return to its original and simple past.

We must go back to the beginning and create a new order.

By the combination of rooms.

1 Because contemporary society has diversified, the house should be able to accommodate diversity.

The space for diversity should not be defined as one.

The combination of rooms will create undefined spaces.

Undefined spaces contains a variety of lives.

2 Various forms are the same in terms of the quality of relationships.

Therefore, the new form and new changes is meaningless.

Imagine a new type of house.

With the earth.

Noémi Varga we change everything to remain the same / / we don’t change anything and let changes happen My plan is a concept idea of contemporary living for a family using the gestures of Alvaro Siza. It fulfills static architectural needs while being prepared for predictable / unpredictable events. This space helps its inhabitants to accept, experience and understand time in different forms - shadows constantly change as the day passes as various plants, walls, spaces grow in different ways as years go by.

From the long lasting massive outline which provides infrastructure through the light structure to the mobilias and the growing-shrinking outline of the spaces create an architectural answer to living with all its necessities and changes.

In a search for the right proportion between the constant and variable, the plan happily lets individual situations happen - according to Siza’s design - through its two kinds of editing approach.

In Siza’s idea, arrival is a process, private spaces withdraw from the streets.

The distance between each other - the seperate base blocks help its inhabitants value time spent alone or in company of the others.

The design assumes that the parental block is stays for a longer time - whilst being extendable. In time around the core of children’s block more rooms can be added or taken away, or the whole usage of the block can be changed.

The blocks on the street can be used as storage or various public purposes.

As a gesture to the public, the plan shares green space and infrastructure to the street.

GSPublisherEngine 0.1.100.19

GSPublisherEngine 0.1.100.19

Oscar Pita Wu Ambiguous Dwelling Forest The works of Alvaro Siza contemplate an understanding of many different scales in a simultaneous way. The scale of the projects is in harmony both with the site it is located in and with the human body.

The samples taken from Siza would be: First, the experience starts from the way to approach the building. Secondly, the careful and selective openings of the inhabitable shell towards particular views or to allow the natural light to fill in the spaces. Thirdly the duality between regular shapes and curves or diagonals.

In the proposed house some of these samples are blended together with a conceptual way of contemporary dwelling in a free space. The project works as a sort of carcass with gentle lines and few openings.

The approach to the entrance is a promenade through a ramp between the linear exterior volume of the house and a pre-existing stone wall.

In the interior, the program has been exploded to its most basic elements in a modular furniture based on the activities more than programmatic spaces giving the inhabitant the possibility of adapting the space according to the necessities. The curved glass and tilted furniture create an ambiguous yet intriguing and exciting way of dwelling.

Petros Terra When analyzed the single-family residences of à lvaro Siza, is possible to perceive the moments, trips and references of the architect on a constant period of experimentation. Being a genius with multiple personalities when it comes to a design process of the, the theme of memory and scenarios created by Siza in Portugal was choosen to guide the project. Thus, a House for Ghost seeks an infinite attempt of the project in search of it´s refining.

Located next to the Agramonte Cemetery, the Phantom House is developed with the same idea as a theater. With backstage, stage and audience and just like the houses of Siza, it turns with its back to the street and opens to the patio at the back of the lot. Still taking advantage of the theatrical scope, access to the interior is made from the sides of the construction, leaving the north facade without any communication between the interior and exterior, just like a backstage.

To improve the mysterious and scenic character, the house has its layout in constant variation due to a system of rails that runs through a house in a 1x1 meter gride. Panels, curtains and meshes can be used to configure infinite spaces, permeable or blurry. Thus, its system of orthogonal and modular divisions complements the exterior of multiples and sampled geometries of Alvaro Siza residences, hiding what happens on the stage and the reaction of the audience.

Pu Hsien Chan

A critique on the traditional household home The traditional concept of the house has been dominated by a binary way of thinking, resulting in the separation between you and the other, interior and exterior, private and public. Parallel to this, the rise of single-person family households creates a condition where the individual is even more disconnected from the world. Perhaps, living together provides a counter balance to the current culture of antagonisation.

The new house is a critique on these dichotomies and aims to provide the residents an awareness of their part in the world.

Instead of using walls to create traditional compartments and functional rooms, the new house deploys the curtain as a tool not only to delimit, to divide, and to separate spaces, but also to connect, to open up, and to reveal encounters between people.

The curtain’s material, height, opacity, and openings give the residents the agency to create their own spaces and connections.

Even though the trajectories of the curtains are fixed, the inherent qualities of the curtains create ambiguous borders between spaces, behaviours and activities. The new house is a meditation on the notions of openness, ambiguity, and the connection between the world and one self.

Rickesh Chandi Elderly and Student Living My project will be exploring a series of collective spaces that suit the requirements of elderly and students living together.

With medical advancements and a longer life expectancy, the population of elderly will be older then in the past. Despite such changes, our existing housing stock has been slow to adapt, with the older population offered limited options, such as unsuitable or potentially isolating home, or costl care homes. Students are also finding living expenses considerably challenging. Older people shouldn’t simply have to remain at home because other buildings and spaces have not been designed with their needs in mind, nor should students have to pay for extortionate prices for rent.

I propose ascenario whereby a home has been re-­designed to suit the requirements of elderly and student living. The home, sampling Alvaro Siza, offers a unique design strategy for private and interactive spaces. The main entrance of the home leads directly to the main communa areas of the house, and another side entrance for the student that arrives late at night after a party, or the elderly who wants some peace and quiet. Both inhabitants can live together, giving purpose and enjoyment through interaction, and the flexibility of living independently.

Sofiya Vozova In my project I touched the topic of both personal and public space at one building. To make my project not only a personal space but also a public space I decided to make it a home/art object. I believe art object will rise the popularity to a place where it is built by being an exciting place to visit. I decided to place my object in a botanical garden and make it a living space for a gardener. As an art object I believed it should have some idea behind it. I decided to work with associations that come when you speak of a building. QR code came to my mind.

It seems that when you look at a plan or section of a building m it’s appearance ay remind you a QR code. I decided to make a QR tower the plan and section of which will remind of qr. It consists of multiple levels and doesn’t have definite storeys. Each level has either public or personal space. Only the inhabitant has a hidden access to personal spaces that are not seen by public neither from inside nor from the outside. People can only feel but not see that they don’t have an access to some places only by walking inside the tower. At the end of their “trip” people will get on the roof and enjoy the view of the park.

SO-IL

AMIR HALABI ANDREA ZAVALA TORRES ANDREEA DRUGA EMILIE FROELICH FLORIAN IDENBURG HANNES SIEFERT LORE HOPPENBROUWERS MAGDALENA SAPUNAR SCHNEIDER MARIANA ANTUNES MELODI ESGIN MIN SU JI NOÉMI VARGA OSCAR PITA WU PETROS TERRA PU HSIEN CHAN RICKESH CHANDI RITA FURTADO SOFIYA VOZOVA

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