AA Summer School 2015

eccentriCITY

Architectural Association 6 - 24 July 2015 London

eccentriCITY

A civilized society is one that tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.

Robert Frost

Like many global cities, London is defined by its unchanging institutions and familiar, iconic imagery. The 2015 AA Summer School will challenge the ordinary and ask participants to design and re-­‐describe London as a city of eccentricities made up of off-­‐centre, unusual, and even irreverent originals. This three-­‐week studio will catapult London into a future released from the tyranny of urban predictability.

The Summer Architecture School will invent and describe Eccentric London through compelling perspectives: spatial, social, economic, ecological, cultural and technological. It will use London as its primary experimental laboratory of ideas and actions. Individual and collective discoveries are encouraged as well as innovative, evocative proposals. The brief and intense course—based on the renowned AA Unit System—emphasises techniques of interpretation, recording, drawing, making and thinking through diverse media types, both analogue and digital.

eccentriCITY SUMMER SCHEDULE 2015

WEEK 1 6 July Mon

GROUP 1,2,3 GROUP 4,5,6 GROUP 5 GROUP 6 GROUP 3 GROUP 4 GROUP 1 GROUP 2

7 July Tue 8 July Wed 9 July Thu 10 July Fri 11 July Sat 12 July Sun

9:00

10:30 11:00 13:00 14:30 15:30 15:00 15:00 16:00 16:00 16:30 16:30 17:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 18:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 18:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00

Registration, Coffee + Croissants Introduction

Unit Presentations and Selections Lunch

Computer Lab Introductions Computer Lab Introductions Tour of the AA

Tour of the AA

Tour of the AA

Tour of the AA

Tour of the AA

Tour of the AA

Team Announcements + Drinks Design Studio

Design Studio

*FORMAT

Design Studio

Design Studio

*FORMAT

Design Studio

Design Studio (Free Day!)

36 Bedford Sq 4 Morwell St 4 Morwell St AA Dining Room 16 Morwell St 16 Morwell St Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq Entrance 36 Bedford Sq Entrance 32 Bedford Sq AA Terrace 16 Morwell St 16 Morwell St New Soft Room 16 Morwell St 16 Morwell St New Soft Room 16 Morwell St 16 Morwell St

WEEK 2 13 July Mon 14 July Tue 15 July Wed

16 July Thu 17 July Fri

18 July Sat 19 July Sun

10:00 -­‐ 22:00 10:00 -­‐ 17:00 10:30 -­‐ 12:30 13:00 -­‐ 22:00 18:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 10:30 -­‐ 22:00 18:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 10:00 -­‐ 22:00

Design Studio

INTERIM REVIEW ALL UNITS *AA STUDENTS PRESENT WORK Design Studio

*FORMAT

Design Studio

Design Studio

*FORMAT

Design Studio

Design Studio

16 Morwell St 4 Morwell St New Soft Room 16 Morwell St New Soft Room 16 Morwell St 16 Morwell St New Soft Room 16 Morwell St 16 Morwell St

WEEK 3 20 July Mon 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 Design Studio

16 Morwell St 21 July Tue 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 Design Studio

16 Morwell St 22 July Wed 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 Design Studio

16 Morwell St 23 July Thu 10:00 -­‐ 22:00 Design Studio

16 Morwell St 24 July Fri 10:00 -­‐ 17:00 FINAL REVIEW!

Lecture Hall

17:30 -­‐ late Summer School PARTY!

Bedford Square

** WORKSHOP INTRODUCTIONS will take place on a per unit basis on 7,8,9 July ** DIGITAL PROTOTYPING LAB INTRODUCTIONS will take place on a per unit basis on 7,8,9 July ** Individual unit schedules and special events will be announced by unit tutors

FORMAT Issue 5 July 8⎯July 17 2015

FORMAT is the AA’s Summer ‘live magazine’ that looks at the shapes that discourse and knowledge take. The fifth issue will focus on the idea of ‘Career Format.’ Careers only make sense looking back, never forwards, and the most interesting examples can be seen as works in their own right, full of predestination and poetic serendipity. Invited guests share anecdotes and analysis around Career Formats from the worlds of art, architecture, graphic design, literature, popular culture and more. ⎯Organised by Shumon Basar

WEDNESDAY 8 JULY SHUMON BASAR and BRETT STEELE present ‘Careering as Life’ and the Career Formats of architect Louis Khan and classical pianist Glenn Gould FRIDAY 10 JULY MARTINO GAMPER and SAM JACOB present the Career Formats of furniture maker George Nakashima, publisher/designer/distiller Christoph Keller, punk icon Johnny Rotten and Archigram co-­‐founder David Greene WEDNESDAY 15 JULY

IRMA BOOM and HANS ULRICH OBRIST

present the Career Formats of graphic designer Jan Vermeulen, artist Daan van Golden, curator/art historian Lucy Lippard and artist/poet Etel Adnan

FRIDAY 17 JULY CÉCILE B. EVANS and GIANLUIGI RICUPERATI present the Career Formats of artist Elaine Sturtevant, filmmaker Werner Herzog, architect/designer Hans Hollein and novelist/playwright/journalist Stefan Zweig

ALL EVENTS TAKE PLACE IN THE NEW SOFT ROOM AT 600PM ENTRANCE IS FREE AND OPEN TO THE PUBLIC www.format.aaschool.ac.uk for more details

eccentriCITY

Architectural Association School of Architecture Summer School 2015

Director Natasha Sandmeier

Programme Co-­‐ordinator Andrea Ghaddar Assistant Co-­‐ordinator Catarina Sampaio Cruz

UNIT 1 PUBLIC HOUSE CITY Madeleine Kessler and Manijeh Verghese UNIT 2 ORDINARY ECCENTRICITY Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martin UNIT 3 OCCULT INFRASTRUCTURE Diego Trujillo Pisanty, Mark McKeague and Tom Schofield UNIT 4 FLOAT Ignacio Peydro and Isabel Collado UNIT 5 ECCENTRIC URBANISM Tamao Hashimoto, Rory Pennant-Rea and Edmund Fowles UNIT 6 PEEPSHOW LONDON Rafael Beneytez and Victor M Cano UNIT 7 CITY IN PIECES Amita Kulkarni and Vikrant Tike UNIT 8 FALSE CITY Tom Svilans, Greg Storrar and Dave Reeves

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unit 1 Madeleine Kessler and Manijeh Verghese

unit 2 Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martin

ORDINARY ECCENTRICITIES: THE RAW, THE COOKED, AND THE ROTTEN_________________ ORDINARY ECCENTRICITY & ECCENTRIC ORDINARY

Eating is an ordinary action, a usual activity; it’s a right for everyone. We eat on feeding purposes, and we enjoy eating. However, any daily routine hid or hides a wide collection of superficial extravagances and eccentricities1 and certain eccentricities become ordinary routines.

In the 50s, the popularization of ‘Fast-Food’ with preheated and precooked ingredients changed our eating habits, its package form or ‘Take-Away’ transformed streets into dynamic dining rooms and ‘Drive-Through’ revolutionized it again in the 70s.

Spatial conquer developed ‘Dry-Food’ in the 60s and Army industry ‘Meal-Ready-to-Eat’. All of them became very popular in our own kitchens and lives short time later.

Nowadays, ‘Slow-Food’ is an extended movement promoted as an alternative to fast food and fast life. Menus become more and more specialized and multiple: food allergies, vegan, gluten free, vegetarian, raw menus. Unemployed chefs offer their own homes as ‘Pop-Up’ restaurants, while there are restaurants with no cooker because they are occupied temporary by itinerant Michelin awarded chefs, and even there are restaurant without kitchens because they only serve take-away food from other restaurants. Abandoned tunnels of inner London become successful underground ‘Urban-Farms’. Citizens look for nosocialization in ‘One-Person’ restaurants and, at the same time, some are paying for petting time in ‘Cat-Cafes’. Spatial research is focused on flavors because socialization of meals needs to be recovered.

“What we think or dream or do is determined by what we eat and drink” (Marinetti, Philippo: Manifesto of Futurist Cooking, 1930)

This Unit encourages students to track those Eccentricities on Food Culture of the contemporary London society with potential to become ordinary routines in the future.

SCENARIO 1.

FOOD CULTURE & ITS POLITICS

According to the anthropologist Levi Strauss and his structuralist study2, cookery can define a society as well as language does. He saw that most cultures categorized foodstuff into three phases: ‘Raw’ (no transformed stage), ‘Cooked’ (cultural transformation from raw stage), and ‘Rotten’ (natural transformation from both raw and cooked stages)3.

We will use these 3 concepts to organize our unit work along the 3 weeks and, thus to analize the eccentric and contemporary society of London.

Food Culture will inform our working frame which encompasses multiple scales4: + Food as a product with environmental, economic and social concerns (from production to processing, distribution and consumption). + Cooking and eating as performative acts, from rituals and choreographies (protocols and ceremonies) to technology discoveries and mass phenomena (tools, recipes and TV shows). + Food Systems as infrastructures that transform the urban experience and the city (40% of the ecological-footprint of a city can be attributed to the systems that keep it fed and watered).

Salvador DALÍ: Le diners de Gala, 1973

Levi STRAUSS: Culinare Triangle, 1964

Architects as ‘cultural practitioners’ will be interrogated about food culture and so, they will explore ideas of ritual, identity, political policies, economy flows, religion, fashion and marketing.

SCENARIO 2.

FOOD & SYSTEMS: PRODUCTIVE CITIES

In 2007 Lord Cameron of Dillington, first head of the UK Countryside Agency, famously remarked5 that Britain was ‘nine meals away from anarchy’: 95% of the food eaten in Britain is oil-dependent, and then if the oil supply were suddenly to be cut off it would take just 3 full days before law and order broke down.

Contemporary urbanism must include food flows and water systems as a new layer of productive infrastructure. The urbanism that shapes ‘productive cities’6 may be re-visited today under an expanded ecological notion, and providing a certain density of urban form to satisfy infrastructural efficacy and human cultural needs7.

Dinah FRIED: Fictitius Dishes “Kafka Metamorphosis“

By exploring this reality and immersed in the highly speculative environment of the AA, we will imagine a future productive London as a palimpsest of food systems that can anticipate possible drifts of the city. We will pull our work till its limits, unveiling either wonderful and balanced scenarios (Utopia) or unfair and scary systems (Dystopia).

Contemporary Architects, as implacable strategists, need to understand their role in re-shaping the current state of the (global) food system.

Kanye WEST: Runaway, videoclip 2010

1 SORRENTINO, Paolo: LA GRANDE BELLEZZA. Film, 2012-*8. Comments by John DeFore, The Washington Post.

2 STRAUSS, Levi: THE RAW, THE COOKED. 1964. It’s an antropology study about confrontation between advanced and primitives societies by studing and using cooking concepts.

3 STRAUSS, Levi: Ibid. “Culinary Triangle”: a conceptual tool for emphasizing both the opposition among different stages and the degrees between them.

4 DELFINA FOUNDATION On going Programme for artists: THE POLITICS OF FOOD. London, 2014-2018. www.delfinafoundation.com 5 http://www.doorsofperception.com/food-systems-design/london-nine-meals-away-from-anarchy/ 6 ‘AGRARIAN URBANISM’ is an approach to merge agriculture and urbanity. Frank Lloyd WRIGHT proposed ‘Broadacre City’ (1950-55): a mix of urbanity and agriculture connected by the car.

7 HARVARD’S GSD Seminar titled 'Food Systems: Their Deep Impact on Us, the Environment and Urban Structures' organized by landscape architects Herbert Dreiseitl and Bettina Wanschura.

METHODOLOGY: AN ECCENTRIC TRAINING 8

[5] Productive abandoned-­‐ tunnels in London

[4] WIGGLESTONE & TILL: Dining Disorder

[3] CALLE, Sophie: The Cromatic Diet, 1999

[2] One-­‐person Restaurant: EenMaal, Rotterdam, 2014

[1] MATTA-­‐CLARCK,Gordon: Food, New York, 1971

WEEK 1 / THE COOKED: FOOD EVENTS_________________________________________________________________

METHOD / RESEARCH

As GASTRO-ANTHROPOLOGISTS, we will study eccentric realities of London society related to food culture in the present [2][5]. Our discoveries will drift from food as a product and its material culture, to cooking and eating as performative acts of socialization with its rituals, protocols, choreographies and guests. A meal as “a live piece”[1], a dining table as “a fertile territory for playwrights”.

PRODUCTION

+ COOKERY BOOK with ingredients and instructions what explain how to build the eccentric food events discovered by the Unit. We will follow the works of Antoni Miralda, Sophie Calle [3], Andy Warhol (Wild Raspberries), Dina Fried (Ficticious Dishes). + CASE STUDY: the Unit as a Laboratory. We will learn from our own experience by registering our own Dining-Events. We’ll plan them; we’ll enjoy every bit. In the way of Snare Pictures (Daniel Spoerri), Dining Disorders [4] or Indigestion (Diller+Scofidio).

EXPERIENCES & VISIT

+ We will visit DELFINA FOUNDATION and its ongoing program The Politics of Food. Special Gastronomic Routes will be discovered. + FRANCISCO TRIVIÑO & KATERINA PSEGIANNAKI, who will encourage us to collectively explore unexpected territories, visit the Unit.

METHOD / RESEARCH

[9] CONSTANT: New Babylon, 1959-­‐74

[8] ARCHIGRAM: Plug-­‐In City, 1964

[7] KUROKAWA, Kisho: Floating City, 1961

[6] WRIGHT, Frank LLoyd: Broadacre City, 1950-­‐55

WEEK 2 / THE RAW: FOOD SYSTEMS_____________________________________________________________________

As risky and CONTEMPORARY AGRO-URBANISTS, we will propose future scenarios for a productive London made of ordinary eccentricities. We will work with assemblages of micro-macro ecosystems based on advanced designs of food systems. To learn how food is capable of becoming infrastructure, we will re-visit previous proposals [6-­‐9], as well as current ones [10][11].

PRODUCTION

+ CARTOGRAPHIES of the ‘potential productive sites’ in London, as new sites where our food-systems come into contact with the urban fabric and the specific contexts. These maps will be the TABLE-COVERS for our final banquet.

EXPERIENCES & VISIT

+ We will visit the London Urban Farms: GROWUP BOX (aquaponic urban agriculture) and FEEDING THE FUTURE (productive tunnels) [5] + COOKING SECTIONS, who will provoke students to produce innovative and experimental proposals, will visit the Unit.

WEEK 3 / THE ROTTEN: FOOD SCAPES__________________________________________________________________

METHOD / RESEARCH

[13] ISHIGAMI, Junya: Table, 2006 Foodscape

[12]: BOMBAS&PARR: Jelly Cake, Food Model.

[11] CHENG, Yen: Ecotopia, 2011

[10] MVRDV: PigCity, 2009

As FOODSCAPERS, we will build a unique collective scenario for the future eccentric and productive London by actions of negotiation: overlaps, substitution, infiltration, addition. All the infrastructures will propose points of contact and synergies. We are pursuing a new visible and enjoyable urbanism9 that shapes infrastructural either Utopias or Dystopias.

PRODUCTION

+ FOODSCAPES will be cooked by students. Edible and appetizing models represent the new city, and we will eat it. + COOKERY SHOW where students will assemble ‘in situ’ the Unit proposal for a Future Eccentric London. + COLLECTIVE MEAL as a Parlament where debate results and conclusions. Eating as a performative act of socialization.

EXPERIENCES & VISIT

+ We will visit BOMPAS&PARR’s Studio, where we’ll discover their seducing contemporary food design and attend a Jelly workshop. + STUDIO FEIG, who are a couple of great German Food-Stylists, will visit the unit and show the secrets to achieve tasty images.

TO FINISH, THE UNIT INVITES YOU TO JOIN US ON A PERFORMATIVE MEAL WHERE ‘ECCENTRIC LONDON’ WILL BE SERVED!

8 Eccentric training is the most efficient. It makes us 1,75 times stronger than a usual sporty. It consists on an activation of the muscle (design process) while it’s lengthening, under the effect of opposite forces (present/future, natural/cultural, raw/cooked, utopia/dystopia). This workout will get a productive hypertrophy in our understanding that will open us up to new attitudes and interests.

9 JAQUE, Andres: Cosmo, Proposal for PS1 Pavillion MOMA 2015. is engineered to filter and purify 3,000 gallons of water, eliminating suspended particles and nitrates, balancing the PH, and increasing the level of dissolved oxygen. It takes four days for the 3,000 gallons of water to become purified, then the cycle continues with the same body of water, becoming more purified with every cycle.

CV & BIO

UNIT STAFF_________________________________________________________________________________________ Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martín head the architectural office TallerDE2 since 2008 [www.tallerde2.com ], which makes an ongoing commitment to research and knowledge, both in training and innovative practice. They do research on contemporary cultures that permit theoretical positions materialize. Their work has international scope, been recognized, published and awarded on several occasions.

Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martín’s work is mainly developed between Spain, Germany, Italy and UK, where they combine professional activities with academic and research ones. Currently, they are building recent winning competitions and private commissions. They studied architecture at the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM and at the TU Delft of The Netherlands. In Rotterdam they collaborated in MVRDV. They completed the coursework for the PhD at the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM in the Department of Advanced Projects where they are PhD candidates.

Childminders Center Selb, Germany, 2013

They have been teaching at the Architectural Association London (Summer School 2014 / Summer School 2013), the Architectural Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain), Hochschule Coburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), Ural State Technical University of Ekaterimburg (Russia). In addition, they have actively participated in debates and lectures.

Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martín won the European competition Europan-9 in Selb (Germany) in 2008, where they are developing an entire master-plan through the Urban Acupuncture Principle (2010-2015). Among their awards, they have received the German ‘Bauwelt Prize 2013-First Works’; Finalists at the ‘XII Spanish Architecture and Urbanism Biennale 2013’; the prize ‘Architects Professional Association of Madrid-Luis M. Mansilla 2013’ as the Best foreign project made by a Spanish office abroad. In 2015 their work has been selected for ‘Architectus Omnibus-Goethe Institute & Casa Cervantes’ to be exhibited in Berlin, and for ‘Export-Spanish Architecture Abroad’ in Madrid. The Spanish magazine ‘Arquitectura Viva’ has selected them as "one of the eight most representative young Spanish studios", and director Arantza Ozaeta was shorlisted “Emerging woman of the year 2014” from the British magazine AJ.

Industrial Building La Rioja, Spain 2015

London Inverse Map_Unit 5 AASS2013, London, UK 2013

INVITED SPECIALISTS________________________________________________________________________________ Francisco Triviño and Katerina Psegiannaki are experts in ‘the mistake’ as a potential tool during the design process. Their intellectual approach is registered in the book “Atlas and topology of the mistake as a productive system in architecture”. They both are Ph.D. architects and teachers, as well as coeditors of Hipo-Tesis, a platform for editorial, experimental and scientific meetings. Recently, they have edited the issue “Block/Buster”, a question on the anesthetized and frozen in time AutoCAD blocks. [ www.hipo-tesis.eu ] Cooking Sections (Daniel Fernández Pascual & Alon Schwabe) is a duo of spatial practitioners who explore the systems that organize the WORLD through FOOD. Using installation, performance, mapping and video, their research-based practice explores the overlapping boundaries between visual arts, architecture and geopolitics. Cooking Sections was part of the exhibition at the U.S. Pavilion, 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale. [ www.cooking-sections.com ]

Block Buster /Fabrica de Bloques Hipo-­‐Tesis & JM Ujaque, 2015

Feig FotoDesign is a couple of german ‘Food-Stylists’ and photographers, Antonia and Alexander. Recently, the have been awarded with the Special Mention in the ‘German Design Award 2015’. They work for several international companies and as creative professionals they envision the finished photograph and style the food accordingly. Galerie1991 is a digital gallery of images for their free and explorative projects [ www.feigfotodesign.de ] [ www.galerie1991.de ] German Award. Special Mention FeigFotoDesign, 2015

XREF FILMS & DOCUMENTARIES

BOOKS & ARTICLES

+ EL BULLI. Videos: “Cooking In Progress” and El Bulli: Historia de un sueño 1963-2009” + GREENAWAY, Peter.:” The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover”. Film, 1989. + JIRO: “Dreams of Sushi”, 2011 + KENNER, Robert. “Food, Inc”., 2009 + MANN Ben; CIOFFO Giuseppe; ATKINS Chris: “Best Before: The London Food Revolution” Documentary, 2012. + MATTA-CLARK, Gordon. “Food”.

Film 43 min, 1972. + National Geographic: “The Future Of Food” Serial Documentary. + SORRENTINO, Paolo: “La Grande Bellezza”

+ CALLE, Sophie and AUSTER, Paul. “Double Game”, Violette Ed, 1999. + BOHN & VILJOEN. “Second Nature Urban Agriculture. Designing Productive Cities”. 2014. + DALÍ, Salvador. Le Dines de Gala, 1973. An erotic cookbook. + DE ROODEN,P; GRUBB, A.“Food for the City: A Future for the Metropolis”NAiPublishers2012. + DELFINA FOUNDATION. Artists’Programme “The Politics of food” www.delfinafoundation.com + DILLER, Elisabeth; SCOFIDIO, Ricardo: “Indigestion”. Media Installation, 1995. + FRIED, Diah. Ficticious Dishes: an Album of Literature’s Most Memorable Meals. IndieBound, + JAQUE, Andres. Eco-Ordinary. UEM 2010. + KOOLHAAS, R; OBRIST, H.U. “Project Japan. Metabolism Talks...” Taschen, 2011. + LÉVI-STRAUSS, C.“The Raw and the Cooked”: Mythologiques, Vol 1. Chicago Press, 1964. + MARINETTI, Philippo. “Il Manifesto Della Cucina Futurista”. 1930. + MVRDV. “Km3. Excursions on Capacities” (‘Pig City’: pags. 1156-1217). Actar, 2005. + OMA; Harvard GSD. “Project on the City 1”, “Project on the City 2”. Taschen, 2002. + SORIANO, Federico. “Under the table table-talk”. Fisuras nº 9-10, 2001.

AA SUMMER SCHOOL 2015 ECCENTRICITY

unit 3 Diego Trujillo Pisanty, Mark McKeague and Tom Schofield

OCCULT INFRASTRUCTURE

BRIEF The forces that support a city are on the boundaries of perception, eccentric to our focus of attention and encompassed under the term ‘infrastructure’. Under this vision infrastructure becomes an invisible energy that sustains the city, occasionally glimpsed through CCTV cameras, satellite dishes, ventilation gratings and spray-painted hieroglyphics announcing forthcoming roadworks. From William Paley’s [1] Watchmaker Analogy to John Carpenter’s They Live [2], infrastructure has been interpreted as evidence for the existence of a higher power. It has been called ‘an embedded strangeness, a second-order one, that of the forgotten, the background, the frozen in place.’ [3] In this unit we will approach infrastructure from an experimental perspective, focusing on the unseen aspects of the city as an architectural site.

Infrastructure manifests itself through involuntary actions: sonification of incoming mobile phone signals by nearby speakers or a fortuitous glimpse into a CCTV control room in tube stations. We will make interactions with infrastructure deliberate by approaching urban systems as an occult force that can be divined, interpreted and deciphered allowing us to communicate with the city’s essential functions and consequently with its force and rhythms.

In Occult Infrastructure we will engage with architecture as a discipline that can enable reflection and commentary about large-scale systems and the opportunities for intervention they provide. We will do so by producing poetic electronic devices that will enable interactions with the city’s driving forces. We will begin by exploring London’s current and historical infrastructure; from tube stations to air-raid shelters, from trafficlights to CCTV’s infrared emissions, from the Roman Wall to the Ring of Steel. Students -working in teamswill focus on one specific piece of infrastructure to develop work around. They will re-interpret London’s infrastructure from a magical perspective, making narratives around it centred on the electronic perceptions of probe-like devices. We will encourage the production of devices that embody these narratives both in their functionality and their interfaces, taking inspiration from existing objects and practices used in paranormal communications, for instance scrying stones, ouija boards or magic mirrors.

The main outcome of this unit will be Arduino based electronics (starting from the very basics so no previous knowledge is needed) designed to react to London’s infrastructure, in particular extra-auditory sounds and electromagnetic emissions. We also encourage students to bring their existing expertise to convey their own interpretations of infrastructure in any medium they desire. Each group will be expected to communicate their ideas through their devices’ formal attributes and/or through any other medium they are comfortable with (e.g. maps, data visualisations, computer graphics, drawings, etc.)

[1] William Paley, “Natural Theology: or, Evidences of the Existence and Attributes of the Deity; Collected from the Appearances of Nature”, R. Faulder, London, 1802.

[2] John Carpenter (Director), “They Live”, Alive Films, USA, 1988. (Top image).

[3] Susan Leigh Star, “The Ethnography of Infrastructure”, American Behavioral Scientist 1999; 43; 377

Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell, From Hell, Knockabout Comics, 1989-1996.

SCHEDULE WEEK 1: Skill Building and Exploration We will begin with an intensive Arduino/electronics skill building week focused on sensing the types of signals emitted by infrastructure (audio, infrared light, magnetism, radio, microwaves,etc.) After these sessions we will venture into the city looking for infrastructural candidates to work with. At the end of this week each group should know what signals they will be working with.

6 July

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Introductions

Brief overview

Workshop inductions

Arduino basics

Signal detection Signal detection Infrastructure Choices of Free day with Arduino with Arduino sightseeing walk infrastructure Part I Part II and electronic device proposals

WEEK 2: Production and Sensing The second week will focus entirely on building your electronic devices and developing the stories around them, linking the technical developments with the unit’s occult theme. On the last day of this week we will bring our devices out into the city to divine and decode its infrastructure.

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Preparation for interim review

Interim Review

Device production

Device production

Device production

Device production

Device field testing and documentation.

Device production begins

WEEK 3: Collective Visualisation The last week will focus on presenting your devices and the signals they capture. We will do this collectively as a group to make the most out of everybody’s skills and to develop a consistent visual style.

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Preparation of visual materials as a group

Preparation of visual materials as a group

Preparation of visual materials as a group

Presentation run-through

Final review

Evan Roth, Voices Over the Horizon, 2015.

TUTORS Diego Trujillo Pisanty is an artist working with technology. His work approaches technology not only as a medium but also as the embodiment of human practices and attitudes. He has worked in a variety of mediums including electronics, software, robotics, photography and 3D renderings. His work has been published in several blogs and magazines including BLDGBlog, Dezeen, We Make Money Not Art, Wired UK, Vice and Dazed and Confused. He recently received a Honourable Mention in Hybrid Art from the Prix Ars Electronica for his piece This Tape Will Self-Destruct, made with the support of a Young Creators Fellowship from the Mexican Fund for Culture and Arts. Diego currently works as a Research Associate in Design at Newcastle University’s Culture Lab. Diego has also worked with Testa/Weiser Architecture supporting their first cohort of students producing work within SCI-Arc’s Robot House. // trujillodiego.com Mark McKeague.

Mark McKeague is a designer and technologist based in London. In his work he creates systems, devices and experiences which explore new technologies, often focusing on sound. In 2013 Mark co-founded design company Dentaku, where he led the design and development of its first product, Ototo, an accessible musical electronic sensor kit. Ototo is now available commercially and has been acquired into the Museum of Modern Art permanent collection. Mark has worked with companies such as Wieden & Kennedy, Unilever and Bang & Olufsen; as well as collaborating on interactive installations which have been shown at the V&A, Tate Britain, and MUDAM Luxembourg. He is a visiting electronics tutor at the Royal College of Art and has led workshops at ÉCAL Lausanne. Mark holds an MA Design Interactions from the Royal College of Art after graduating in 2012. // markmckeague.com Tom Schofield is an artist, designer and researcher based at Culture Lab, Newcastle, UK. His practice-based research spreads across creative digital media, archives and collections interface design/ visualisation and physical computing. His PhD thesis explored the role of technological materiality in developing works of art and design as part of ecologies of experience. Recent creative projects include Me_asure (with John Bowers) an interactive installation which combines 19th C pseudo-science with contemporary face tracking technology (http://tomschofieldart.com/me_asure-with-John-Bowers), Neurotic Armageddon Indicator, a wall clock for the end of the world (http://tomschofieldart.com/NeuroticArmageddon-Indicator) and ’null by morse’, an installation with vintage military equipment and iPhones (tomschofieldart.com/null-by-morse). Tom will be coming in once a week to provide extra support with electronics and data-visualisation techniques. // tomschofieldart.com

BIBLIOGRAPHY / RELATED WORK Evan Roth, Voices Over the Horizon, 2015: http://www.carrollfletcher.com/exhibitions/39/overview/ Seeing Networks, 2015: seeingnetworks.in/nyc/ Keller Easterling, Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space, Verso Books, New York, 2014. !Mediengruppe Bitnik, Surveillance Chess, 2012: http://chess.bitnik.org/about.html Shintaro Miyazaki and Martin Howse, Detektors, 2010 (ongoing) http://detektors.org Will Schrimshaw, Space Against Itself, 2010 http://willschrimshaw.net/work/space-against-itself/ Susan Leigh Star, The Ethnography of Infrastructure, American Behavioral Scientist 1999.

John Carpenter (Director), They Live, Alive Films, USA, 1988.

unit 4 Ignacio Peydro and Isabel Collado

Morrell Airship. June 1908

FLOAT AA Summer School 2015 a proposal by Ignacio Peydro and Isabel Collado Following the inflatable tradition initiated by groups and individuals such as Eventstructure Research Group, Graham Stevens, Arthur Quarnby or Archigram we are interested in the space generation capacity that enclosed gas has as an alternative tectonic for architectural creation. Our proposal for 2015 AA Summer School converges upon the possibilities contained in Lighter Than Air structures and artifacts to enable alternative ways of social interaction and urban activation.

Graham Stevens.

Atmofields

LIGHTNESS as ECCENTRICITY While urbanity is typically defined by hard and heavy matter placed in space, the activation of that space depends only on the contingency it contains; on the events that happen in it. Our aim is to activate ultra light material (primarily plastic membranes) by enclosing a lighter than air gas within its boundaries. This gas can take the form of helium or heated air, which has a lower density than the atmospheric air surrounding the membrane. The physical principle of Archimedes will make the structure float in the air, providing a new space between the ground and itself for social interaction. Airship’s function become static. Transportation shifts towards inhabitation.

METHODS & PRODUCTION As a basic reference handbook we will provide each student a copy of ‘Inflatocookbook’ by Ant Farm and the fabrication diagrams developed by Juan Miguel de Prada Poole for the erection of Event City in Ibiza in the summer of 1971.

The materials that we will need are: - Plastic membranes. The type of plastic will depend on budget. Ideally we will use mylar as it has great resistance to heat and tension. For prototyping purposes we will use plastic bags or packaging low density polyethylene.

-

Air. We can use residual air from air conditioning systems that would be preheated.

-

Air heater / Air pump

-

Helium (optional)

-

Staples

-

Bond tape

-

Rope (climbing or parachute cord for final party structure)

The simplicity of production and the economy of materials will allow the proliferation of prototypes and structures in order to achieve a high dexterity in this type of tectonic production by each member of the unit by the end of the workshop. Our intention is to create a structure that can house the final party of the AA Summer School by July 24, but we are looking forward to seeing the possible unplanned performances that may occur throughout the three weeks of July that we will be playing with our team.

Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro

unit

SCHEDULE WEEK 1 Tuesday, July 7 >

Introduction to inflatables and pneumatic structures Membrane thinking Gas pressure as structure

LECTURE>

LIGHTER THAN AIR ARCHITECTURE OPEN LECTURE

Wednesday, July 8 >

How to…. (practical tips by ii) – session 01 – design & pattern inflatables Play with membranes and air > bubble design > choose a shape and pattern it

Thursday, July 9 >

How to…. (practical tips by ii) – session 02 – cut and weld Play with membranes and air > bubble production > produce your shapes

PRESENTATION >

Think big – living inflatables > introduction to function and human scale

Friday, July 10 >

Play with membranes and air > bubble production > keep exploring Brainstorming the pavilion design > first proposals

Saturday, July 11 >

Sunday, July 12 >

How to…. (practical tips by ii) – session 03 – locate and fix leaks Team splits!

Team 1: Keep playing with membranes and air > prototyping scaled pavilions Team 2: draw and design detailed geometry of pavilion proposal Relax and play… if you want you can play with prototypes… or come with us and visit the Eden Project in Cornwall (http://phaidonatlas.com/building/eden-project-culture-andenvironment/364) or the National Space Centre in Leicester (http://phaidonatlas.com/building/national-space-centre/3316) (final destination of field trip to decide)

WEEK 2 Monday, July 13 >

Prepare presentation, prototypes & drawings for INTERIM REVIEW Keep playing and prepare the show!

Tuesday, July 14 >

INTERIM REVIEW… let the show begin (let’s use a bit of helium ;-) )

Wednesday, July 15 >

Team 1: Material list and suppliers for final pavilion. Assemblage plan Team 2: draw and design detailed geometry of pavilion proposal

Thursday, July 16 >

Team 1: Get material from suppliers for pavilion. Assemblage plan & schedule.

Team 2: draw and design detailed geometry of pavilion proposal.

FINAL DRAWING SET Friday, July 17 >

Team coordination for assemblage and construction > distribution of responsibilities > START CONSTRUCTION

Saturday, July 18 >

CONSTRUCTION PHASE 1: Patterning and cutting

Sunday, July 19 >

CONSTRUCTION PHASE 1: Patterning and cutting

WEEK 03 Monday, July 20 > Tuesday, July 21 > Wednesday, July 22 > Thursday, July 23 > Friday, July 24 >

CONSTRUCTION PHASE 1: Patterning and cutting CONSTRUCTION PHASE 2: Welding CONSTRUCTION PHASE 2: Welding CONSTRUCTION PHASE 2: Welding CONSTRUCTION PHASE 3: Anchoring and… 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1… inflation!

Summer School PARTY!

BIO (or why should you choose us?)

We are experts in Lighter Than Air Architecture. We have researched and developed lighter than air architectural solutions since 2005 when we patented an evacuation system for high-rise buildings that consists of a façade that transforms itself into an array of lighter than air airships that transport occupants of skyscrapers to safe spots of the city in case of an emergency. In 2009 we developed a design of a one-hectare floating covering structure for Plaza of María Pita in La Coruña that adapted its position depending on the weather conditions, we presented the project to the City Major of La Coruña and he loved it! Unfortunately the project did not overcome conceptual design due to the financial restrictions of the city. Nevertheless, it was the base for a further research we undertook at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology where feasibility was tested and design was developed. The project is ongoing and we are currently in the search of investors and mentors. We know how inflatables work and we love to see them float!

Nevertheless, this is one aspect of our architectural practice and research interests. We have done some more things too.

Isabel Collado studied Architecture at the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) where she taught Architecture Design Studio from 2006 to 2008. She obtained the Diploma in Advanced Studies (DEA) in 2010 and is PhD candidate in the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) in the knowledge field of Theory and Practice of Architectural Design and is currently finalizing her dissertation ‘Towards a Weightless Architecture’. She is Architecture Design Professor in IE School of Architecture and Design. Before establishing Dosis she worked in Sancho & Madridejos Architecture Office in Madrid, developing, among others, the library for Nantes University and a health center in Murcia; and with Frechilla & Lopez Pelaez developing, among others, the restoration of the Spanish Academy in Rome. She is co-author of the books ‘Memories of Adriano from the Ville Savoye’ and ‘Theory and Practice of the Project’.

Ignacio Peydro studied Architecture at the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) and at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London and received a SMArchS, a post professional advanced master degree, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He graduated with honors with a final thesis project that obtained the ‘Universidad Politécnica - Fundación MAPFRE Prize’, the ‘Alejandro de la Sota Prize’ granted to the best final thesis project of the Madrid School of Architecture, and the First Honorable Prize in the Pasajes – iGuzzini National Architecture Prize. He obtained the Diploma in Advanced Studies (DEA) in 2010 and is PhD candidate in the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) in the knowledge field of Theory and Practice of Architectural Design. He is currently finalizing his dissertation ‘Contingency in post-situationist architecture. 1968-’. He is Architecture Design Professor in IE School of Architecture and Design. He has been Architecture Design Graduate Teaching Assistant and Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He has also been Associate Professor of Architectural Design and Theory of Contemporary Architecture in the ‘Francisco de Vitoria University’ in Madrid and Assistant Professor in the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM). Before establishing Dosis he worked with Mansilla + Tuñón in Madrid, developing, among others, the project for the Museum of Automotion in Madrid and the Hotel and Restaurant Relais Chateaux ‘Atrio’ in Cáceres awarded with the 2011 FAD Architecture Prize; and with David Chipperfield Architects in London, developing, among others, the project for the British Film Institute in London and the City of Justice in Barcelona. He is coauthor of the book ‘This is Tomorrow’.

Together they establish, DOSIS Architecture Office, which is conceived as a laboratory of creative processes in which every decision has unavoidably to pass through a process of doubt and experimentation. Creative solutions are then confronted with a process of technological, material and economic feasibility to guarantee the best architectural solution. Their projects have been exhibited in London, Geneva, San Francisco, Paris, Madrid and Valencia and have been awarded the Europe Encouragement Prize in the Holcim Awards for Sustainable Construction 2005, the First Prize in J5 2008 National Prize for Young Architects or the First Prize in the MEGa Museum International Competition, among others,

unit 5 Tamao Hashimoto, Rory Pennant-Rea and Edmund Fowles

Eccentric Urbanism

Introduction Our focus will be the eccentric.

How do eccentric rather than habitual human actions shape the city?

Can urbanism be enriched through closer observation and understanding of eccentric spatial and urban complexes?

Our territory of action will be the periphery of the King’s Cross redevelopment site. We will speculate on the impacts of such mass development in cities.

Can development on this vast scale truly engage the existing social and physical condition?

We will explore methods of observing, documenting and re-configuring a perceived spatial condition between the human and the physical environment of the city. You will forge and hone practical techniques in representing your observations principally through hand drawing, notation, photography and film. These will become the vehicles for our exploration of the Kings Cross perimeter.

King’s Cross Development Site

“ 50 new buildings 2,000 new homes 20 new streets 10 new public squares 67 acres 8 million square feet 3.4 million sq ft of workspace 500,000 sq ft of retail 26 acres of public space 45,000 people “ – Argent King’s Cross Limited Partnership

Programme 1. Social: Workers’ activities for dumping at King’s Cross

Week 1: Social - Eccentric Activities, Phenomena and/or Matters In modernity at large, everyday life and the human becomes ‘a conscious automation’ (Bergson 2001: 168). Students will be required to extract ‘the Social’ from their chosen sites. This will involve immersing themselves in the life of King’s Cross and its surrounding context in order to understand the hidden social activities, phenomena, interactions and exchanges that exist.

Each student will select a ‘territory of action’ on or near the perimeter of the King’s Cross site and following a period of immersion, document their observed/ obscured eccentric conditions predominantly through drawing and/or film.

By the end of week one each student / group will have uncovered a deeper understanding of the social condition in their chosen territory. This discovered life will be discussed and then compiled as a group within a Collective Drawing, to understand the idiosyncrasies of social structures that exist on the site and its perimeter at large.

Richard Wentworth - ‘Making Do and Getting By’

Actions • Map their chosen condition • Discover a previously undefined social relationship(s) • Define that social relationship(s) • Draw the impact of the condition at a scale of 1:200 and 1:2500 • Use film to document and test the existing social eccentricities • Overlay drawings on drawings to reveal hidden coexistences and milieus • Overlay drawing and notations on the Collective Site Plan to learn from the groups findings.

Talks/ Workshops/ Activites • Drawing & Notation Workshop - Tamao Hashimoto • AA Diploma Honours Presentation - Food Urbanism - Edmund Fowles • Immersion one - Social • Walking Tour of Kings Cross with Artist & Sculpture - Richard Wentworth • Film making - Direct Action Workshop 1 • Unit 5 Individual Supervisions and Review

Drawing Notation Workshop - Tamao Hashimoto

2. Physical components hung on a surface of diverted activities

Week 2: Physical - Combination of Eccentric Components Week two sets a clear focus on the ‘Physical’.

The architectural components, built context and curated / residual space that makes up our physical environment. Each student will find a hidden or veiled combination of physical components, materials and space that collectively influence our inhabitation of the site.

You will extract these eccentric components and draw them in plan / elevation / section / axonometric.

This will lead us to explore the potential relations of interiority and urban space.

By the end of the week two each student / group will have responded to the physical nature of the site and discovered how the physical is compiled of both influential and influenced components. Similarly to week one, these discoveries will be drawn and compiled as a group and overlaid onto the entire site.

Central St Martins School Tour, Kings Cross

Actions • Map their chosen components • Discover a previously undiscovered physical component(s) • Inhabit that physical component(s) • Draw the impact of the condition at a scale of 1:20, 1:200 and 1:2500 (either in plan or axonametric) • Overlay drawings on drawings to reveal interconnected materials, space, architectural qualities • Overlay drawing and notations or the Collective Site Plan to learn from each others components Talks/ Workshops/ Activites • Central St Martins Tour with director Geoffrey Makstusis • Argent development site visit • Immersion two - Physical • London Architecture Studio Visit at Feilden Fowles Architects, Bethnal Green • Documentary Screening: ‘Secret History of Our Streets: Caledonian Road’ • Unit 5 Individual Supervisions and Review

Feilden Fowles Architects - London Studio Tour

3. Action: Urban Furniture assembled: diverted components + diverted activities

Door, 11 rue Larrey’ by Duchamp

Week 3: Action - Eccentric Activities, Phenomena and/or Matters + Components Following the first two weeks, students will have documented the city in two unique but interconnected ways through evidence based inhabitation rather than speculation.

Week three will lead students to focus on a propositional conflict between ‘the Social’ and ‘the Physical’. Like ‘Door, 11 rue Larrey’ by Duchamp, the conflict gives us not only a chance for exploring the spatial mechanism, but also a key for proposing new spatial notions, coexisting new & old rules and physical & social encounters.

The students will design an intervention to engage the eccentricities discovered during the first fortnight.

The proposals should manipulate, challenge, decipher and alter the conditions of the site in order to bring about reactive change. These will be documented, drawn, shared, tested and presented.

The combined proposals of the students will then be imposed on a large Collective Site Plan, to transform the kings cross redevelopment area into a responsive construct for urban change, questioning the origins of its conception and testing its future direction.

Actions • Overlay their drawings from week 1&2 • Present their findings from weeks 1&2 • Propose an intervention that responds to their earlier work • Draw their proposals at 1:20, 1:200 and 1:2500 (either in plan or axonametric) • Test their proposal on their site through direct action and film the outcome • Edit the film (Direct Action) into succinct clips showing reactionary propositions • Overlay proposal drawings to reveal the results of their interventions • Overlay drawing and notations on the Collective Site Plan to learn from each others proposals Talks/ Workshops/ Activites • Exhibition Visit, RIBA - ‘Virtual Control Security and the Urban Imagination’ • Immersion three - Propositional • Film making - Direct Action Workshop 2 Propositional • Unit 5 Individual Supervisions • Visiting Critic - AA Professor - Carlos Villanueva Brandt • Final AA Summer School Crit

“The languages which people have today are so brutal, and so fragmented, and what they do have is not based on human, or natural considerations” – Christopher Alexander, ‘A Pattern Language’ 1977

Context

Reference Material

We will draw from a rich history of study of the city and the relationship between the human (social) and environmental (physical) structures.

• ‘Topophilia: A Study of Environmental Perceptions, Attitudes, and Values’ – Yi-Fu Tuan • ‘Life between Buildings’ – Jan Gehl • ‘A Pattern Language’ – Christopher Alexander

The topic has been examined in many fields since the emergence of Modernism; architecture, geography, cultural anthropology, sociology and art to name a few.

• ‘Internationale Situationniste’ – Guy Debord • ‘The Exhausted’ – Gilles Deleuze • ‘City Choreographer’ – Lawrence Halprin • ‘The Practice of Everyday Life’ – Michel de Certeau

We will challenge the overriding functionalism of the Modern movement which proffered a limited reading of the city, ‘a distinctly physically and materially oriented planning ideology’.

We will look to the notion of ‘Topophilia’ as defined by Yi-Fu Tuan as ‘the affective bond between people and place or setting’.

At the urban scale, as set out by Christopher Alexander in A Pattern of Language it is important to ‘make that point in the boundary of each community which is closet to the nearest major urban center’, which ‘will be the peak of the density, and the core of the “eccentric” nucleus.’’, and at architectural scale, as ‘a very fundamental notion’, he insists that the edge ‘increases the connection between inside and outside, encourages the formation of groups which cross the boundary’.

In a similar way, at human scale, Jan Gehl concludes that ‘events grow from inward, from the edge toward the middle of public spaces’. As Tuan points out, probably ‘the idea of “center” and “periphery” in spatial organization’ is ‘universal’. However, as for precedent studies, it would be not too much to say that the relationship between ‘periphery’ and ‘centre’ is still concentric, dualistic, and subordinate.

Within this context, the unit will focus on an eccentric, pluralistic, and independent urban space of the ‘human’ and ‘periphery’ itself, as a new notion of the ‘architectural complex’, conceived by Debord as ‘the construction of a dynamic environment related to styles of behavior’.

Biogs Tamao Hashimoto is Assistant Professor of Architecture at Tokyo University of the Arts. Since 2010, he has engaged in a series of international workshops with the Queensland University, Vienna Art Academy, Hong Kong Chinese University, Chulalongkorn University, National University of Singapore, and other institutions, while conducting a study on notation of the city. His recent research was included in Mn’M Workbooks: ‘Future Urban Intensities’, and ‘Subjectivities in Investigation of the Urban’ (2014), and his recent project was awarded at SD Review 2013.

Rory Pennant-Rea is Founding Director at Vine Architecture Studio established in 2011. The practice’s values and ideologies serve that of continued exploration, collaboration and responsive contextualised design. Vine Architecture Studio has particular interest and expertise in socially minded responses to questions posed by towns and cities.

Rory’s work has been exhibited internationally and he has been a visiting critic at the Architectural Association, London Metropolitan University and University of East London, together with running design workshops at Cardiff University.

Edmund Fowles is Founding Partner of Feilden Fowles Architects. The emerging practice has received two RIBA Awards in 2014 and 2015 for its education buildings and recently awarded the AIA Young Architect of the Year award for Excellence in Design. Edmund is a former Baylight Scholar of the Architectural Association and was awarded the AA Diploma with Honour for his thesis on Food Urbanism in 2009, a project that examined food access and distribution in London, revealing urban manifestations of food within the city and its ability to generate ‘Interactive Hubs’. Edmund has been a visiting critic and lectured widely across the UK.

unit 6 Rafael Beneytez and Victor M Cano

UNIT 6

PEEPSHOW LONDON

a

fish § chips triptych from

London to “B London”

directed by

rafael beneytez + victor cano

PEEPSHOW LONDON

a fish

§ chips triptych from London to “B London” rafael beneytez + victor cano

***

BRIEF

In 1984 Wim Wenders narrated the encounter between Jane and Travis (Nastassja Kinski and Harry Dean Stanton) after an exhausting search which begins in the Mojave Desert, passed through Los Angeles and ended in Houston. This narrative is the film “Paris-Texas” and it expresses the American territory from its most realistic form and width of its highways, gutters and loneliness. It splits from all clichés and emphasizes the aesthetics of a “B world” which is full of characters and architectures as unclassifiable as marginal. Nowadays, eccentricity passes for real, ordinary, something which is out of the consumer cycle.

Travis and Jane meet in a peepshow separated from any centre, a peepshow on the edge of the city. There, the harsh reality of their world is revealed around the thin mirror film that separates them, which triggers fragmentation, reflection, and overlapping situations. In a certain moment Travis and Jane are juxtaposed on an image which is used by Wim Wenders to narrate the reality in which they are trapped.

This narrative has already got its triptych: Travis, Jane, Travis and Jane.

ECCENTRICITY - PEEPSHOW - TRIPTYCH

An aesthetic journey from “London” to “B London” is proposed from the Unit. The aim is to develop an output to create a B London aesthetic by taking into account the eccentricity as a concept, the peepshow as a form and the triptych as a tool.

#CONCEPT: ECCENTRICITY From London to B London

#FORM: PEEPSHOW From Global to Local

# OUTPUT: TRIPTYCH From Stability to Instability

The journey from London to an eccentricity London –which we call “B London”- is a journey from the utopia, mass media and consumer society to the reality of common people. Any everyday act is more violent and more banal than we are prepared to admit. We cover it. We wrap it. We inhabit it constructing forms that allow us to hide the brutal sensations of wild reality. After this, we sell them in souvenir shops: shirts, figurines and snow globes filled with white foam that would allow us to reach Christmas if shaken up. Clichés everywhere!! In “B London” the city is no longer a giant Ferris wheel, a red telephone box or a tower with a clock. “B London” is not affected by the brightness of the centre. For instance, architect Bernard Tschumi considered the “Fireworks” to be the true architecture because of its instantaneous character and the impossibility to buy or sell them.

We are interested in the peepshow because of its immateriality and individuality.

Inside it, individuals do not touch each other.

They engage in an affective relationship with the only limit of a reflective and transparent surface. The intimacy and individuality of each woman or man is reflected in that mirror. Immateriality is understood as absence of gravity, institutions, or any rule or dogma. We are interested in that mirror... We love that mirror!! All the movements made

by Travis and Jane in a desperate attempt to understand a wild reality is caught in that mirror. Gravity and rational displacements are lost in that mirror.

In the Peepshow, depending on the quantity of light or depending how far you were, you could see one part or the other or both. Are you ready?!! We are going to experiment the capacity of a peepshow to narrate architecture!!!

A triptych usually consists of three vertical planes which have the ability to create or destroy narratives and relationships depending on its situation.

Contemporary artists as Pipilotti Rist or Tacita Dean use overlap and diptych, respectively, to show different situations -instable situations- they are depicting. We are going to use these references and increasing the triptych notion as tool to narrate Elephant&Castle multicultural scene. In this way, we will need a multiplicity of resources to represent a multicultural district.

Triptychs are often associated to paintings, frames, paint brushes, a pastoral landscape... all of them synonymous of static representations. Here, we are going to create instable triptychs in relation with the instability of that mirror, with the instability of the current world, with the instability of a peepshow. And the instability of ourselves.

***

OUTPUT

We propose a critique about architectural representation. A line in a plane weighs the same as the proposed construction. We use several different lines depending on the gravity –more or less thickness, dots, dashes- as there is, from concrete to furniture, a gradation between what is stable and what is unstable. Let´s go further! We will represent object and invisible terms: around architecture and architecture, both their feelings and their atmospheres, the black line drawn by a computer and formalized in the horizontal plane will be overlapped to capture eccentric conditions, i.e, outside the centre of architecture, as London’s grey clouds, the brightness of the glass skin covering that facade, body movements in the last anti-austerity protest in the Bank of England or the plate of fish and chips that is left halfeaten, every Thursday, by Justin and Kim in a famous Elephant & Castle restaurant. An expansion of media is required for its representation.

It is not enough to represent the form –the table, the dish, the restaurant- but also the narrative of content: Where would that fish come from? From Billingsgate Market? How bright fish scales are! And what about those chips? If the potatoes are not put into the water after being pealed, they will turn black and lose their brightness. Would you go to his house in Greenwich or to hers, always more glamorous, in Camden? Would you use a condom that night?

We propose to create a critical representation in the unstable world that we live in, which captures the complexity of a multicultural and eccentricity London; images, plans, maps, videos... Triptychs!!! Triptychs in our Peepshow!!!

SCHEDULE § TARGETS

PERFORMANCE - POSTPRODUCTION - TRIPTYCH

We are going to produce 3 constructions created in parallel from first day to final presentation: /PEEPSHOW/ -scale 1:1 done by all students and tutors- /TRIPTYCH/ -one per group-, /ATREZZO/ -one per student-

#1º WEEK PERFORMANCE

#2º WEEK POST-PRODUCTION

TRIPTYCHS!

TRIPTYCH & PEEPSHOW

#3º WEEK

TRIPTYCH & PEEPSHOW

Deadline: 18th July

TRIPTYCH & PEEPSHOW

Deadline: 11th July

One 2 minutes #videotriptych will be produced per group. On Saturday 11th they will be projected among snacks and cocktails.

The Unit will focus on the notions of #eccentricity #peepshow #triptych. We will discuss two important figures “Architecture as a movie” and “Architect as a moviemaker”.

This will be reflected, also to break the ice, in a performance on Wednesday 8th in Elephant&Castle. There, students and tutors will build a critical action -from irreverence or aesthetic enjoyment- where the notion of eccentricity will be tested.

We will construct and create a scene to film architecture, as well as filming architecture to explore what the meaning of architecture is.

Once the performance has been done, we will make a critical analysis of our “raw material” and each group will decide the narrative of its content. How could this be represented in a triptych that is going to be shown in a peepshow? How are specific characteristics of this eccentricity district depicted? We will have an answer on 18th July!!! We will be the actors, the directors and the scripwriters!!!

The world premiere of our darling #finaltriptychs will be on Friday 24th and they will be exhibited in our AA Peepshow.

From Monday 20th to Thursday 23rd we will proceed to review, complete and test the “mise en scène” with the adequate and accurate dress -atrezzo- of each of the authors. This will all be closely related to the triptych and peepshow design. Each triptych will show both critically and precisely the whole work of each group. Each triptych will be projected into peepshow...

Some Lights! All Cameras! Our Action! Peepshow is into AA!!!

Lecture about Tracey Rose Performances Multifaceted artist interested in eccentricities weirdos and marginal behaviour of city centre inhabitants. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trace y_Rose

Guest: Terènce Pique He is going to reflect on the condition of the limits between you, the space and the action. www.terencepique.com

Guest: Miguel de Guzmán § Rocío Romero Imagen subliminal Architectural photographers and film makers.

Tecnical comunication and representation www.imagensubliminal.com

***

Deadline: 24th July

BIO & CV TUTORS

[Rafael Beneytez & Víctor Cano]

They have taught in the same Teaching Unit at ETSAM since 2012 and have worked together in the Office of Architecture and Narrative Agency z4z4, directed by Rafael, since 2013. They are currently developing “Cloud Gardens” prototypes to capture atmospheric water and building a house paradigm of postmodernism architectural culture: TB House. Also, they co-directed the radical pedagogy “This Way Brouwn” as well as the atmospheric performances “Your cloudmachines”, which were presented in TEDx in November 2014.

Rafael Beneytez Durán (1972) is an Architect who graduated from the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid and was a candidate for the Final Project Degree extraordinary prize. He worked for the architect Rafael Moneo as Project Architect from 1999 to 2007, and he has been managing the Architecture Office and Narrative Agency z4z4 in Madrid since 2006. [www.z4z4.es]

He is an Associate Professor in the Department of Architectural Projects and contributor to the Master in Advanced Architectural Design (ETSAM - UPM), where he is PhD Candidate with a thesis about the problem of Atmosphere in Architecture within the GIPC. He has been Aesthetics and Architectural Composition professor at School of Architecture and Technology (ESAyT) from 2009 to 2012.

Rafael Beneytez has been invited by universities in Wurzburg, Limerick, Delft, Harvard, Barcelona, Muenster, Texas Tech, New Jersey NJIT, Texas A & M. Their architectural and research production has been published in various national and international media as AV, Taschen, Detail, ARQ or ACTAR, publishing two books “Anaglyphs” and “Catch”.

He is author of “Castile and Leon Pavilion - Expo Zaragoza 2008” (First Prize in International Ideas Competition), “Huesca Congress Centre” (First Prize in International Ideas Competition), “Listening Tree” (XI Biennal Spanish Prize for Architecture and Urbanism) or “Cerro de las Mártires” Park in Huesca (First Prize in Ideas Competition and Gardens and Parks National prize 2015).He has participated in numerous national and international exhibitions such as La Biennale di Venezia 2014 in the Spanish Pavilion with Iñaki Ábalos.

Víctor Manuel Cano Ciborro (1987) graduated as an Architect from the Superior Technical School of Architecture of Madrid in 2012 and completed a Masters in Advanced Architectural Design in the same School in 2013. Currently he is a PhD Candidate at the DPA-ETSAM, where he is developing a thesis about the subordinate and unstable forms of architecture. In 2010 he was a visiting scholar in Ahmedabad CEPT-University -India-.

He is Teaching Assistant in Department of Architectural Projects since 2012, and he is linked to the Research Group Cultural Landscape. He is also a regular contributor to the Master in Advanced Architectural Design (ETSAM-UPM) on the Grand Scale and Landscape Line. His Final Project Degree was awarded in the V Muestra PFC at XII Biennal of Spanish Architecture and Urbanism 2013 while its Final Master Thesis won the Special Prize at the XII National Contest Arquimedes 2013.

He has taken part in conferences such as the recent European Symposium EURAU 2014 in Istanbul and he is co-founder and editor of the project Displacements and X`scape Journal [www.displacementsjournal.com]. His academic production has been published in various international journals, such as in Chilean magazine “ARQ87” or American magazine “Dichotomy”.

VISITING TEACHERS Tracey Rose is best known for her performances, video installations, and photographs. Rose’s work responds to the limitations of dogma and the flaws in institutionalised cultural discourse. In her work always is evident the insistence in confronting the politics of identity, including sexual, racial, and gender-based themes. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tracey_Rose] Tèrence Pique is an artist and photographer. Master in Theory and Practice of Contemporary Art, University of Paris VIII and graduate in Photography from the same university. Tèrence focuses its research on the different modes and meanings of residence, through dérives for the places where, in his words, “the city is extended.” [www.terencepique.com]

[Imagen subliminal] Miguel de Guzmán & Rocío Romero. They are architects and architectural photographer who spread since 2008 his work internationally. Their films and images are published in magazines such as “El Croquis”, “Domus Italy” or “A+U Japan” and online international media as Archdaily.com or Dezeen.com. Its production seeks new ways to show architecture. [www.imagensubliminal.com]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

* ALLEN, Stan. “Mapping the unmappable: On notation”. Practice: Architecture, Technique and Representation, 2000. * BOURRIAUD, Nicolas, et al. “Relational aesthetics”. Dijon: Les presses du réel, 2002. * DELEUZE, Gilles; BACON, Francis. “What is a triptych?” in “The logic of Sensation”. Minneapolis: Minnesota UP, 2003. * GONZÁLEZ-IÑÁRRITU, Alejandro. Trylogy: ”Amores perros” 2000, “21 Grams” 2003 , “Babel” 2006. * HERZOG, Jacques. “Grizzly Man” 2005 * JAMESON, Fredric. “Postmodernism or the cultural logic of late capitalism” Duke University Press, 1991. * LATOUR, Bruno. “We have never been modern”. Harvard University Press, 2012. * ROBBINS, David, “The Independent Group”, Cambridge, Mass., MIT Press, 1990. * RODDAM, Franc, “Quadrophenia” 1979. * WENDERS, Wim. “Paris-Texas”1981.

***

unit 7 Amita Kulkarni and Vikrant Tike

2015 SU

M

S ER CH M

O O L

Amita Kulkarni

IN

EC ES

TY

PI

CI

k Vi ra

&

nt ke Ti

CITY IN PIECES At times all I need is a brief glimpse, an opening in the midst of an incongruous landscape, a glint of lights in the fog, the dialogue of two passers-by meeting in the crowd, and I think that, setting out from there, I will put together piece by piece, the perfect city, made of fragments mixed with the rest, of instants separated by intervals, of signals one sends out, not knowing who receives them.

Italo Calvino_Invisble Cities

2029 2029! London is deeply affected by the housing crises that began after the 2008 recession. Its unique position in the world has led the city to become a safe vault for the global rich. The proliferation of capitalism has led to a disparate and fragmented society with many abandoning the city and others scattered into its streets, parks and public spaces.

The crises has also affected the quality of built space so that all new developments look alike creating a sea of deserted and homogenous urbanity.

Social expression is diminishing making London a city devoid of any cultural or personal identity.

Inside Out Project_JR_ Rio, Brazil

In this homogenous and desolated urbanscape a group of street artists have taken over parts of East London and through a movement of creative DIY activism are transforming its public realm into a fabric of eccentric spatial interventions for Londoners to live, work and enjoy. Channelling their creative output through these unique pieces the artists are expressing the need for personal identity as well as the eccentric nature of London’s implosion.

The brief The unit will join the street artists to locate their personal pieces within the East London’s public streets, canals and parks addressing the collective homogeneity and obsolescence of the city.

Street Art by Phlegm ,Shoreditch, London

Inspired from its present eclectic street art and graffiti culture as well as its rich communal diversity, we will build on the mysterious and the fantastical, on complexity and diversity, communicating through the abstract and the figurative, the personal moods and experiences that form our fictional ‘pieces’.

Challenging conventional ownership and thresholds of public and private space the unit will investigate the role of flexible and temporary urban environments in an increasingly imbalanced world.

Virtually Venice by CJ Lim

Understanding the role of collective DIY construction we will develop scaled prototypes of pieces’ that are imaginative and inventive as well as modular and foldable.

Exodus, or the voluntary prisoners of architecture by Rem Koolhaas, Madelon Vriesendorp, Elia Zenghelis & Zoe Zenghelis

SCHEDULE research and narratives Chapter 1

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storyboard and scenes Chapter 2

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prototypes and pieces Chapter 3

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stories scenes pieces CHAPTER 1 Streets and Stories We will begin by taking the East London Street and Graffiti Tour where we can observe and analyse the eccentric nature of London’s street art as well as the influence of co-existing diverse communities on the cityscape.

walking

writing

Cataloguing the tour in a B5 flick book we will document our observations and experiences through a combination of digital and analogue media like sketches, stencils, videos, photos and texts. These observations, documentation, analysis and reflections will form the basis to craft our personal, eccentric and animated stories.

CHAPTER 2 Scenes and spaces

analysing

The story narratives will be elaborated further through an exercise on storyboarding and collage making to combine a complex interdependency between stories, characters and spaces what we call as ‘spatial scenes’ The B5 flick book will record the progress of our staged imaginations and spatial constructs, capturing the important moments and experiences through sketches, photographs, text, prose and collages.

collaging

CHAPTER 3 City and Pieces prototyping

The final stage will be where we begin to elaborate these scenarios from being a subjectively comprehensible “space”, to a physically contrived “piece” within the city.

Exploring materiality and fabrication techniques through workshops on digital tools and processes the unit will create sketch prototypes through 3D printing, laser cutting, vacuum forming and CNC milling.

The final constructs will be scaled models of the ‘urban pieces’ located within East London combining images, paper cuts, stencil templates and model making through a synthesised process of digital and physical fabrication methods.

The B5 flick book will capture the moods and moments of the final piece construct in an urban setting through lighting, photography and post production techniques.

making

BIOS AMITA KULKARNI graduated from the AADRL program in 2005 after being qualified as an architect in Mumbai. She worked at Zaha Hadid Architects, Hawkins/ Brown and Karakusevic Carson Architects gaining design and project experience on numerous residential, public, cultural and institutional RIBA award winning projects within the UK and overseas. Amita has taught the Vertical Design Studio at Welsh School of Architecture for four years as well as at the BSSA school in Mumbai . Since 2011 she is the director at her own studio SAV and is currently working on projects ranging from large master plans to complex facades to uniquely crafted private houses for projects across UK and India. ( http://www.studioamitavikrant.com ) VIKRANT TIKE completed his architectural education at the London Metropolitan and the AA School of Architecture after having studied fashion and sound engineering .

Working for international architectural practices like Foster and Partners, Vikrant gained design experience on international large scale high rise towers and masterplan projects in Australia, Malaysia and Morocco. He was Unit1 Master for at the Chelsea School of Arts in 2013-14 and has taught the Vertical Design Studio at the Welsh School of Architecture for the last four years as well as at the BSSA school in Mumbai. He also tutored at the Vernal fabrication workshop held at Biligi University in Istanbul in 2013. With a keen interest in combining high quality hand craftsmanship with contemporary digital design and fabrication techniques, Vikrant co-founded SAV in 2011 and currently drives the digital modeling and fabrication research within his studio.( http://www.studioamitavikrant.com )

Sopanbaug Apartments SAV_Pune_India

TextFields_ Installation SAV_Corridor Gallery _London

TALKS AND WORKSHOPS A series of cross disciplinary talks and workshops will held throughout the program.

Curating Design Processes: Jerome Riguad & Daniel Nordh : http://curator.co Daniel & Jerome go beyond the traditional boundaries of the art , commerce, science and technology making modern and mobile tools through hybrid collaborations, developing projects based on interaction and experience. Curator is their app for collecting, organising and presenting visual content.

From Design to Manufacturing: Onur Ozakya : http://www.onurozkaya.co.uk Onur is an industrial and furniture designer. His research and practice have been focusing on geometry, materials and complex manufacturing techniques to explore intelligent design solutions in our built environment. He completed his graduate degree at the Architectural Association and is a senior lecturer at Cambridge School of Arts.

Digital Permutations: Tal Mazor Tal works with digitally oriented strategies and tools implementing computational models and algorithms for emergence within design and architecture. He has organised Rhino and Grasshopper workshops at UEL and RCA and is a 3D Cad Specialist at AECOM. Colour and Materiality : Anna Muzychak Anna explores layers, colour and materials within architecture through a constant loop of digital and physical model making. Working with Rhino and Grasshopper as well as with wood, paper and ceramics she combines craftsmanship and digital technology to create highly layered physical models.

An Architecture Studio in London : Isabel De La Mora : http://www.acme.ac Isabel de la Mora studied at the Universidad de Navarra, where she received her Diploma in Architecture in December 2009. At ACME , Isabel works as a Project Architect on residential and mixed-use schemes in London and abroad.

Belonging- Architecture as a Human Right: Anil Korotane & Svetlana M. Vojtelova Belonging is a consultancy and advocacy practice dedicated to mediating architecture and planning with human rights on local, national and international level and has worked in East London with the Haringey Council on the Wards Corner Project in Tottenham.

Boutique Hotel_Physical Model Studies SAV__ Goa _India

Geometries_ Curator Board Jerome Riguad & Daniel Nordh

Kimono Chair_Grand Prix Award 14 Onur Ozkaya

REFERENCES > Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities > John Hedjuk, Mask of Medusa > CJ Lim, Short Stories, London in Two-and-a-half Dimensions > Jorge Luis Borges, The Garden of Forking Paths > Georges Perec, Species of Spaces and Other Pieces

Palais Royal Spatial Metaphor Anna Muzychak

unit 8 Tom Svilans, Greg Storrar and Dave Reeves

Phantom, ScanLAB Projects, 2015

False City BRIEF This course offers an experimentation with virtual reality in the context of the contemporary city. The resultant work will explore a new, dynamic, and illusory urban landscape using VR headsets and light projections.

The Oculus Rift is a binocular virtual reality headset, allowing the user to experience depth as well as image, and imbuing digital objects with a closeness or distance unavailable through a normal computer screen. It is an immersive technology, plunging the user into a digital world where the environment feels close enough to touch. Projections allow us to experience imagery and 3d models at a larger, more spatial scale. Walls, ceilings and floors are transformed into windows looking out onto a digital landscape. Using these two media, the work will take as its subject matter the translation between fact - the reality - and fiction - the digital falsity.

This course looks at this new technology as a productively eccentric representation and re-interpretation of the real world. Scanning and photography capture the world in streams of data which are then processed and represented as images or models through a display device. The ability to don a headset or enter a projection space to experience this middle-ground - between the world and the display - opens up opportunities to explore new environments and unique spaces caused by reshuffling and re-interpreting the underlying data.

Using London as palette and inspiration, students will capture and sample the peculiarities of London through photography, video and 3d scanning. These sampled scenes will become ingredients for creating a new London in a virtual territory, to be explored through the Rift or displayed as moving projections.

In the process of building this new city, new deviations will be injected into the translation from real city to virtual reality.

Interactive and animated elements will give it life and allow it to respond to users’ movements through its territory. Movement and space here will not be required - nor encouraged - to obey any preset physical laws or external logic.

Along the way, visiting guests will share their work and impart knowledge about 3d scanning, building circuits and using sensors, robotic fabrication, and digital modeling techniques.

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WEEK 1 :: SAMPLING THE ECCENTRIC. To better acquaint ourselves with the eccentricity of London, we will venture out amongst the awkward, the misfit, and the strange spaces that clash and collide in the patchwork of the city. We will look at heterogeneous spatial conditions, old places, new places, spaces of movement and change, and we will collect bits and pieces of them for our own purposes. Using photography and 3d scanning, we will sample the city and digitize its aberrant features, translating them into parcels of data which we will copy, transform, distort and re-interpret into eccentricities of our own.

Week One will be comprised of an exploration of London and a familiarization with the technologies and topics in this course. Fieldwork will include finding suitable sites for documentation through photography, video and 3d scanning.

Digital modeling will be explained and examples shown of various approaches to creating virtual worlds. Guest artists and practitioners will give workshops and presentations about their work.

WEEK 2 :: PROTOTYPING THE ECCENTRIC. With both eyes always on the target, we will use our gathered samples and notes to further bend and twist our perception and memory of London. We will translate our collected items into a vast and open digital territory, choosing what we keep and what we throw away. The act of translation itself will be playful, unexpected, and odd.

Using the sites and techniques learned in the previous week, Week Two will be spent developing a spatial proposal in pairs or small groups. This will involve a mis-translation or re-interpretation of otherwise-straightforward objects and elements. Ideas will be discussed and new techniques introduced to augment each proposal. Focus will be on introducing interactive elements or developing a narrative to guide the proposals forward. Collaboration will be encouraged between groups and proposals should play off and inform each other.

WEEK 3 :: INHABITING THE ECCENTRIC. Exploring our new city through VR headsets and other immersive modes of representation, we will willingly - and with abandon - forget that up is not down, that depth recedes with distance, and that shadows only live in the presence of light. We will also not treat our city as a static theme-park ride - we are not simply voyeurs! - but instead the movements of our bodies will kick up the dust, summon geometric storm cells, upset delicate ecosystems, and it will be up to us whether we tread carefully and quietly through the crystalline streets, or else go madly crashing through the landscape.

During the final week, the proposals will be tested, tweaked and inhabited. Happy accidents - unforeseen side-effects or unexpected glitches - are encouraged and will be documented as an evolution and re-interpretation of the original proposal. Proposals will be interfaced with one another so that they form a disparate but connected virtual city. The work from previous weeks will be curated and organized to show the progression from site and technique, to spatial proposal (re-interpretation), to inhabitation (evolution). The projects will be captured and documented through video and photography.

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Tom Svilans is an architectural designer, artist, and creative technologist. His interests lie at the intersection of performative technology, mythology, and the fabricated artefact. His approach to architecture as a constructed / invented environment emphasizes narrative, place, and baroque tendencies of ornament and spectacle.

He is Technical Director at ScanLAB Projects – a London-based practice which specializes in high-resolution terrestrial LiDAR scanning – where he develops workflows, integrates technologies, teaches workshops, and creates tools for the processing, manipulation, and visualization of massive point-cloud datasets.

Tom is also a Teaching Fellow at the Bartlett School of Architecture. In this capacity, he teaches courses in robotics, fabricates bespoke components, and develops new hardware and software tools to interface with the extensive digital manufacturing arsenal at the Bartlett Manufacturing and Design Exchange (Bmade).

Greg Storrar is an architectural designer and photographer. His work explores digital technologies, design through making, and the (mis)representation of space through photography and film. Greg is an associate at Tonkin Liu, a London-based multi-award winning architecture and design practice. He has studied at The Bartlett School of Architecture and the University of Cambridge.

Dave Reeves is a designer, programmer, and researcher currently based in London where he works as a member of the Computation and Design (co|de) group at Zaha Hadid Architects. He holds a Bachelor of Architectural Studies (BAS) from Carleton University and a Master of Architecture (MArch) from the University of British Columbia.

Inspired by the likes of ants, termites, slime molds, and other social organisms, his research focuses on decentralized forms of artificial intelligence and their application within the domain of architectural design. Specifically, he is interested in how distributed decision-making can be leveraged as a design tool to better address problems related to spatial organization, complex geometry, urban design, and building occupancy.

His work has been published and presented at international conferences such as Acadia, Smart Geometry, and SimAud. He has also taught at workshops and delivered lectures on various topics related to computational design at institutions such as the Architectural Association, the Bartlett, and the University of Toronto.

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eccentriCITY

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