Unit 6 - AA Summer School 2017

THE BEAUTY IN THE BEAST

by Isabel Collado & Ignacio Peydro

aluminum slat dome. black mountain college 1948. tutor: r. buckminster fuller

AA Summer School 2017

@dosiiis instagram account

Flat colourful beauty rules Content is dead and boring to speak about We seek beautiful and tasteful images, we swallow them without digesting them

We search them everywhere, from Instagram to Archdaily Our proposal for this summer school is a dual exercise of creation. We will get our hands dirty to experiment with matter with the only purpose to produce beautiful images of architecture*.

The images will be shared on Instagram and tagged appropriately.

Poeisis will be practiced in three complementary levels: matter, image and words. * Anything that is made at the AA and is tagged #architecture is considered architecture today.

THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST

Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro

Images need the process to make them. They need the object to shoot. Matter is the beast to be photographed. We want matter that suggests and induces sensations and deep feelings that range from desire to social compromise when we see it photographed.

We need the images of material artefacts, details, simple structures, elements, people using strange indescribable material experiments to feed the crave for architecture novelty.

NOW! The platform for sharing architecture beauty will be Instagram. The Unit will have an account that will be fed daily by all of the students. Each post will freeze the time of each specific image. No tricks to change nowness are available. Instant production is essential.

MAKE UP THE BEAUTY We will record and photograph everything we make. All post-production techniques are allowed. We will teach the basics of photography, video recording and image & video edition.

FEED THE BEAST The three weeks of the Summer School will be a marathon of material exploration in which architecture matter will be deconstructed and reassembled.

ALL MATERIAL PROPERTIES WILL BE EXPLORED AND CROSSED WITH FABRICATION PROCESSES Strength, flexibility, colour, transparency, lightness, roughness, heaviness, coldness, mildness, cheapness, glossiness, permeability or smell (ha ha‌ that’s uninstagramable) will all be reached and mutated by several actions.

Pouring, spraying, bending, chopping, mixing, melting, painting, heating, cooling, casting, inflating, cutting, exploding, bonding, burning, wrapping will produce unpredictable material artefacts.

THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST

Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro

Materials will be multiple and unrestricted. From paper to gold, from jelly to plants, everything can be used. The student is the one selecting upon the restrictions of each day.

We will PLAY, DESIGN, REGISTER AND SHARE. The complexity will be increased with time by the upscaling of size and processes. Our aim is to create at least one FULL SIZE INHABITABLE STRUCTURE to be used during the party on the 21st of July. If it fails, the beauty of its failure will produce an architecture image of longer prevalence (ask Bucky at Black Mountain College). Other routes for the creation of architecture remain open.

Uncertainty shapes our days We know what we want We hate what we don’t Let us play to search and select What we’ll get will be great Even if it leaks or decays

FLOAT. the hard inflatable. AA Summer School 2015 Tutors: Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro

METHODOLOGY Play & experiment. The intention of our unit in this Summer School is to provide the students with the capacity to create both sophisticated material artefacts and beautiful images that document the processes of creation. We want to make the unit A WORKSHOP OF INNOVATION WHERE CREATIVITY IS TRIGGERED SIMULTANEOUSLY BY DRAWING, MAKING AND DOCUMENTING THE PROCESS. Images will be shared in Instagram to create a repository of actions, material species and production systems, an instant phylogenetic classification of what happens in the unit.

UNDERSTAND MATTER AND FABRICATION Casa V (DOSIS) Construction process of CNC molded concrete slab

PART 1 Each day of the first half of the Summer School (until the interim review) we will explore specific design & making techniques related to material properties to help understand the differences in the creation of architectural matter. The complexity and dexterity required to fulfil the tasks will evolve in time.

1.

TRANSFORMING & CONNECTING

B. C.

Stiff objects and components Limp objects and components

What: This first family of making techniques will cover cutting, folding, bending, nailing, screwing, welding, bonding, sewing and knitting.

When: 4 of July Why: Set the basis of manufacturing. Techniques learned can serve for direct production of final object and for auxiliary production (formworks, frames, panels, etc.)

Materials used: cardboard, plywood, plates, glue, screws, nails, fabric, plastic foil, plastic bags, thread and bonding tape.

FLOAT. The Jellyfish. AA Summer School 2015

2.

SUBTRACTION

3.

ADDITION

4.

COMPOSITES

What: this family of making will explore the transformation of matter through processes of elimination like milling, carving, burrowing, burning, chopping, drilling and exploding.

When: 5 of July Why: Explore the possibilities in transforming the volume, shape, texture and appearance of existing matter by elimination and destruction. Techniques learned can serve for direct production and production of moulds for other processes.

Materials used: clay, play dough, wood, soil, EPS foam.

What: this family of making will explore the possibilities of creation by summing matter through the processes of repetition, pouring, casting, spraying, gluing, bonding and any of the processes learnt in the first family that help connect multiple parts.

When: 6 of July Why: Learn the evolution of materials that change viscosity and hardness and how they change in time. Explore the possibilities of creation of textures and new surfaces through the repetition of identical objects.

Materials used: plaster, concrete, silicone, PU foam, resin. Nails, screws, plastic cups, straws, bottle caps, other cheap & standard objects.

What: Composites are materials that combine multiple materials to create a higher performance one. Concrete, fiberglass and carbon fibre combine viscous matter that becomes hard when dried with aggregates, filaments or fabric of a material that has good tensile strength and flexibility. We will experiment with the combination of various components.

When: 7 of July.

Why: Understand how the combination of different components can create materials with new properties, appearance and resistance.

Materials used: cords, wire, nets, sand, gravel, cement, plaster, water, resin, silicone, glue

THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST

Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro

5.

COLOUR & LIGHT

What: this section will focus on the optical properties of matter, which are independent to mechanical properties (the later ones have been the base for the previous workshops). Reflection, refraction, transmittance, transparency and luminosity will complement colour. This section opens a wider sphere of material exploration that will complement the four previous ones.

When: 8-10 of July.

Why: Understand that appearance is independent to mechanical and thermal properties.

Colour and optical properties are independent layers of material systems that directly affect perception.

Materials used: Paint, water, varnish, pigments.

Konokono-Turkana vaccination facility. Developed by MIT MArch students as a semester design project.

Tutors: JosĂŠ Selgas + Ignacio Peydro

PART 2 After the interim review we will play, design and make in order to generate at least one full size inhabitable structure. The final size, shape, material, texture or colour of it will appear with time. The lessons learned on the first part of the Summer School will serve as a base to set new paths of exploration and help decision making. We will revisit them as many times as needed.

The unit will be split into small groups with common interests in order to focus efforts and amplify results. The groups may eventually match tectonic families and construction systems (i.e.: structure, floors, walls, roof‌).

2.1. DESIGN We will do brainstorming sessions followed by design workshops to develop initial ideas. Each student will have the freedom to explore personal interests and to contrast them with other members of the team. By the end of these two days we will have (a) clear project(s).

When: 12-13 of July 2.2. DESIGN DEVELOPMENT & DETAILING Students will team in groups to develop the details and methods of production to be used.

The number of projects will determine the number of students per group.

When: 14-15 of July

THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST

Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro

2.3. PRODUCTION Once the project is clear enough to start production we will begin making it real.

When: ASAP. 13-20 of July PHOTOGRAPHY & VIDEO Simultaneously to design, production and material exploration we will constantly document with photography and video all of the processes and its products. Each day there will be a time slot dedicated to collect images and videos, select them, edit them and describe them.

We will explore image production and manipulation. Recording the present is the way to guarantee its presence.

SHARING & PUBLISHING The decision to share content in Instagram is related to the conception of nowness and the assumption of the laws of a media that has a dual temporality. On one side it demonstrates the fleetingness of the interest of people, it constantly needs to be fed by new content, and on the other it becomes a historic visual archive that can always be revisited, once the image has been published it instantly becomes an object of the past, nowness lasts only some hours.

WHO? WE LOVE

OURRESEARCH PROFESSION TEACHING We are so happy to be back at the AA Summer School! We loved the experience back in 2015 and we believe that we will create an even better unit this year. While in 2015 the material exploration was limited to the knowledge of inflatables, our intention this year is to expand matter experimentation processes to a system that cross reference multiple variables. This widening of material possibilities creates an uncertain spectrum of results. We feel confident that the quality of the production of the unit will transcend our preconceived expectations.

We very much look forward to doing it!

Since our time as tutors at the AA Summer School of 2015 we have been working intensively, creating, thinking and producing architecture of diverse nature. We have created Second Dome, a reconfigurable pneumatic structure that has instantly activated multiple parts of London. It was chosen by Domus magazine as an example of the best architecture of 2016, awarded as 10 best temporary architecture of 2016 by designboom, and shortlisted by ArchDaily as one of the 5 best small architecture projects in the 2017 Building of the Year award.

We are currently working on a multi-purpose workspace building in West London that will open in the summer of 2018 and will transform the area where it is placed. We have led a design studio unit at IE University. Ignacio read his PhD dissertation and is now a doctor of architecture, but above all, we have had a lot of fun exploring unknown territories.

THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST

Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro

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 a PhD in the Madrid School of Architecture (ETSAM) in the knowledge field of Theory and Practice of Architectural Design with his dissertation ‘Contingency in Post-situationist Architecture’. He has been Architecture Design Professor in IE School of Architecture and Design, Architecture Design Graduate Teaching Assistant and Fulbright Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), 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 co-author of the book ‘This is Tomorrow’.

DOSIS

Together they establish, , a laboratory of creative processes that is committed to pushing the boundaries of the built environment with innovative architectural solutions. In each of their projects, the design strategies and solutions are a reflection of design research, using practice as an experimentation platform in which architecture navigates a wide scope of design interests that transcend basic pragmatic requirements. Each project is undertaken as an opportunity to explore creative design methodologies, strategies and solutions, always driving our attention towards the feasibility of building technology, structural systems and sustainable environmental strategies.

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.

Second Dome. London. Photo: Iwan Baan

THE BEAUTY in THE BEAST

Isabel Collado + Ignacio Peydro