B
Wesley Verhoeven
Anne van Stijn
Bnieuws Archiprix Special 2017
Loed Stolte
Arianna Fornasiero & Paolo Turconi
Barbara Prezelj Zuzanna Mielczarek
Floor Hoogenboezem
Iason Stathatos
Frederice Koch
WESLEY VERHOEVEN
Frederice koch
Alamar’s Material Warehouse 1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? At the start of the Cuban revolution (1961) American technicians left the island and Fidel Castro had to invest in the knowledge of technical education. Slogans such as ‘To beat imperialism in the battle of replacement parts’ together with publications of DIY manuals resulted in an inventive and sustainable culture of reuse, repair and reinvent. Alamar’s Material Warehouse builds upon this Cuban ingenuity and criticizes our western throw-away society. The building acts as a machine where disregarded materials are collected, sorted, disassembled, recycled, upcycled and turned into valuable resources. 2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? I remember shortly after the P2 presentation I was stuck in the phase between research and design. At this point the idea behind the project was clearly defined, however, I had difficulties with the spatial organisation. My tutors (Olindo Caso and Gilbert Koskamp) suggested instead of approaching the building from big scale to do the
opposite. I started with a sketchy 1:100 foam section model in which I explored the relations between the different programs. This sketchy model really helped in quickly developing different spatial and aesthetic possibilities. Moreover, from this section it was quite easy to work towards the whole building. 3. What’s the secret of your success? Developing a personal approach towards architecture. It is important, especially nowadays with an overload of architectural ideas, images and references, to develop and explore your own approach towards design methods and graphical representation. Especially in University you have time to develop and explore new ways of representation.For my graduation project, I worked on different handmade collages, which also was in line with the idea of the project. Eventually, this way of working resulted in four final handmade collages, which were made with different materials, such as, perforated steel, wires and textures. Those final four collages weren’t an exact representation of the space but they grasped the essence of the project.
4. What is next? The best thing after an intense graduation period is to have a break, so I went with my family to Italy to experience the wonderful architecture, beautiful scenery and amazing cuisine. Besides this, I presented my graduation project at INTI (International New Town Institute) and came in touch with FABRICations, an architectural research and design practice based in Amsterdam. My graduation project is in line with the work and research they’re conducting and recently I started working there. Next to work I’m intending to continue the research of Alamar and work on the manifesto we proposed as a group. This manifesto describes how Alamar (a new town outside Havana) should respond to the changing conditions on an urban scale, neighbourhood scale and to the exchange of knowledge and services.
ANNE VAN STIJN
Crafting the disused 1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? My graduation project is really about trying to find a way of fighting an issue that troubles me personally. After visiting Indonesia and talking to the local community, it became quite apparent that the current situation of waste management in the village was insufficient, but that there was also a great opportunity for improvement. The project sets out to combine simple and easily adaptable spaces for recycling and waste storage with additional spaces for processing of local waste into building material, to assist with the ongoing densification of the area. Meanwhile an integrated waste bank generates money for the community. The objective of the project is to diminish the stigma that waste is something ‘unwanted’ but instead to foster the view that it is a valuable new material that can be shaped to one’s desire. 2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? That was really split into two parts. The first moment I started to get super excited about the design was during a walk through Rotterdam with a
good friend from London. Just walking and talking about the project and his fresh perspective really pushed the design forward with simple but effective design measures. The second moment was one week before my P4, when I decided to change the entire roof towards the current individual village typology. Certainly a questionable decision, which resulted in a lot of work. And let’s be honest, one week before a P4 presentation is not the best timing. So that was really rather nerve racking, but very well worth it and it resulted in a design that felt much more appropriate and reflects my intention for the design a lot better. 3. What’s the secret of your success? In all honesty, there is no such thing as a working routine for me. I usually take a lot of time in the beginning to think about the intention and concept before designing anything. I find that if the concept is well thought out, the project has the basis it needs and everything else naturally falls into place, although often at a very late stage for me. Usually, when I am so time pressured, that postponing of decisions is no longer an option. That does sometimes feel
Rehabilitating China’s Crumbling High-Rises rushed, but retrospectively I always think that it isn’t actually the case, as I have developed these things in my mind in the background during all that time of getting the basis right. 4. What’s next? Since graduating I have moved back to London and started working for a big company called Wilkinson Eyre. Ultimately, I would like to open my own practice with a friend, but that is perhaps to be thought of in a decade. For now I am trying to get as many different experiences in terms of project type and stage, as well as practice type and size under my belt. In the nearer future I will start my Part III, which in the UK is the last step to qualifying as an architect. In the meantime I am enjoying London’s incredible cityscape and offer on architecture events, lectures, galleries, etc.
1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? I would describe my project to my grandparents in the same way as I would to you. The project is ‘down to earth’ and I explained it using bright coloured ‘streetwise’ graphics to engage all the stakeholders of the crumbling high-rises, including residents and grandparents. And as my grandfather is now learning English, I do not even have to translate anything into Dutch! 2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? I took a more ‘integral’ approach where I did not simplify the complexity or focus on just one part of ‘The Challenge of China’s Crumbling High-rises’. After a lot of ‘iterations’ I found a combination of ‘pieces of solution’ that together could integrally solve ‘The Challenge’. From there on, I ‘filled in’ many of these pieces. It was only in the last months of my graduation that I saw all the pieces of the ‘puzzle’ coming together and that I saw a shimmer of light indicating the end of the tunnel. Considering that I continued working on this topic, I might have missed the actual exit…
3. What’s the secret of your success? The secret to my success? I came prepared. I had set clear goals, planned my project out in detail, and gathered a lot of necessary data before I started my graduation in ExploreLab. Besides that, there is not really any secret to it. I needed to work very hard to get to the result I had envisioned. I also had amazing tutors who gave me great advice exactly when I needed it. Additionally, I could not have done it without the support (and understanding) of my friends, family and boyfriend. 4. What is next? Since my graduation I have been – very enthusiastically – working as a researcher in the housing section of the MBE department of our faculty. There I am building on the work I did in my graduation project. Taking an integral approach, I look at how we can do maintenance, renovation, and improvements within the existing housing stock using ‘plug-and-play building components’. However, now I am developing these components in the Dutch context, and with an additional focus: the circular economy. This year our project-team, together with AMS, housing
associations and industry partners, has developed a ‘Circular Kitchen’ and ‘Circular Boiler’. Next year I will continue my work developing circular maintenance, renovation, and improvement
strategies and solutions for the post-war housing stock in a PhD. With the ambition that in the future I can make them – as an academic and/or entrepreneur – a reality.
Arianna Fornasiero & Paolo Turconi
Rhizome 1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? In Ethiopia and, in particular, in Addis Ababa there are more people than dwellings. The Ethiopian Government promoted a project solution that can be built really fast, but, it is really expensive and does not fit with the cultural context of the place. We designed a project which is cheaper, easy to build and takes into consideration the needs of the inhabitants. The backbone of the project is the shared space of the compound where about eight families can gather during their daily routine. Series of bigger spaces to meet within can be created by grouping together more compounds. People can choose from different apartment sizes. Each apartment can be extended according to the inhabitants’ needs. Finally, the project can be built in phases, so that old and new structures can integrate together organically.
Loed Stolte
The Bank of England: a dialectical project 1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? I often present my project as a highly symbolic endeavor, as the embodiment of a future monetary reform and the social and institutional order that it brings about, like a modern secular equivalent to an ancient temple forum. But with anyone new to architecture, I would try to speak less abstract and rather show what this actually means: turning the old Bank of England, which currently stands as a fortress in the midst of the City of London, into a genuine public site where one could go for a whole range of very specific purposes (from getting the tube and doing some shopping to attending exhibitions, discussions and financial education), but also where one could simply walk in and wonder, for example at the mighty beauty of the London sky when searching shelter from a shower of rain.
Zuzanna Mielczarek
Re-claim Silesia 1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? I didn’t hesitate much with the decision on the topic of my project at Design as Politics studio ‘Let’s work - Architecture, Industry and the City’. My dad comes from Upper Silesian area, former coal mining area of Poland, nowadays facing an economic shift due to the crisis of the local industry. My grandparents didn’t have a possibility to witness the apogee of the coal mining crisis resulting in the major economical, urban and social changes. Even though they didn’t work as miners, their everyday life was strongly influenced by the mining culture. I believe they would be very surprised that Silesia is losing its strong, unique identity. I would explain them my understanding of the idea of reclaiming - that with my project I am trying to bring a new value to the spaces, places, objects or habits, not forgetting about their initial character and history. I think they would appreciate my sensitivity towards the past and the regional specificity. Difficult to explain would be the quite extreme change required of the work and lifestyle model, from centrally organized to one based on the initiative of the inhabitants. I would tell them that with the political and economic changes nowadays, this is the only way to keep the Silesian community together. 2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? One of the site visits turned out to be a breakthrough in my research and design process. It was a late and rainy afternoon when I was again spying in the wastelands and pathless tracts of the industrial megasite around the former Szombierki mine. I had already asked the guards many times before to let me into the mine shaft buildings but they always stayed adamant. However, that afternoon, it started to rain really hard and they agreed to let me in to wait until it cleared up. That encounter opened a whole new spectrum of inspiration and ideas for me. I had a long discussion with Stefan - the guy from the picture former minor and current guard of the shaft. He showed me his little botanical garden he cultivates inside (as he has very little work), told me
interesting stories from the past and guided me through the secret interiors. This was the moment when I understood that the spatial and social reclaiming of this limbo region shouldn’t be based on the imposition of any rigid or dogmatic systems, but on an understanding of the local nostalgia and romanticism, the stories people have to tell and all the details and colors that are around. 3. What’s the secret of your success? I am constantly open to various sources of inspiration and media of work. I can get inspired by accidental chitchats with strangers and serious interviews with the local officials, well-planned site visits and spontaneous afternoon walks through undiscovered wastelands. Long investigations of the municipal archives and quick run through a flea market. Naive art of local primitives and tremendous industrial edifices. Content of a crucial writing and a flyer found on a street. Being sensitive can lead to many interesting and unexpected findings and results. At the same time, it is very easy to get lost and unfocused. 4. What is next? After graduating I started an internship at KAAN architecten where I stayed for a few months. In the meantime, I’ve got involved in a research for public housing district project in Warsaw. Together with my friend Zofia Piotrowska I successfully applied for Stimuleringsfonds with our research proposal ‘Social housings’ to develop the study on diversity and social mix in housing developments. At the moment, I am an architectural trainee in the European Commission in Brussels, but often travel between Belgium, Netherlands and Poland. I get involved in many interesting projects, staying constantly focused and unfocused, trying to kill two or even more birds with one stone. I believe this is what our mid-twenties are about - to try all the possibilities you find exciting, to be able to choose the right path later on. I can’t say at the moment that in the future I see myself simply as an architect, I would rather say a creative thinker and doer, critically concerned about the social and urban issues.
2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Actually, from quite early on, even well before writing out the thesis, I had a clear mental image of the project. This marked a spot on the horizon, so
clear that what turned out to be the most difficult task was to come up with a precise spatial design that stood up to it, rendering it concrete and architectural without depleting its imaginative power. This repeatedly made me sincerely doubt whether the project would be ‘possible’ at all or might be condemned to remain forever imprisoned in its imagery. Rather than suddenly seeing the light, my process has thus been one where occasionally both beginning and end of the tunnel simultaneously got obscured. 3. What’s the secret of your success? I honestly wouldn’t know; perhaps my persistence and patience with the project as it slowly came out. Like anyone, I would never have made it without the support I got from my teachers as well as all the confidence and help I got from my family and friends, during the process as well as in getting the model out during the last week. My favorite place in the faculty? Well, for working I particularly like those places where you find a minimum of distraction and therefore a maximum of concentration. The end of the long bar in the library is such a place, or the tables behind the
tribune in the orange hall; each of these places forms a kind of lee in the faculty’s otherwise quite hectic collective working environment. 4. What is next? When I stumbled upon it two years ago on the internet, the monetary reform which I took as a fictive occasion to drastically reconsider the architecture of the Bank of England seemed still foremost an utterly utopian idea, whose only chance of getting realized would be a new mega crisis and total breakdown of the existing banking system. Last year however, the Bank of England started a serious inquiry into the issuance of digital cash, which is a very promising development! But if that became so suddenly possible, I am very curious what they will say about my suggestion of moving a wall or two…
IASON STATHATOS
understand much about speculative academic projects, nor they would want to. This is entirely fine by the way. That said, architects should be able to communicate their work. We may not be astrophysicists, but when our work cannot be the departure point of a fertile discussion for all parties, I prefer to talk about irrelevant things. 2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel?
I would avoid drawing parallels between my graduation and a tunnel. I would go for a labyrinth. Academic life can be one of the most of inspiring periods of the an architect’s life. It is then that we have some rare chances to test the limits of with our craziest fantasies and eventually draw a personal position within the discipline. A graduation can certainly be satisfactory but it comes at a cost: access to the school’s intellectual richness is lost. There many possible paths to take, with equally valid
3. What’s the secret of your success? Unlike Hollywood where people are usually asked this specific question, I would say that in the “real” world, architecture included, a successful project is usually the result of consistent work, self awareness, appropriate feedback and random circumstances. 4. What is next? I preferred not to have holidays after my final presentation. Investing in a professional experience in an office and immediately starting to build upon “Void Capital” seemed to be more important. A graduation project is concluded the day of the p5, but it is beautiful when the research, which accompanies it, carries on and gives an even greater outcome. The themes introduced within “Void Capital” will continue being an object of intense experimentation in the years to come.
4. What is next? Our pursuit is to try to build a prototype of our design in Ethiopia. It is a pity that projects that address Urban Global South issues do not find a sequel out of the academic field. We aimed at designing a project which is technically feasible, economically competitive and flexible in construction time and materials. Thus we strongly believe that our project works and building it would be a nice way to see if we were right or wrong.
Reconciling Post-Industrial Townscapes
Unfamiliar Territory “lights” or solutions to a problem. A wellargumented development of a design does not lie on any instinctive “revelatory moments”, as if architecture is another kind of painting. It is achieved through an agenda which is logically built, through time and friction.
3. What’s the secret of your success? The very first day we began our design process, we had a glimpse of our final outcome. During the Christmas holidays we worked separately and we both felt that our design proposals were just not good enough. So, once back to the Netherlands, on one of those hectic pre-P2 days, we met and all our thoughts and doubts were put together. Somehow, the ideas of one compensated the doubts of the other and at the end of the day all the ingredients were on the table. We worked on that concept till the very end of our design.
Floor Hoogenboezem
Barbara Prezelj
Void Capital 1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? I wouldn’t describe Void Capital to my grandparents. And even if communicating with the underworld through various para-normal mediums can be quite fascinating, I still wouldn’t make such an attempt simply because the potential discussion would most probably be futile. You see, the usual problem with the grandparents is that they’re, in most cases, not architects; and as a consequence, they wouldn’t
2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? Team work was essential. We achieved high results through joint creativity, continuous feedback and fruitful discussions. Indeed, working in a team allowed us to constantly have preliminary discussions and, consequently, to have more solid feedbacks by tutors. We hope our experience will be taken as an example and more students will
team up and try what we think is an extremely positive experience.
1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? By trying to convince them the project is like a patch of Iceland in Paris. Imagined as a territory in constant flux, replete with movement and unforeseen encounters. A landscape in constant negotiation with its surroundings, where the processes of its continuous making are revealed to you and where instability is what pushes it forward not holds it back. A place where every intervention is made with its eventual demise in mind, subservient to the processes we cannot fully predict, let alone delimit, and where what you experience is entirely different from what you expect or know. 2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? There was no single moment of light, but there was a lot of intermediate shimmer. All the invaluable moments of discussion with my mentors and returns to books, poems, places and friends that reminded me of why I see things the way I see them.
3.What’s the secret of your success? I like to-do lists, I work best under deadlines, I need planning. That is why there was a lot of thinking-ahead, making sure all the products will eventually tell a coherent story. Still, unpredictability is something I cherish and believe a rigid to-do list doesn’t take you far, or far enough. Sometimes, if you’re lucky, a project slowly starts to get a life on its own, taking you down a path you could not have planned ahead, no matter your planning skills. It’s at that point, I think, that you can consider the word ‘success’: coming to appreciate the process of figuring things out more than the final product alone. 4. What’s next? I graduated in November 2016, so a lot has happened since. One of the highlights was that I was given the opportunity to test myself by teaching, and I really enjoyed it. It is exciting to see how your ideas get both, picked up or challenged, and how learning is best when it is shared. Now the plan is to find an office job while hoping to take the project further in the nearby future, possibly on a PhD level.
1. How would you describe your project to your grandparents? The project is a proposal to reshape the abandoned factory village in the outskirts of Lisbon into a new configuration of public space. It challenges social, environmental and spatial difficulties we experience in our modern society. Vacant industrial areas provide space to address problems such as segregation, scarcity and unemployment. At the same time they provide the opportunity to give an important part of history back to local residents. In Beato, the area of the project, many of residents belong to the category of disadvantaged people in terms of education and employment. Involving, instead of ignoring these residents, is the starting point for the redevelopment of the site. Hence, existing industrial buildings are transformed to create inspiring and healthy learning environments, as part of a new opportunity education center. The interventions are rather simple. A number of volumes or surfaces are removed and repositioned, creating a dynamic pedestrian area. Old earthenware traditions are used to transform the industrial space into an inspiring place. Besides Portuguese warmth, affordability and environmental advantages, the Compressed Earth Bricks produced on-site promote engagement and thus integration of the site within this post-industrial village.
2. At what moment did you see the light at the end of the tunnel? The moment when I realized to keep the project as simple and clear as possible. The whole industrial site was extremely big, and for a renovation many more aspects are of importance to the design than just aesthetics and functional requirements. So simplifying was very difficult in the beginning, but the more you understand the project, the better you can filter your main goals. 3. What’s the secret of your success? Just before my graduation I moved to Rotterdam. I biked almost everyday to BK, and these moments when I was on the bike, I always got the best ideas! The other secret is I guess not focussing too much on graduation. I worked one day per week as student assistant, and often went abroad (5 times during the year, no joke!). It forced me to work efficiently and gave my thoughts some rest, brought me new ideas and gave me time to reflect on my work. 4. What is next? I went on a few proper holidays! But I also had the idea to start working and living in Antwerp, just to discover a new city and a new culture. I updated my portfolio the end of the summer, and got already a nice job at architecture firm B-architecten in September. In the office I also work on renovations, so in a way I can develop my project and interests in re-use further.