we love CONDITIONS
Architecture design studio with Angel Alonso, Architect, aceboXalonso, Madrid
WUSTL Spring Semester
how to develop the creative potential of conditions in Architecture?
Working with imposed conditions allows a compromise with reality, which, far from paralyzing creativity, stimulates it, making evolve the idea of the architect who invents shapes into an architect who discovers shapes.
The first condition of our program will be to work on only ONE concept ever; the concept of SHAPE is proposed for the first part of the studio. For the second part, the concept will be MATTER.
The second condition will be to operate on each concept with a SINGLE REFERENCE. For the first part, the reference will be NATURE. The PROCESS will be the reference for the second part.
The third condition will be working only with the HARD thing, avoiding the virtual. In the first part the real thing will be models. The second will be technical, measurable drawings with black lines only.
ATMOSPHERE
Atmosphere, and its phenomena, are not objects, but environment. Our way of being in them is being into, immersed in them and surrounded by them. We never face them like to an object. In this respect we speak about atmosphere both as a living experience and as theoretical phenomena of investigation and manipulation.
The atmosphere is a chaotic system, so small changes to one part of the system can grow to have large effects on the system as a whole. Human attempts to control the weather have occurred throughout human history with small success, but there is positive evidence that human activity, such as agriculture and industry, has inadvertently modified weather patterns.
Meanwhile, architects work against atmosphere to protect human living space.
The reality consists of two things: objects and phenomena.The objects occupy the space, the phenomena occupies time. (Jorge Wagensberg. The revolt of the forms).
SHAPE & MATTER
We will refer to the SHAPE as a sensitive translation of the environment, using extreme environmental conditions as an opportunity to develop radical solutions that express which is the way the object is related to the landscape.
This shape will be derived from a deep knowledge of the particular environmental problems, as a boat is not the same if you sail a swamp or a restless Ocean.
This shape will be structurally un-scalar, no measures, no feature will be taken into account beyond the solicitations of each climate and each place: shade, protection from rain, temperature and water management, energy, comfort etc. will become functional and sensitive ideas at the same time.
This shape will manifest both figurative and abstract relationship with their environment.
PROPERTIES
an extensive property (also extensive quantity, extensive variable, or extensive parameter) is one that is directly proportional to the amount of material in the system. Mass, volume.
an intensive property (also called a bulk property, intensive quantity, or intensive variable), is a physical property of a system that does not depend on the system size or the amount of material in the system: it is scale invariant. Density, acceleration, temperature, hardness, elasticity, pressure melting point, these propierties remain constant whether is an ice cube or an iceberg. They’re independent of how much matter is present.
