MIND THE GAP CREATE YOUR OWN MICRONATION

Arantza Ozaeta & Álvaro Martín  

SCENARIO It was heartbreaking, if not obscene…to have to imagine here, a city. i

60% of the city of London was destroyed after the Great Fire in 1666; 600 acres devastated after World War II: a razed plane as the basis for a genuinely new beginning…but now, in this rebuilt and apparently full London, we DON’T have the very strong urge of making a new beginning.ii

WHAT IS ‘UNBUILT LONDON’?

 “Unbuilt is what is not made, constructed, formed” (def). The city of London is shaped not only by what is built, but by what is unbuilt. In a world of Google Earth where we think that the world is fully mapped out, and where the inner cities seem fully built, this Unit proposes, by expanding the notion of unbuilt, a journey through the remaining hidden geographies of London – FROM ODD LOTS TO GUTTER SPACES, LEGAL GAPS AND STOPPED CONSTRUCTIONS –. This is a stunning testament to how mysterious, empty and available the city still remains today. It is a celebration of both our love of places and the desire to discover and imagine new places.

BRIEF PHYSICAL CONTEXT = UNBUILT TERRITORIES The Unit will not start from scratch, from the tabula rasa. Our cities have grown up and occupied all what is comfortably available: what is left is what is the most troublesome. We are looking for those urban territories virtually unusable but with potential, the plot of the XXI century, AREAS OF OPPORTUNITY HIDDEN to an untrained eye where the contemporary architect proposes new ways of inhabit. Because inhabit is not necessarily only construction but adaptation -ODD LOTS-; not build but place -LEGAL GAPS-; not make but recovery -STOPPED CONSTRUCTIONS-. We will act as INTRUDERS. Nothing can stop our boldness. We must fear taking something for granted. We are interested in the intruder and the intrusive, as reactive and complicitiii.

CULTURAL CONTEXT = MICRONATIONS

 How can we colonize these spaces? The program, which will drive us to speculate through these unbuilt places, will be the most complex program reduced to the minimum: a Micronation. A Micronation is a community, an entity that claims to be an independent nation or state. Current society shows an increasing wish of individual participation to the construction of the collectiveiv. So a wide range of different forms of life, cultural codes, material worlds and identities is produced. These urban tribes usually share a culture, collective awareness, stable traditions and a place. And as architects we should learn to perform what these ALTERNATIVE COMMUNITIES need to be installed in the city, their urban dynamics, and develop NEW SPATIAL MODELS according to their culture. People will inform our working frame. And the inhabitants of these places, those strong enough to love themv will become a MICRONATION.

MEDIA CONTEXT = FAKE ENTERPRISES

  “What the eye sees and the ear hears, the mind believes.” (Harry Houdini) The Unit will focus on the construction of the EVIDENCES OF THESE UNBUILT MICRONATIONS, BUT REAL in our minds. We will slide between the real and the fictional, that world between the truth and the lie, brought to reality through a BRANDING STRATEGY. It is based on the photography as -the space of the most absolute blindness- and the mass media as connective bridge with the fragile spectator. A fake enterprise, in the style of Orson Welles, with enough narrative character to inform our practice. By understanding Architecture as an environmental constructionvi as a landscape of events, a hyper-place constitute by dynamic, unfinished and evolutionary situations that offer a multiplicity of lectures and interpretations, students will explode their fantasy. Modeling this campaign, we will develop contemporary operative strategies, which will address spatial, social, economic, ecological, cultural, material and technological perspectives. This is a narrative exercise, a construction, which enriches our look by questioning it.

[Jenny  Odell:    144  Empty  Parking  Lots,  2010]  

[Kugelmugel:    Micronation  in  Vienna,  1984]  

[Orson  Welles:    War  of  the  Worlds,  1938]  

METODOLOGY & SCHEDULE

Doing something intensively and quickly requires fast movements, immediate answers and constant self-criticism. Every week, new precise instructions are provided and we follow them; we must just ‘jump in’ without knowing the result. We will discover it!

1st week: TRACK UNBUILT SPACES

 Our headquarters are the AA Buildings and we will cover an area of 1km2 around it. Here, we will track 3 kinds of unbuilt territories: 1.ODD LOTS: “gutterspace” properties -unusually small slivers of land from the city through anomalies in surveying, zoning and public works expansion. Small parcels of land hidden in-between the buildings and even on top of them. References: Odd Lots-Fake Estates, Gordon Matta-Clark, 1974 [1] and Pet Size, Atelier Bow Wow, 2003 [4].

2.LEGAL GAPS: by negotiating with regulations and exploiting the loopholes and legal voids in the city planning legislation, we can find spaces of opportunity, (a)legal and available places. References: Study for Maximum Mass Permitted by Hugh Ferris,1922 [2] and the Subversive Strategies for Urban Occupation by Santiago Cirugeda such as Containers and Scaffolding.

3.STOPPED CONSTRUCTIONS: what is not finished, what has been abandoned. References: Torre David [3], a 45-story office tower in Caracas stopped before completion. Today, it is the improvised home of a community of more than 750 families, living in an extra-legal and tenuous occupation.

Document 1 / CATALOG OF UNBUILT LONDON 2014 We will amass an archive of Google Earth captures, maps, photographs of these lands, videotapes and other documents. The compilation of this precise, multiple and diverse info will produce a collective CATALOG OF UNBUILT TERRITORIES in London 2014.

Visit 1 / José Manuel L. Ujaque

With this expert in the non-built, we will visit these forgotten spaces and learn to track hidden or unobvious unbuilt territories in LDN    

2nd week: CREATE YOUR OWN MICRONATION In order to develop operative strategies for these spaces, our program will be the production of a Micronation, which requires of 4 fundamental features: a permanent population, a place in a determined territory, a Government and the capability to establish relationships with other nations.

Document 2 / MICRONATION PROFILE We will act as Micropatrologists. We will produce a complete profile of these Micronations [5]: their inhabitants, traditions, culture codes, flags, leaders, currencies, date of foundation, maps and other facts. They will be published as an appendix of the last volume of the famous The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations (2006) [6] and we will upload their own profile to listofmicronations.com

Visit 2 / Francisco G. Triviño This PhD Architect will encourage students to speculate and embrace multiple disciplines in the definition of this singular program

3rd week: DESIGN A ‘PLACE BRANDING’

We will produce evidences of these Micronations, which help us to describe them from multiple approaches such as their history and identity (Sputnik, Joan Foncuberta) [7], cultural codes, fashion and furnitures (Pao for the Tokyo Nomad Girl, Toyo Ito) [8], technologies (The Cushicle, Archigram) [9], etc.

Document 3 / PUT A BRAND ON IT!

Based on these images, collages, mini-prototypes, texts, etc. every Micronation will develop its own “brand” to introduce itself to the world. We will start by finding what is unique about it, we will follow a naming process to find the right term to call it, a visual identity process to find the right visual identity that projects its personality and value. Ambition, communicative quality, planning, materiality and exploration of this narrative tool will be our goals. We will learn from the adrenaline rush experiences of Red Bull, the corporative culture of Google and its religion -Googlism-, Ryanair as a brand which anyone loves to hate, etc. The launch of this Micronations Branding will take place on the Final Jury where we will perform a Parliament: the 1st Convention of the ‘United AA-Micronations. Come and Join us!

Visit 3 / Cristina Gonzalez Bermejo & Andra Oprisan These Brand Strategists will introduce the main guidelines to create innovative, strong, experimental and seductive place brandings

TO FINISH, THE ORGANIZATION OF THE ‘UNITED AA MICRONATIONS’ INVITES YOU TO THEIR 1ST PARLIAMENT!

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CV & Bio

Unit Staff

Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martín head the architectural office TallerDE2 since 2007 [ www.tallerde2.com ], which makes an ongoing commitment to research and knowledge, both in training and innovative practice. 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 and Italy, where they are teaching, researching and building recent winning competitions. 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.

They have been teaching at the Architectural Association (Summer School London 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. 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 COAM Luis M. Mansilla 2013 as the Best foreign project made by a Spanish office abroad. Recently, the Spanish magazine ‘Arquitectura Viva’ 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.

Visiting Teachers

Cristina Gonzalez Bermejo and Andra Oprisan are brand strategists at Saffron, a renowned Brand consultancy responsible for creating many brands for places like the city of London, Trinidad and Tobago, Poland and East Timor, among many other commercial and non for profit brands. Saffron was founded in 2001 by Jacob Benbunan and Wally Olins, who is considered leading brand practitioner by the Finantial Times [www.saffron-consultants.com]

Francisco G. Triviño is a Spanish PhD. Architect and Teacher, an expert in “the mistake” as a potential tool usable during the design process, capable to reveal creative solutions. His intellectual approach is registered in the book “Atlas and Topology of the Error as a Productive System in Architecture”  [www.hipo-tesis.eu]

José Manuel L. Ujaque is member of MEVA and he is fully focused on processes that deal with non-built solutions. His on-going PhD. research, titled “Negative postproductions: doing (almost) nothing in architecture”, is completely committed to demonstrate the veiled existence of this different attitude within the architectural field [www.somosmeva.com]

XREF + BONNETT , Alastair: “Off the Map”. Aurum Press, 2014. + BRILLEMBOURG, Alfredo; KLUMPNER, Hubert, Urban-Think Tank Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, ETH Zurich. “Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities”. Lars Müller Publishers, 2012. + KAIJIMA, Nomoyo; KURODA, Junzo; TSUKAMOTO, Yoshiharu. “Made in Tokio”. Kajima Publishing, 2001. + KASTNER, Jeffrey; NAJAFI, Sina; RICHARD, Frances. “Odd Lots: Revisiting Gordon Matta-Clark's Fake Estates”. Cabinet, 2005. + KOOLHAAS, Rem; MAU, Bruce. “S,M,L,XL” (Exodus, or the Voluntary Prisoners of Architecture, 2-21 pgs). Monacelli Press, 1995. + LATOUR, Bruno. “Paris: Ville Invisible”. Web: www.bruno-latour.fr/virtual/index.html + ODELL, Jenny. Web: www.jennyodell.com + RYAN, John; DUNFORD, George; SELLARS, Simon. “Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations”. Lonely Planet Publications, 2006. + SHAPIRO, Jody. “How to start your own Country” (72 min Documentary). Canada, 2010. + SORIANO, Federico. “100 Hyperminimals”. Lampreave, 2009. + STRAUSS, Erwin S. “How to start your own Country”. Paladin Press, 1999.                                                                                                                                i  KOOLHAAS,  Rem;  MAU,  Bruce.  S,M,L,XL.  Monacelli  Press,  1995.  ii  KOOLHAAS,  Rem;  MAU,  Bruce.  Idem.  iii  SORIANO,  Federico.  100  Hyperminimals.  Lampreave,  2009.  iv  JAQUE,  Andres.  La  Arquitectura  es  la  Sociedad  Representada.  Archfarm  nº13,  2009.  v  KOOLHAAS,  Rem;  MAU,  Bruce.  Idem.  vi  ABALOS,  Iñaki.  La  Biennale  di  Venezia.  Spanish  Pavillion  2014.