ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION LONDON...E P A N E U R O P E A N S ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION LONDON ! IMPLOSION SAVAGE GROWTH & SHRINKAGE #2 INTERMEDIATE UNIT 4 ! O We are living in a global

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION LONDON

IMPLOSION SAVAGE GROWTH & SHRINKAGE #1 INTERMEDIATE UNIT 4

A manifestation of either savage growth or shrinkage in one place means a redistribution of densities and pressures somewhere else. In both scenarios, IMPLOSIONS – violent inward reactions – occur when the intense pressure of economic booms or stagnation can no longer be sustained.

Intermediate 4 tackles the simultaneous waxing and waning of our Shrink Age, researching both the processes of implosion in pan-European context and the ways in which we consume territory, architecture and resources.

This body of work will enable us to build a comprehensive overview of different methods within implosive European scenarios and develop a set of tools and collections of opportunities for a generation of architects that must seamlessly respond to a constantly changing global economic environment.

IMPLOSION 1. (Physics) ___________ A violent collapse inwards when inner pressure is lower than outer pressure. IMPLOSION

2. (Astrol.)___________ Abrupt decrease in size.

IMPLOSIVE PANEUROPEAN SHRINK AGE

IMPLOSIVE PANEUROPEAN S



We are living in a global Shrinking Context1: money devaluates, natural resources are drained, polar icecaps are melting, economic growth slows down, budgets get tighter, farmland is been abandoned, etc. Physical, political, economic, social and cultural boundaries are changing.

Contemporary contexts are a result of continuous fluctuation. Detection and description of emerging urban or rural conditions requires a deep study on transformation processes –such as growth and shrinkage- of the territory and players2. Growth and shrinkage have always occurred, but today these processes are savage. So their changing conditions must be described with high precision. And this kind of phenomena that can be detected on local scale, at the same time can only be understood looking into a background of global economic developments, into a global framework: a manifestation of shrinkage somewhere means a thinning process anywhere else. INTER 4’s understanding of Shrinkage drifts from a deniable side effect of growth towards an overpowering reality3, either it is something positive (and we discover a new quality of the small, the miniaturised, the modest, the slow) or it becomes a new aspect of growth (redistribution of densities). It is turning into a realistic model related to “right-sizing”4 of urban fabric, consumption and investment n

1 BOUMAN, Ole: "Shrink, Cramp, narrow-‐mindedness"(pg 12-‐13) in Archis is Shrinking. Archis #1 2004. Amsterdam, 2004. 2 FRIJTERS, Eric; VAN VEELEN, Peter: “Shrink and the city”, in Archis is Shrinking. Ibid. 3 BOUMAN, Ole: “Shrink, cramp, narrow-‐mindedness” Ibid. 4 COPPOLA, Alessandro. From Urban Renewal to the Shrinkage Culture? New planning policies in the American Rust-‐Belt (online)



"From 2050 on, world population will decrease by roughly

25% each successive generation”

ONU Low fertility variant: before 15 years, humanity fertility rate will be below the replacement level.

SCENARIO I IMPLOSIVE PANEURO

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SHRINKING BOUNDARIES _________Climate change

Ice caps melting 1981-‐2013. In the last 100 years, Earth’s temperature has increased

0,5ºC and Sea level has raised 15-‐20cm. Since the late 1980s the notion of “disappearing

States” is recognized. Certain maritime territories are

shrinking and new international disputes appear.

GROWING INTERESTS Territorial reclaim _________ The status of certain portions of the Arctic Sea Region is in dispute for various reasons. Border countries regard parts of the Arctic Seas as National Waters (22 km). There are also disputes regarding what passages constitute International Seaways and rights to passage along them.

GROWING FLOWS ________Global Economy Air transport industry has

experimented a continuous growth since he beginning of

the commercial transport, with a great demand for air

travel of the commercial transport, especially since the explosion of low cost companies. Today, every minute there are 11,000

aeroplanes in the air.

SJRINKING SPACE Interior reclaim ________ Minimum seat dimensions -‐according to the Mandatory Requirements for Airworthiness-‐ has changed by reducing the minimum distance between seats in aeroplanes. Companies are nowadays focused on testing new ways of increasing the number of passengers per flight.



SHRINKING CITIES ___________Urban Shrinkage Between 1995 and 2010, the

number of shrinking cities increases by 330% (faster than the numbers of Boomtowns). In the last 50 years, about 370 cities with more than 100,000 residents have temporarily or

lastingly undergone population losses of more than 10%. In

extreme cases, the rate of loss reached peaks of up to 90% .

GROWING DENSITY Housing reclaim _______ Thermal imaging cameras rebuilds shocking extent of illegal “beds in sheds” housing for immigrants built by rogue landlords. More than 1,000 people are living in these conditions paying around £55 per week in Harrow, London.

GROWING INDIVIDUALITY ________________Social Shift

Higher development of countries is related to the global phenomenon of the

increase in one-‐person housing for single residents. Internet

and social networks encourage a recent domestic option,

which probes that ‘living alone doesn’t mean living alone’. In

UK around 40% of current homes are occupied by single

people.

SHRINKING DOMESTICITY Housing reclaim _____ The average new British home is now just 925 square feet –barely half the size they were in the 1920s. The British house size has shrunk. Overall Britain now has the smallest homes on average in Europe.



The European debt crisis follows the general economic decline in world markets (Great Recession) related to the US financial crisis that started at the end of 2007. Since then, certain countries acquired high debt levels and new migratory movements of population, money and power appears, changing the European territory meaningfully. Today Europe Union (EU) travels at multiple speeds. LEADING countries follow a steady growth while the CRISIS countries and EMERGING countries experience an imbalanced growth (shrinkage or enlargement).

Both economic growth and stagnation develop pathologies on the ways we inhabit our environments5 that take place both in cities and countryside. So we will address a 3 years agenda that will be based on the study of 3 main case studies: the loss of our ability to inhabit certain spaces and developments within the cities [1], the emptying –and silent transformation- of rural areas [2], and the disappearance of cities [3].

Through this research we collectively define a number of urgencies and try to formulate their relevance for the future of Europe This year INTER 4 will focus on the loss of our ability to inhabit certain spaces and developments within the cities. LONDON is experimenting both an uncontrolled growth, and a slow burning6. This dual scenario shows the city as the perfect first case study, one of the best places to understand the ways the world cities are changing and the ways we inhabit this new urban spaces n

5 Notion of Thinning. KOOLHAAS, Rem; DE GRAAF, Reinier: Educational program for the Strelka Institute Winter 2010/11. 6 MOORE, Rowan: Slow Burn City. London in the 21st century. Picador, London, 2016

"London next challenge is facing its own implosion”

Mayor of London’s Interview 2016



SCENARIO II IMPLOSIVE PANEUROPE



"London next challenge is facing its own implosion”

Mayor of London’s Interview 2016



INTER 4 will develop a collective understanding of the ways in which we CONSUME territory [1], city [2], architecture [3] and resources [4] nowadays7, as well as a set of strategies to operate with them.

By understanding Architecture as an environmental construction –a hyper place constituted by dynamic, unfinished and evolutionary situations– students will convert their fantasies into a connection of Skinny Systems [4] that builds up unique Scale-Less Buildings [3], in the way of systematic, flexible and adaptable proposals for Slim Citizens [2] that inhabit certain Thinning Territories [2] Ecologically Intensified [1] within the city of London. Final projects will be based on precise data of current reality and launched into an immediate future. They will slide between the fictional and the real, as a way of speculation on these emerging and implosive scenarios.

7 SORIANO, Federico. Fisuras de la Cultura Contemporánea #18-‐19. Shrink-‐Encoger. Madrid, 2016. ProLab: www.encoger.org

"Size does matters” Archis #1 2004. Archis is Shrinking


IMPLOSIVE PANEUROPEAN

AGENDA IMPLOSIVE PANEUROPEAN



1 / TERRITORY

ECOLOGICAL INTENSIFICATION Our first implosive scenario consists on those territories ecologically productive8 that are inserted within the city. These territories are suffering an intense pressure due to our savage inner urban growth. STRATEGIES 1.1/ ECOTONES AS A SITE

It is heart breaking, if not obscene to have to imagine here, a city (Rem Koolhaas, SMLXL, 1995)

Urban fabric of cities includes a powerful network of green spaces that coexists together with the built landscape. Parks, woodlands, wetlands, gardens, groves, brownfield sites, and other semi-natural habitats and areas reclaimed by nature. We will act in these -apparently untouchable and overprotected- urban environments. We are interested in the double condition -manufactured and natural- of these environments with its own cycles of generation and decay. We will focus on the ecological interest of these urban sites, specially those areas of interaction among -human and no human- ecosystems (ecotones) where intensity of components is maximum. 1.2/ EXPERTIZATION: MIGRATION OF TECHNIQUES

'Nature' is simply another 18th and 19th century fiction (Robert Smithson, 1968)

We understand ‘nature’ as a product, a projection of humanity. Therefore, since it is a design, it can be manipulated and changed, and by establishing new strategic relationships with this reality of London, we will build up new protocols of design. Processes defined through diverse time scales and whose management recognises change as inevitable. We pursue a migration of concepts and techniques from Environmental Sciences, because they give consistent responses within a context simultaneously natural and artificial9. So, we will talk about Architecture in terms of dynamic understanding of elements, growth models, entropy, lifespan, methods of ecological control, dynamics of occupation and levels of integration.

8 The Ecological Footprint is a measure of human impact on Earth's ecosystems. It measures the supply of and demand on nature. Since 1970, humanity’s annual demand exceeds what Earth can generate each year. In fact, today Earth requieres 1 year and 6 months to regenerate what we consume in 1 year. This tool represents the area of ecologically productive territory required to provide the renewable resources a determined population -‐with a specific life stile-‐ is using and to absorb its waste. 9 Iñaki ÁBALOS. Naturaleza y Artificio. El ideal Pintoresco en la Arquitectura y el Paisajismo Contemporáneos, Gustavo Gili, Barcelona, 2009.

AA Sum

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LONDON A NATIONAL PARK CITY10 The city of London can be considered as the world’s largest urban forest with 8 millions of trees. More than 13.000 species -including humans-, inhabit 3.000 parks, 30.000 allotments, 3 million of gardens and 2 National Nature Reserves. Green space in Central London covers 47% of its area. It includes 8 Royal Parks, a large number of council-owned parks, many small garden squares (100 only in Kensington and Chelsea), and greenways such as Thames Path. A wide variety of wildlife inhabits London because it contains a great mixture of different ecological conditions. Foxes inhabit the city since the 40s, and today there are more than 10.000. We can find squirrels and badgers in garden squares and backyards; deer on city outskirts; Otters in wasteland areas and canals; pigeons, gulls and peregrine falcons flying over the city. Tall buildings, abundant food sources and a lack of predators make London a natural habitat for many birds and animals.

10 “47 per cent of London is green space: Is it time for our capital to become a national park?” Daniel Raven-‐Ellison, Independent website. September 2014/ “Urban Wildlife: when animals go wild in the city”, Adam Vaughan, The Guardian website. March 2008/ Atlas of Novel Tectonics, Reiser + Umemoto, Princeton Arch. Press 2006.

TAGS ECOLOGY – ECOTONE – ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT – ENTROPY –GARDEN – GARDENER – LIFESPAN – NATURE/FICTION - NEW NATURALNESS – HUMANS&NO HUMANS – OASIS – WILDLIFE

ECOLOGY – ECOTONE – ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT –

AA Summer School 2016. Unit 2 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Sublime Oasis In-‐transit: Ancient Woodlands



2/ CITY THINNING TERRITORIES

Contemporary contexts are a result of continuous fluctuation; a manifestation of shrinkage somewhere means a thinning process anywhere else11. INTER 4 will track those thinning territories. Thinning is related to a declination of the intensity of use of land and our ability to inhabit architecture. This concept has been pointed out as one of critical worldwide issues for Architecture nowadays by Rem Koolhaas in the Strelka Institute, and this agenda pursues a deeper understanding focusing on the loss of our ability to inhabit certain spaces and developments within the city of London. Thinning implies multiple dimensions12 : geography, economy, society, politics and culture. It produces situations such as the increased number of single citizens, the shrinkage of average home in cities, the proliferation of Japanese pet architecture, the extinction of certain physical formats of technology, the abandonment of squares by hyper-connected citizens, we share more and own less, etc.

STRATEGIES

2.1/ RECLAIMING TERRITORIES OFF-THE-MAP

It was heart breaking, if not obscene…to have to imagine here, a city (Rem Koolhaas, SMLXL, 1995)

In the era of Google Earth, where we think that the world is fully mapped out and where the inner cities seem fully built, this Unit proposes a journey through the remaining hidden geographies of European Cities. This is a stunning testament to how mysterious, empty and available the city still remains today13. It is a celebration of both our love of places and the desire to discover and imagine new places. The Unit will not start from scratch, from the tabula rasa. 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 inhabiting is not necessarily only construction but adaptation -Odd Lots-; not building but placing -Legal Gaps-; not making but recovering -Stopped Constructions-; not

11 Notion of “Thinning” by KOOLHAAS, Rem; DE GRAAF, Reinier: Educational program for the Strelka Institute Winter 2010/11. 12 JUN, JIANG: “Thinning Intro” in Strelka’s Studio Report: The manifold nature of thinning in Russia: from smaller conurbations to shrinking cities. Directors: Joseph Grima and Jiang Jun. Moscú, 2010/11. 13 BONNETT , Alastair: “Off the Map”. Aurum Press, 2014.

AA Summer School 2013. Unit 5 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Inverse London: an utopian cartography

Gordon

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taking for granted but negotiating –Spaces of Exception-; not creating but occupying –Ephemeral Places. 2.2/ RE-ACTIONS

“What can I do with?” (Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproducción, 2009)

Building up is not the starting point in this context. The key is how territories, objects, infrastructures and materials can be reduced, recovered and removed. We should not wonder "What's the new I can do?” but "What can I do with?”14 Such a shift of model has to develop not only new materials and constructive methods, but also different notions of client, uses and investment.

INTER 4 is interested on the architectural actions related to this emerging culture and the new parameters required by shrinking contexts to develop a new set of operative tools for the contemporary Architect. Because inhabiting is not only construction but also adaptation; not only building up but also placing; not only enlargement but also recovery. INTER 4 will reclaim RE-actions15 such as: reduce, remove, retrieve, refurbish, remediate, reuse, and recycle. LONDON A THINNING CITY London is experimenting both an uncontrolled growth, and a slow burning. This Implosive scenario unveils certain spaces and developments that we as citizens are not able to inhabit, spaces where the intensity of use shrinks.

. There are more Londoners than ever: 8,6 millions. And by 2020, they will be more than 10 millions. The city requires 50,000 new dwellings per year, and only 30,000 are built up. . London is a tax haven in the heart of Britain. 1 of 10 dwellings of the inner city belongs to foreigner companies. In 2013, no-British buyers acquired 85% of new dwellings. . With an important lack of social housing, affordable homes are infiltrated into blingy glass towers, appearing “poor doors” properties. A 40-sq.m studio in a tower costs 600,000 pounds. In 4 years, only those earning 106,000 pounds per year will be able to buy a modest dwelling in the city. Iceberg Homes appears. . 70% of illegal immigrants of UK live in London. This constitutes an invisible city of 600,000 inhabitants. For 55 pounds, they can rent a “Bed in Shed” in one of the crowded gardens of Harrow.

14 BOURRIAUD, Nicolas. Postproducción. Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo, 2009. 15 a+t Re-‐Processes. “Reclaim: domestic actions” #41-‐42, “Reclaim: remediate, reuse, recycle” #39-‐40. a+t Arch. Publishers, 2012-‐2013.

TAGS ODD LOTS - LEGAL GAPS - STOPPED CONSTRUCTIONS - SPACES OF EXCEPTION - EPHEMERAL PLACES - RECLAIM - REDUCE - REMOVE – RETRIEVE - REFURBISH - REMEDIATE – REUSE - RECYCLE - OFFTHEMAP

ODD LOTS - LEGAL GAPS - STOPPED CONSTRUCTIO

AA Summer School 2013. Unit 5 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Inverse London: ergonomic landscapes. Workshop Lotocoho



3/ CITY-ZENS SLIM CITY16 With the scale, the accessibility and the immediacy of contemporary global displacements, we have developed a more “liquid”17 relationship with places and people. We live in constant flux and we inhabit a global flow. A new social creature emerges from this global and increasily mobile world. Our identity is not defined through an own place or an own stuff, but we live on the go and we have fewer belongings and more sharing. Our relationship to time, to place and to other people is different. Environment provides us with what we need, and no matter where we are we can create our own “emotional space” without any place restriction18. INTER 4 will track these mobile populations moving among settled populations. They have been called nomads, migrants, travellers, neo-Bedouins, etc. but we will update this concept in terms of current (hyper)connectivity. They are “Citizens In-transit” -such as Snowbirds, Digital nomads, Urban Campers, Expatriates, Third Culture Kids, Techno-Bedouins or Perpetual Travellers. STRATEGIES 3.1/ INFORMATION BUILDS-UP PROJECTS & COLLECTIONS

Even the most striated city gives rise to smooth spaces: to live in the city as a nomad, or as a cave dweller (G. Deleuze & F. Guattari, 1987)

Information constructs a Project. Everything becomes data or can be used as data: documents, numbers, interviews, images, journalistic articles, photographs… We must be exhaustive and precise, and we should avoid being guided by appearances. We need to understand context in its entirety so we can act precisely and position our projects in a determined place, with a determined economy and a determined program7. We will build collections and explore the format of atlas-inventories-catalogues, as group of objects under a personal criteria or categories that have both intellectual and aesthetical interest. A collector becomes a maniac sometimes, because this process of looking and finding can turns into an obsession!

16 Capture of the computational notion of SLIM: Slim Clients are stateless desktop devices. It is a lightweight computer that is purpose-‐built for remote access to a server. 17 Zygmunt BAUMAN. Liquid Modernity, Polity Press, Cambridge, 2000. Text: “Individual and society in the liquid modernity” by Emma Palese. 18 Widianto UTOMO. Urban Nomads. A lifestyle transformation from passive to fully mobile integrated being, 2002.

AA Summer School 2016. Unit 2 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Sublime Oasis In-‐transit: In-‐transis Londoners

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3.1/ SPECIALISTS UP FOR NEGOTIATION

The current practice of Architecture could resemble the expedition to the South Pole by Roald Amundsen that joined together a dog keeper, a sleigh driver, a harpooner and a skiing champion as fellow travellers. Nowadays we share our working table with agronomists, chemists, politicians, sociologists, advertising executives, anthropologists, etc. with whom we build complete architectural realities. We pursue multiplicity of lectures of the underlying situations in order to cover an entire field. So every student will go DEEP AND NARROW in the research of a specific topic, acquiring his own role and becoming SPECIALIST. We look for links and connections that spontaneously join distant positions. And our unit is understood as A COMMON TABLE UP FOR NEGOTIATION -a fertile territory for playwrights- where all the specialists are linked horizontally together in a shared framework to COVER A FIELD ENTIRELY. LONDON A SLIM CITY Sony's Walkman planted the notion that music can be mobile. The BlackBerry made e-mail on the go seems normal since 1999. The personal-computer era started in the 1980s with Apple's commercialisation of the “graphical user interface” and the mobile era exploded in 2007 whit the iPhone and its user-friendly touch interface. Today, Cloud computing, that provides shared processing resources and data on demand, becomes a super-intensive and hyper-connected system that is used by 80% of world’s population. London is constantly reshaped by new waves and changing tides of human migrants. The city is a valuable pit-stop for this rolling citizens19 that re-shape culture because of its mobility. Surfers stay in the same (summer) place by moving in sequence with climatic progression, in order to stay in the same temperature year round (an endless summer). Offshore havens facilitate a new form of cartographical expertise to locate funds in legal subsidiaries by an ingenious planning of migration routes for funds. Retirees, workers tied to seasonal tourism or people suffering from seasonal affective disorder avoid cold temperatures of northern winter and invade Mediterranean Area. Avoiding citizenship, Perpetual Travellers pass through different countries fast enough that they don’t become legal resident status so no have legal obligations.

19 Notion of Rolling Society/City proposed by Andrés Jaque in the project “Rolling House For The Rolling Society” [www.andresjaque.net]

TAGS MIGRANTS - NOMADS - PERIPATETIC - ROLLING - PITSTOP - FLOW – STOCK - WANDERLUST - MOBILITY - TRANSIT SPACE – LIQUID

ECOLOGY – ECOTONE – ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT – E

AA Summer School 2014. Unit 2 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Mind the Gap!: Guide of London Micronations



4/ ARCHITECTURE

SCALESS BUILDINGS INTER4 will slide between the real and the fictional to define the identities of these new territories and inhabitants. By understanding architecture as an environmental construction – a HYPER PLACE constituted by dynamic, unfinished and evolutionary situations – students will convert their fantasies into an explosive network of unique scale-less buildings; systematic, flexible and adaptable working frames that together inform the implosive processes of our time.

STRATEGIES 4.1/ SCALESS BUILDING: CONSTRUCTING DIAGRAMS ON FULL SCALE “To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete” (Buckminster Fuller)

In the today's fluctuating context, we do not propose forms but processes. City evolves and so our proposals. TIME is included as a parameter of design. We don't understand buildings as ‘genius’ ideas but we propose SYSTEMS, because we pursue to design projects as flexible and adaptable working frames where obstacles are understood not as problems but as challenges. We design timelines, main parameters and protocols of development, instructions, recipes, etc. This systematic feature of a project becomes a powerful COMMUNICATIVE TOOL, which allows us to establish complex process of negotiation. Understandable and adaptable systems make a project accessible to other experts and users; on this way, all the agents involved in the architectural event can participate on its definition. That is how we work in our practice.

4.4/ PLACE BRANDING: A NARRATIVE TOOL “In the twenty first century, we must learn to look at the cities not as skylines bur as Brandscapes, and at buildings not as objects but as advertisements and destinations” (Anna Kingmann20). By using the technique of PLACE BRANDING, as a process of image communication, we will detect and express visually the authentic and credible personality of a culture in a place. 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. Ambition, communicative quality, planning, materiality and exploration of this narrative tool will be our goals.

20 KINGMANN, Anna. Brandscapes: Architecture in the experience of economy. MIT Press, 2007.

Traffic of expectation in Lentic waters. AASS2016. Carlos Diaz del Rio & Malene Vinther



5/ RESOURCES

SKINNY SYSTEMS INTER 4 will focus Technical Studies on 2 main ideas: extended notion of material and skinny systems. TS submission will include disciplinary documents that specifically deal with these understandings. 5.1/ EXTENDED NOTION OF MATERIAL

Material itself can be considered as an object of design. Reading a material as a cumulus of quantifiable physical properties (density, temperature, weight, etc.) together with economy or legal conditions will unveil overlapping, intensification and shrinking as design strategies21. An extended understanding of Material considers its vital process from its production states to its useful lifespan, its degradation and its future reuse or recycling22. Sustainability is understood here as a long-term working frame which allows us to foresee optimum manipulations and uses for each state. 5.2/ SKINNY SYSTEMS Material Systems unveils the relevant ideas that constitutes the project: the technological capacity of certain economy, the physical qualities of surrounding context, the relationship between user and environment, interchange between inner and outer space, etc.

The electronic reality that surrounds us –phones, tablets, laptops, and screens- has established a new architecture of thinness and connectivity23. Skinny always means more skinny than normal. To be skinny requires a change in the usual constrains of budget, technology, material and regulation. It depends on parameters such as thickness, or fatness, or density. This kind of thinness requires sophisticated systems and solutions in order to get an appearance of the minimum. This strategy is focused on usable elements (such as interior partitions, supply pipes and ducts, shafts, etc.) and it pursues the optimization of acoustic, insulating, organizational and connective features of the architectural elements.

21 See reference projects by Philippe Rahm (Lyon Spa, 2008) and SANAA (Novartis Offices, 2006) 22 See reference projects by Cedric Price, Herzog & de Meuron (notion of material degradation in Rèmy Zaugg Studio, 1997) and Alexander Brodsky (Vodka Pavilion, 2006). 23 WIGLEY, Mrk: “How thin is thin?”, in El Croquis #179/180 SANAA Continuity Systems. 2015

AA Summer School 2015. Unit 2 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Ordinary Eccentricity: London as a food productive landscape

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AA Summer School 2015. Unit 2 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Ordinary Eccentricity: London as a food productive landscape



ACCUMULATIVE CONTINUUM CABINET OF WONDERS As creative explorers and cultural practitioners, we will collect evidence of these implosive realities and their inhabitants. Everything becomes data –documents, numbers, graphics, interviews, maps, images, objects, artefacts about climatology, history, politics, economics, art, technique, etc. Day by day, we will build up our CABINET OF WONDERS: an encyclopaedic collection of (extraordinary) objects that attempt to tell stories about the wonders and oddities of the (selected) world, of our Unit Microcosms. This is both an operative and accumulative tool, an ideological as well as technical construction. We will define it by an overlap of successive states24, and we will adopt an expertise role and use a different narrative tool per state. SPECULATIVE CONTINUUM FICTIONALIZATION OF REAL FANTASIES “What the eye sees and the ear hears, the mind believes.” (Harry Houdini) Final projects will be based on precise data of current reality and launched into an immediate future. They will slide between the fictional and the real, as a way of speculation on these emerging and implosive scenarios. We will build up a succession of projective moments that will be arranged in a continuous and common WALLPAPER: a visual masterpiece between the fictional and the distilled real fragments of our cabinets, an artificial landscape where fiction and collection collide25. Horizon and scale are multiple, manipulating frame and disrupting linear sequence. 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 construction26 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.

NARRATIVE CONTINUUM CONSTRUCTION OF INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARIES This Wallpaper will be considered a performative space, sensitive and reactive. And we will explore its narrative potential by turning into an INTERACTIVE DOCUMENTARY: an interface –either analogical or digital- that provides an in-depth tour through our respective “Implosive Realities”, including texts, images and even videos to enrich the storytelling. We will establish a systematical and interconnective articulation of those projective and architectural moments, pursuing that hypermedia transgresses the logical boundaries of physical space/time/frame. We will build up our Portfolios in the way of a complex system of individual events that are infrastructurally assembled. Finally, we will film one of the possible journeys in an uninterrupted shot of 10 minutes that constitutes an entire scene.

24 “Plan and Section”, Federico Soriano. In SORIANO, Federico: 100 Hypermínimos. Lampreave, Madrid, 2009. 25 OMA/AMO 2016 SS Prada Real Fantasies. Project description [www.oma.eu] 26 ABALOS, Iñaki. La Biennale di Venezia. Spanish Pavillion 2014.

INTER 4 PORTFOLIO PRODUCTION AS A CONTINUUM


AA Summer School 2015. Unit 2 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin

Ordinary Eccentricity: Cookbook

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AA Summer School 2016. Unit 2 Masters: Arantza Ozaeta & Alvaro Martin Sublime Oasis In-‐transit: a brave appropriation of the London green and wildlife

continuum as a potential habitat for contemporary and connective migrant citizens.

www.sublimeoasisintransit.com



TUTORIALS will take place twice weekly throughout the year (Monday/Tuesday and Fridays). Schedule will be announced. TECHNICAL STUDIES

INTER 4 will focus Technical Studies on 2 main ideas: extended notion of material and skinny systems. TS submission will include disciplinary documents that specifically deal with these understandings. See Agenda point [5] Skinny Systems. FIELD WORK/ TRIP

A trip to Germany will be arranged on the open week of the 2nd Term. There ,we will track pathologies on the ways we inhabit our environments that take place both in cities and countryside. So we will focus our visits on 3 main case studies: the loss of our ability to inhabit certain spaces and developments within the cities [BERLIN], the emptying –and silent transformation- of rural areas [RUHR VALLEY], and the disappearance of cities [BAVARIA].

Through this research we collectively define a number of urgencies and try to formulate their relevance for the future of Europe. We will combine visits to mayor examples of Architecture (OMA, SANAA, Hejduck, Chipperfield, Hundertwasser, etc) with urban drifts and a Workshop of Porcelain Prototyping in “The Capital of Porcelain” (Bavaria).

VISITS, GUESTS & WORKSHOPS (tbc) ECOLOGICAL INTENSIFICATION + WILDLIFE GARDEN and CENTRE OF UK BIODIVERSITY, visit to the Natural History Museum, with more than 2.600 species of British flora and fauna. + THE GREATER LONDON NATIONAL PARK CITY: through this campaign we will understand London as the world's first National Park City. We will be explorers at the way of Daniel Raven-Ellison, and will follow research about the capital's wildlife and wild spaces by London Wildlife Trust. THINNING TERRITORIES + WORKSHOP BLOCKBUSTER SLIM CITY + IGNACIO GONZÁLEZ-GALÁN: Architect and Chief Curator of 2016 Oslo Architecture Triennale. He will introduce “After Belonging”, a transforming condition of belonging that examines both our attachment to places and collectivities as well as our relation to the objects we own, share, and exchange. SKINNY SYSTEMS + WORKSHOP PORCELAIN SKINNY PROTOTYPES in Germany (Unit Trip). CABINET OF WONDERS + SIR JOHN SOANE’S MUSEUM: visit to this surprising ‘cabinet of curiosities’ in London. The historic house, museum and library of distinguished 19th century architect Sir John Soane, filled with his exceptional collection -artworks, sculptures, furniture and artefacts. PLACE-BRANDING + JEFFREY LUDLOW: Creative director of 2x4 Madrid, will explain the design system –brand, experience and identity- of their Wallpaper concept for the Prada Broadway Epicenter store –“Trembled Blossoms”-, as part of the project 2016 SS Prada Real Fantasies by OMA/AMO.

INTER 4 UNIT WORK

IMPLOSIVE PANEUROPEAN SHRI



INTER 4 works as if in a LABORATORY where creativity is a result of experimentation. We could take risks without fear of mistakes: launch and discard hypotheses as opposed to collecting and relating data. Firstly, it consists of a movement from the laboratory to the real world, the ‘outside’, where a phenomenon will be caught and brought to the laboratory. This new material, free of its outer inputs, will reveal its own nature.2

INTER 4 celebrates a continuous FEAST. The unit is an alive project itself in which each guest at table seems to act individually, but everyone is perfectly coordinated with the whole group to perform the act of ‘having lunch’. There are rules of respect, distance, rhythm, field of action, consumption, etc. that allow a spontaneous coordination. This is a sort of choreography in which each movement and decision is exposed to other agents in this common working space. In this way, public debate appears constantly. We look for links and connections that spontaneously join distant disciplines. . Table: All students take their places around this common working table where they interact and they are in close contact with each other work all the time. This physical coexistence generates a constant debate: arguments and agreements, rejection and needs, problems and solutions, questions and answers. . Cover: Architects don't invent programs, but we generate situations that allow the rise of programmatical conditions.3 Each week we cover the table with a different “tablecloth”: a set of precise instructions that trigger the activity that takes place in this common space; is a provocative type of occupancy that is studied in its radical extreme. We just ‘jump in’ without knowing the result. We will discover it! . Table Guests: as there are vegetarians, carnivores, vegans, etc. each “guest” acquires a different role in the working table. Personal approaches are understood as a field of expertise: keep eccentric! . Ingredients: Our “ingredients” are not invented from scratch; they are PRECOOKED because our starting point is a protocol of action based on post-production, as a way of working. Here the leitmotiv is: ‘we use what is given, we re-program what has been stopped: reality is filled with things’.4 Nowadays, in light of oversaturation and over construction, it is not so much what can I do that is new? but what can I do with what I have? 5 We don't need to produce but consume what it has just been produced. It is not a matter of demolishing or even rebuilding. The aim is to continue: adjust, remove, reduce, implement. . Protocol: This is an open process without a single final result, but we produce partial results each day and all of them have the same relevance.

INTER 4 UNIT SIGNATURE A FEAST IN A LAB

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

SCENARIO

+ “Archis is Shrinking”. Archis #1 2004. Amsterdam, 2004. + AURELI, Pier Vittorio: “Less is enough: on Architecture and Asceticism”. Strelka Press, 2013. + BOUMAN, Ole: "Shrink, Cramp, narrow-mindedness" in “Archis is Shrinking”. Ibid (pg 12-13) + COPPOLA, Alessandro. "From Urban Renewal to the Shrinkage Culture? New planning policies in the American Rust-Belt" (online) + GOODBUN, Jon; KLEIN, Michael; RUMPFHUBER, Andreas; TILL, Jeremy: “The Design of Scarcity”, Strelka Press, 2014. + OODJUN, JIANG: “Thinning Intro” in Strelka’s Studio Report: The manifold nature of thinning in Russia: from smaller conurbations to shrinking cities”. Directors: Joseph Grima and Jiang Jun. 2010/11. + KOOLHAAS, Rem; DE GRAAF, Reinier: Educational program for the Strelka Institute Winter 2010/11. + LACATON, Anne; VASSAL, Jean-Philippe; DRUOT, Fréderic: “PLUS - Les grands ensembles de logements - Territoires d'exception”. GG. Barcelona, 2004. + OSWALT, Philipp: RIENIETS, Tim: “Atlas der schrumpfenden Städte/Atlas of Shrinking Cities”. 2006. Online: www.shrinkingcities.org + SORIANO, Federico. “Shrink-Encoger”. Fisuras de la Cultura Contemporánea #18-19. Madrid, 2016 ProLab: www.encoger.org > The Incredible Shrinking Man. Jack Arnold, 1957. > “Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of balance”. G Reggio, 1982 * www.shrinkingcities.org

AGENDA

ECOLOGICAL INTENSIFICATION + ÁBALOS, Iñaki. “Naturaleza y Artificio”, GG, 2009. + LONDON WILD TRUST & GIGL research: “Wild Spaces”, by Gemma Hallam and Mathew Frith; “London Garden City?”, by Chloë Smith 2010; “For a Wilder City”, 2015-2020. + ODUM, Thomas Howards: “The Prosperous Way Down. Principles and Policies”. Univ. Press Colorado, 2001. * www.footprintnetwork.org

THINNING TERRITORIES + a+t Re-Processes. “Reclaim: domestic actions” #41-42, “Reclaim: remediate, reuse, recycle” #39-40. a+t Arch. Publishers, 2012-2013. + BONNETT, Alastair: “Off the Map”. Aurum Press, 2014. + BOURRIAUD, Nicolás: “Postproducción”. Buenos Aires: Adriana Hidalgo, 2009. + BRILLEMBOURG, Alfredo; KLUMPNER, Hubert, Urban-Think Tank Chair of Architecture and Urban Design, ETH Zurich. “Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities”. Lars Müller Publishers, 2012. + KOOLHAAS, Rem; Harvard GSD: “Project On The City I-II”. Taschen, 2002.

SLIM CITY + DIDI-HUBERMAN, Georges: Atlas, ¿cómo llevar el mundo a cuestas? MNCARS, 2010. + BAUMAN, Zygmunt. “Liquid Modernity”. Polity, 2000.

+ MAKIMOTO Tsugio, MANNERS David. “Digital Nomad”. Wiley, 1997. + RYAN, John; DUNFORD, George; SELLARS, Simon. “Micronations: The Lonely Planet Guide to Home-Made Nations”. Lonely Planet Publications, 2006. SCALESS BUILDINGS + KINGMANN, Anna. “Brandscapes: Architecture in the experience of economy”. MIT Press, 2007. SKINNY SYSTEMS + WIGLEY, Mrk: “How thin is thin?”, In El Croquis #179/180 “SANAA Continuity Systems”. 2015 + EASTERLING, Keller. “Extrastatecraft: the power of infrastructure space”. Verso, 2014. + KAIJIMA, Nomoyo; KURODA, Junzo; TSUKAMOTO, Yoshiharu. “Made in Tokio”. Kajima Publishing, 2001. PORTFOLIO + CALLE, Sophie and AUSTER, Paul. “Double Game”. Violette, 1999. + FONTCUBERTA, Joan. “The Kiss of Judas. Photography and truth”. GG, Barcelona, 1997. + MCLUHAN, Marshall; FIORE, Quentin; “The Medium is the Massage: an inventory of effects”. Bantam books, 1967. > GREY LONDON. Spot “The Sundays Time Icons” 2014. > RYBCZYNSKI, Zbigniew. “Tango”. Poland 1980. > SOKÚROV Aleksandr. “Russian Ark”. 2002. * VAN HUIJSTEE, Pieter: “Jheronimus Bosch, The Garden of Earthly Delights” Interactive Documentary.



SCHEDULE

TERM 1

1/ TERRITORY: ECOLOGICAL INTENSIFICATION WEEK 2 OCT 3-7 Studio Introduction. Collective discussion Seminar 1.1/ ECOTONES AS A SITE

WEEK 3 OCT 10-14 Individual Tutorials Internal Unit presentation

WEEK 4 OCT 17-21 Seminar 1.2/ EXPERTIZATION: MIGRATION OF TECHNIQUES Individual Tutorials

WEEK 5 OCT 24-28 Workshop Review of work 2/ CITY: THINNING TERRITORIES WEEK 6 OCT 31-NOV 4 – OPEN WEEK Seminar 2.1/ RECLAIMING TERRITORIES OFF-THE-MAP Undergraduate Open Jury / Open Day

WEEK 7 NOV 7-11 Individual Tutorials

WEEK 8 NOV 14-18 Seminar 2.2/ RE-ACTIONS Individual Tutorials

WEEK 9 NOV 14-18 Workshop Review of work 3/ CITY-ZENS: SLIM CITY WEEK 10 NOV 28-DEC 2 Seminar 3.1/ INFO BUILDS-UP PROJECT & COLLECTIONS Individual Tutorials

WEEK 11 DEC 4-9 Tutorials Friday DEC 9 Complimentary Studies Hand-in 1pm

WEEK 12 DEC 4-9 Seminar 3.2/ SPECIALISTS UP FOR NEGOCIATION Pre-break Final review

TERM 2

4/ARCHITECTURE: SCALESS BUILDINGS WEEK 1 JAN 9-13 Review of work Seminar 4.1/ SCALESS BUILDING

WEEK 2 JAN 16-20 Individual Tutorials Review of work

WEEK 3 JAN 23-27 Seminar 4.2/ PLACE BRANDING: A NARATIVE TOOL Individual Tutorials

WEEK 4 JAN 30-FEB 3 Workshop Review of work WEEK 5 FEB 6-10 – OPEN WEEK UNIT TRIP Undergraduate Open Jury / Open Day 5/RESOURCES: SKINNY SYSTEMS WEEK 6 FEB 13-17 Seminar 5.1/ EXTENDED NOTION OF MATERIAL Individual Tutorials

WEEK 7 FEB 20-24 Seminar 5.2/ SKINNY SYSTEMS Individual Tutorials

WEEK 8 FEB 27-MAR 3 Individual Tutorials Review of work

WEEK 9 MAR 6-10 TS3 Submission

WEEK 10 MAR 13-17 2nd Year Table Previews

WEEK 11 MAR 20-24 3rd Year Table Previews Thursday MAR 23 2ND Y Complimentary Studies Hand-in 1pm Pre-break Final review Monday MAR 27 3RD Y Complimentary Studies Hand-in 1pm

TERM 3

WEEK 1 APR 24-28 Tuesday APR 25 TS3 Final Submission Review of work Individual Tutorials

WEEK 2 MAY 1-5 Individual Tutorials



WEEK 5 MAY 22-26 Individual Tutorials FINAL JURIE

WEEK 6 MAY 29-JUN 2 Individual Tutorials

WEEK 7 JUN 5-9 2nd END OF YEAR REVIEWS

WEEK 8 JUN 12-16 3rd INTERMEDIATE PART 1 (FINAL CHECK)

WEEK 9 JUN 19-23 Tuesday JUN 20 External Examiners: AA Intermediate Examination / (ARB/RIBA Part 1) Friday JUN 23 AA Graduation Awards Ceremony Opening of END OF YEAR EXHIBITION



Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martin head the architecture 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 pursuing the materialization of unusual discoveries. 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. They studied architecture at the TU Delft of The Netherlands and at the Madrid Polytechnic ETSAM. They have been teaching at the Architectural Association London (Summer School 2016/ 2015 / 2014 / 2013), Politecnico di Milano (Italy), Hochschule Coburg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), FCU (Taiwan), Ural State Technical University of Ekaterimburg (Russia), and the Architectural Polytechnic University of Madrid (Spain), where currently teach as Associate Professor. Arantza Ozaeta and Alvaro Martín completed work covers from Urban Regeneration Masterplans (Europan 9, Germany) to Public Facilities (Haus der Tagesmütter, Selb); from Ephemeral Urban Installations (Green Cave, Bilbao) to Domestic Spaces (The Meeting House, Zamora), from Industrial Architecture (ITV-Motto, La Rioja) to Refurbishment with Furniture Infill (The POP-UP House, Madrid). 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’ 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 shortlisted “Emerging woman of the year 2014” from the British magazine AJ.

INTER 4 UNIT MASTERS TallerDE2 arch.

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Documents

ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION LONDON...E P A N E U R O P E A N S ARCHITECTURAL ASSOCIATION LONDON ! IMPLOSION SAVAGE GROWTH & SHRINKAGE #2 INTERMEDIATE UNIT 4 ! O We are living in a global