"...to extract from fashion the poetry that resides in its historical envelope, to distil the eternal from the transitory"   

Baudelaire, “The Painter of Modern Life”

“The hallucinatory effect derives from the extraordinary clarity and not from mystery or mist. Nothing is more fantastic ultimately than precision.”

Alain-Robbe Grillet about the novels of Franz Kafka

What is the smallest possible form in which a public ambition in architecture can be manifested?

The studio will focus on small-scale buildings serving public functions. As an alternative to pharaonic scale public prestige projects, we will investigate how small public buildings can be instrumental in developing a direct engagement with a community.

The studio will work on recognizing and developing fundamental civic qualities in architecture, and investigating how these can be serialized and translated into a specific condition in Sao Paulo, connecting to existing public building programs in Brazil. Each proposal may dedicate itself to one specific function, or be flexible to accommodate a series of chosen functions.

The studio will revisit questions of typology and generality in relation to site, investigating ways in which small (200-400m2), self-contained systematized structures can support a specific social structure. We will investigate the possibilities for architecture to, in its implementation, be specific to its site condition, and still provide general answers relating to type and the possibility for serial production. In addition to investigating construction and fabrication techniques, the studio will have an ongoing discussion about theories of collectivity - what it means to define a space and architecture as “public”.

Students will be asked to write throughout the semester and develop the project simultaneously in writing as well as in drawing. Although we will encourage research into underlying economic or societal tendencies that can affect how the project unfolds, the main focus will be on developing well-functioning buildings.

Process:

Part 1: The General

An important part of the semester will be the study and documentation of relevant architectures. Students will conduct analysis and study relevant precedents. This architectural research is intended to be generative, i.e. leading to specific insights and design of a siteless systematized civic architecture for a humid subtropical climate (200-400 sq.m).

We will investigate civic buildings, learning from very specific solutions, while also trying to understand to what extent a case study is specific to its site and program, and to what extent it has qualities applicable to other conditions. Each reference will in this way be studied both as manifested reality existing in a specific situation, and as an ideal type capable of being reinterpreted for different situations. A central argument is that architecture is not usually about producing ex nihilo, nor just about a specific site, but rather about extracting an essence from history, general qualities that can be reapplied under new and different conditions.

The precedents are selected for their relevance and common qualities in scale and program. They are specific solutions to a given site, program and time, yet holds something elusive, a hidden logic yet to be deciphered. We will study them very carefully on topics ranging from construction technique, materiality, spatial hierarchies, and relation to site, as well as scale, structure and proportions.

We then will make a version of the reference project acting as a system which could be produced serially, locating the siteless and general qualities in the originals. Each student will then choose a public programme to work with for the design of a general project: school, kindergarten, community center, chapel, library, small museum or technical infrastructure. The programme may come directly from the case study, or from a spatial potential uncovered in the course of the study. Other programmes are welcome as long as they are not in themselves too specific to a site or cultural situation.

Selection of references:

Bramante - Tempietto

Koh Kitayama - Klarheit

Peter Markli - La Conguita

Le Corbusier - Bâtiments de l'écluse, Kembs-Niffer

Oscar Niemeyer - CIEP schools

Mies van der Rohe - Chapel IIT

Carl Friedrich Schinkel - Neuer Pavillon

Aldo Van Eyck  - Public spaces and installations in Amsterdam

Aldo Rossi - Teatro del Mundo

Part 2:  The Deployment

The second part of the task will be implementation and adaptation of the general project developed in part 1 to a specific condition in Sao Paulo, where we will travel and engage with Universidade de Sao Paulo (USP) during elective week.

Brazil has been subjected to a wide range of public school building programmes, from the famous CIEP schools (Centros Integrados de Educacao Publica) in Rio de Janeiro designed by Oscar Niemeyer, CIAC (Centro Integrado de Apoio á Criança) implemented across Brazil, and the CEU (Centros de Educaçáo Unificada) in Sao Paulo. In addition, there is an ambitious program, SESC (Serviço Social do Comércio), set up as a private/public organization which provides social services and spaces for communities all over the country.

All of these are examples of a radical rethinking of educational and community spaces, capable of challenging what a civic building could and should be through their architecture. They all involve a level of seriality, prescriptions for fabrication and reapplication in new situations devised by the architect, evident in the choice of construction methods and in the architectural layout.

The students will choose one of several predetermined sites in Sao Paulo. Here a prototype building will be developed, in which the work in phase one is implemented and re-evaluated in meeting with its specific social and physical context.

Part 3: Development, Detailing and Presentation

In the last part we will aim to produce drawings at a high level of detail, with particular attention given to primary elements of architecture such as circulation, structure, facade and technical installations.

Large scale models and elaborate drawings will be important tools to develop the architectural nuances of each of the projects. Contrary to the rhetorics of the sublime often associated with public architecture, we will stay clear of deliberate dramatic effects. In the production of drawings and models we will aim to be sober and matter-of-fact, spending our energy where it is best utilized.

Study trip:

Sao Paulo in week 40 and 41. During our study trip we will work with Universidade de São Paulo. Specific dates for the trip will be handed out in the beginning of the semester.