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UNKNOWN EDIFICE II
The Urban Condition 8:In the Making / Detail, Structure, Material
14 August 2020
Master Dissertation Studio Brief 2020/21
Architectural Concept and Materiality
Academic Promotor: drs architect Tomas Ooms International Master of Architecture
Faculty of Architecture KU Leuven Campus Sint-Lucas Gent Studio Tuin en Wereld
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The activity and focus of an architectural practice fluctuate. Some periods you are mainly working on competitions and at other times you are spending most of your energy exploring how things are made, and how to make them.
Currently in my design practice, it is the latter: We are preoccupied with the making of things. This question of 'how to make' applies as well to the design process as to the actual construction (details) of a project before bringing it to site…
Through making and prototyping, we are exploring ways to reduce material and we are experimenting with unexpected ways of reusing materials. We are exploring what specific details to develop and what kind of material to propose so that the combination of material and detail enhances the intent and concept of the project.
Through making, we learn. Making is about bringing together 'Form', 'Matter' and 'Concept'.
At the same time, as a design research practice, we aim to contribute to the realisation of Civic Spaces. We are interested in the capacity of architecture to facilitate Civic Space and how particular spatial relationships and spatial conditions play in important role in this. One such a spatial condition is the INCIPIENT RAUM… These two lines of inquiry, MAKING and INCIPIENT RAUM, emerge out of the current activities in my practice and form a practice-based motivation for the Master Dissertation 2020-2021 INCIPIENT RAUM: UNKOWN EDIFICE II: The Urban Condition 8: In the Making.
We are motivated by the fact that: > Knowing how things are made and how things can be made is paramount when we
think about availability (and limits) of resources.
> Working on different scales: from Spatial Relationships, Detail, Structure and Material to Strategy, is a crucial competence. > The INCIPIENT RAUM as a spatial condition is a reflection on possible future conditions such as for instance ‘the adaptive capacity of an edifice’ or ‘the agency of a detail’….
> And because these topics addresses a possible reconfiguration of the architectural profession and your position and attitude towards it…
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The INICPIENT RAUM Studio welcomes your proposals to explore what you think are pertinent and urgent topics in architecture. In this studio you will work in an environment of exploration that is based in the production of well-crafted architectural documents (drawings, models, sections, details, schemes, diagrams…) that merge thinking and making.
We are looking for students that would like to participate in and contribute to the ongoing explorations on MAKING and in furthering the development of an understanding of the INCIPIENT RAUM as a spatial condition. The studio combines the very factual and situated knowledge (a real site) with a more fundamental and experimental exploration of architecture.
The particularity of the INCIPIENT RAUM studio is that you are not going to solve a set of issues, but that your explorations are more fundamental and will question and explore the discipline of architecture. In doing so, the INCIPIENT RAUM studio is an exploration of what your position and attitude as architect in today’s world can be.
The INCIPIENT RAUM Studio runs in parallel and engages with the INCIPIENT DETAIL spring semester studio at the MILANO POLITECNICO.
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You are invited to propose a city in which you would base your dissertation. There is one condition: you choose a city that you have never been to before. Within this city you discover an edifice that you would like to explore… (See the full studio brief for more information, link below)
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The INCIPIENT RAUM studio is a field that is created by juxtaposing and conjoining different fragments, artefacts and concepts. What you will bring to the ‘table’ (literal and figuratively), will rearrange that field. It will change the relationships and proportions between the parts and ideas with the goal of making it your own field of practice. The field finds it origin a curiosity and an eagerness to explore something unknown. The table of artefacts, fragments and concepts will play a central role in the studio and will evolve throughout the semesters to a full-fledged – spatial-knowledge landscape. (See the presentation for examples of previous results, link below)
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Making; Civic Space; Incipient Raum; Detail, Structure, Materials; Space as Relationships
An architectural discourse, reflection, intervention developed and presented through a series of well-crafted documents that reflect on the discipline of architecture. (See the presentation for examples of previous results.)
INCIPIENT RAUM Studio brief: link
INICIPIENT RAUM Studio presentation: link
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01TOPIC
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The INCIPIENT RAUM Studio revolves around the question of how things are made. It explores the role of making in architectural practice and at the same time expects making to be the central paradigm of the studio. The field that is the starting point of the dissertation is composed out of the following parts (Key Words):Making, Civic Space, Incipient, Raum. Each of these will be introduced shortly below.
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"The way of the Craftsman is to allow knowledge to grow from the crucible of our practical and observational engagements with things and beings around us. The conduct of thought goes along with and continually answers to, the fluxes and flows of the materials with which we work. Every work is an experiment in the sense of prising an opening and following where it leads. The productive process is the sum of generative currents of the material(s) and the sensory awareness of practitioners." (Tim Ingold) In his writings, the art critic Hans Theys, approaches the works of the artists not from psychological angle of why an artwork is made or why it works. Instead he asks the question of ‘how’ the work is made. The INCIPIENT RAUM Studio will approach site and theme in the same way: starting from the question of how something is made.
This works in more than one way: through making discovering how things are, but also, when you draw a line, thinking about how this line can be materialised.
Making as a concept relates to the idea of circularity where ‘making’ is crucial knowledge. And Making also relates to design methodology in what we call the productive loop.
‘The task of the maker is to bring the parts into a sympathetic engagement with one another so that they can begin to correspond.’ (Tim Ingold)
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“Civic Space is the bedrock of any open and democratic society. When civic space is open, citizens and civil society organisations can organise, participate and communicate without hindrance. In doing so, they are able to claim their rights and influence the political and social structures around them.”
The idea of Civic Space will demand of you to develop an understanding of how for instance private space can be empowered to contribute to the quality of the public realm. The way David Harvey talks about absolute space, relative space and relational space will be explored. The concept of Civic Space contributes to your understanding of the urban condition and at the same time explores space as relationships.
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Somewhat oblique to ‘Making’ and ‘Civic Space’ is the concept of the INCIPIENT. As mentioned before, we start this studio from a curiosity. I am curious to discover what the concept of INCIPIENT RAUM could mean and what it can bring to the field of architecture.
Incipient is borrowed from the Latin incipiēns, which means: present participle of incipiō (“begin”). It is manly used as ‘beginning to happen or develop’ or as ‘developing into a specified type or role’. Soil for instance can be incipient. This means that is contains the basis and provides for vegetation
establishment. Something is present that ensures something to grow (happen later) under the right circumstances. In principle, a certain condition is present. I am curious to see what this could mean for architecture. You are invited to explore how a spatial condition can be incipient. In how far does the incipient relates to for instance the adaptive capacity of an edifice? How can you design something to be Incipient? How can you design something that works today, but can equally entail certain characteristics that under new conditions, starts to work…? The Incipient as a spatial condition could possibly refer to the use of a space…
Since the incipient is somehow related to a future situation, thinking and designing for it, demands of you to believe in the future...
Raum is a German word that means space, capacity, volume, room. It also means place, area, field. In a broader more figurative sense, it describes scope, opportunity, and field. Within the INCIPIENT RAUM Studio this multiple notion of space (RAUM) and spatial relationships will take a central position. I am curious to see for example what the idea of RAUM(plan) (Adolf Loos) could bring to the exploration of spatial relationships:
“My architecture is not conceived by
drawings, but by spaces. I do not draw plans, facades or sections… For me, the ground floor, first floor does not exist… There are only interconnected continual spaces, rooms, halls, terraces… Each space needs a different height… These spaces are connected so that ascent and descent are not only
unnoticeable, but at the same time functional” (Adolf Loos)
The idea of an INCIPIENT RAUM will also address and investigate different scales: the architectural detail, structure and material.
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Within the INCIPIENT RAUM Studio you select your own location and site. The first steps when you enrol in this studio are: To propose a city to travel to and explore: the city;To select a non-fiction-non-architecture related book: the book.;
To discover and select an existing building in that city: the edifice;
To find a room in that building: the room. Your master dissertation will start as a kind of ‘blind date’ with this edifice. There are two conditions for selecting the city of your master dissertation: You should be curious about it and you it should be the first time that you go there…
The studio as collective would like to explore an as diverse as possible conditions and cities…
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The following references are sources, inspirations and curiosities from which you can start your explorations.
Adolf Loos: Architektur; Allan Wexler: Absurd Thinking; Charles and Ray Eames: Powers of Ten; David Harvey: Space as Key Word; David Hockney: Secret Knowledge; Flores and Prats: Drawing Without Erasing; Günther Vogt: The Landscape as Cabinet of
Curiosities; Hans Theys: On Form; Junya Ishigami: How Small, How Vast; Kees Dorst: Value; Louis Khan: Served and Servant Space; Paul Klee: Dividuals and Individuals; Raoul De Keyser: The Last Wall; Tim Ingold: Making
“Thinking through the different ways in which space and space-time get used as a key word helps to define certain conditions of
possibility for critical engagement. It also opens ways to identify conflicting claims and
alternative political possibilities. It invites us to consider the ways we physically shape our environments and the ways in which we both represent and get to live in it.”
(David Harvey)
02 METHOD
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This second part of the INCIPIENT RAUM Studio brief describes the methodology of the studio and contextualises the framework. This methodological framework is composed out of two themes: Architecture as a
Cognitive Craft on the one hand and the Productive Loop on the other.
Architecture as a Cognitive Craft sees the production of architectural artefacts of inquiry as the driving force behind a design. The architectural research is in making and producing and finding fulfilment in the act of making. “it is crucial to recognise the role of drawing as the embodiment of architectural ideas…The drawing is the architecture, a privileged vehicle for expressing architectural intentions.” (Alberto Perez-Gomez) and the drawing contains within itself the information on how it was created and based on what. The drawing thus contains the history of its own creation and development.
As mentioned above, the studio combines the very factual and situated knowledge with a more fundamental exploration of
architecture in relation to the world and how you can contribute. Architecture as Cognitive Craft aims at contributing to the world through enquiring observations that are done through well-crafted architectural documents. At the same time, it is self-intersecting. With this it is meant that the production of well-crafted documents does not only relates to the subject of the
document, but preferably also contributes to an understanding of the discipline of architecture.
Your dissertation will be an architectural contribution to the world, enlightening a part of the world through enquiring observations, controlled experiments and precise records. All done through the making of high-quality architectural documents. The section and the model will play an important role. The studio also aims at discovering and developing new ways of making (architecture, drawings, models…)
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The studio is a productive loop that has five phases: Observation, Ambitions,
Performances, Projections, Observations. Each of these phases has a different type of architectural artefact or type of drawing and each of these phases has specific references, readings and reflections linked with it. This loop form the backbone of your research based master dissertation.
Architecture as a discipline or field has always benefited from a critical creative approach. Making and the production of many alternatives, studies and etudes, has been proven to be a super powerful generator of the new and pertinent. In the context of the architectural design process the discursive images take a central position.
Your field will be build up through the production of a series of well-crafted architectural documents and artefacts of inquiry. Experimentation through making will be the central motif of the INCIPIENT RAUM studio.
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The ambitions of the studio and the assessment of your involvement in it will be evaluated on the base of the following issues
(these are indicators of behaviour related to the competences in the ECTS). Through participating in this studio, you engage yourself to produce well-crafted documents, creating an intelligent architectural
atmosphere that is addressing pertinent items regarding the Urban Condition and Architecture as Cognitive Craft. You will do this through (and will be evaluated on) the production of well-crafted documents, the profoundness of the dissertation and the amount of experiments you conduct. (Please remember that part of experimenting is failure...)
The architectural model and the section will take a central position in the making of your master dissertation.
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The studio is conducted as progressive peer-network (Steven Johnson, 2012). The studio will be based on conversation and sharing. The studio explores the idea of INCIPIENT RAUM starting from an unknown room in an unknown building in an unknown city. The work focusses on the one hand to how things are made and on the other on space as relationships.
You will need to discover local conditions, debates and urgencies and incorporate them in the field of your master dissertation. The studio objective is also, as PEZO VON ELLRICHSAUSEN formulate it in their book Spatial Structure (2016):
"to conceive a work of architecture as an artefact that not only promotes an experience of the world, but also establishes a form of knowledge of that world."
The studio would like to explore the merging of factual inquisitive observations and spatial explorations that probes the idea of spatial continuities where appearance and disappearing exists without becoming detached…
These objectives are achieved through a research by design, driven through the
production of well-crafted architectural artefacts. Architecture as a Cognitive Craft.
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I really appreciate that you pushed us to see wider, but at the same time never impose your point of view. Ievgeniia Koval Within my architectural training, it has not been common that a tutor would support his/her students’ direction 100%. Thank you for allowing me to venture into, what some would see as, a trivial context. Thanks for your perseverance when, I struggled to articulate my own ideas, or when I demonstrated some resistance towards one particular direction or another. To find a mentor whom is willing to back your own ideas and interests 100% is something rare and, which does not go unappreciated. Michael Raymond
The overall output of the studio if of very high quality. We appreciate the fundamental explorations that lead to a very diverse output. This type of studio that does not try to solve a set of problems is highly needed.
Feedback from the International jury
Ignacio Galan, Winner Van Hove Award 2016 George Nakanishi, Winner Van Ranst Award 2017 Rafeh Abassi, Nom. Van Ranst Award 2019 Ievgeniia Koval, Nom. Dutch Design Week 2018 Dalia Puodziute, Nom. Van Hove Award 2019 Linde Van de Bleyenbergh; Laureate 2019 Alessandro Cugola, Nom. Riba Silver Award 2019, Natasha Zaeva, Nom. Dutch Design Week 2019
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drs. architect Tomas Ooms
Founding partner of Studio Tuin en Wereld: Architecture Design Practice Research www.studio-tuin-en-wereld.tumblr.com Practice Research group
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This third part in the studio brief describes the phasing and output requirements. The Master dissertation has four review moments where number four is the final jury in June and the first review is in the first week of semester four. The following text describes the different outputs (mainly in content and format) for the different review moments. The exact planning of these review moments is mentioned in the Master Dissertation Study Guide.
A PRODUCTIVE LOOP
This way of working is called the Productive Loop: it is through the production of artefact of inquiry that the project is moved forward. The production of drawings, models, sketches, texts, collages… will form the base of the project and at the same time forms the content of the reflection paper. See further. What knowledge is generated through the documents? What are the curial documents? How is the reflection on one document leading to the production of another? Hence the idea if the ‘Loop’: the documents feedback on each other creating a productive, intelligent cycle that moves forward in a consistent pace. Intelligent experiment is the key here. This productive loop (architecture as cognitive craft) has 5 phases: Observation, Ambitions,
Performances, Projections, Observations, ... Each of these phases has a different type of architectural artefact or type of drawing and each of these phases has references, readings and reflections linked with it. This could help to structure the material for the final RP and jury.
MEDIA ROTATION
Media Rotation: Throughout the Productive Loop you are expected to change the media
that you use to produce the drawing. Experience showed that the risk of remaining and limiting yourself to only one way of representing your project, has a risk of missing out unexpected new insights in your own work. Therefor you are expected to regularly change the method of representing. Again, intelligent
experimenting is key. The holy grail is to find ways of rotating the media in concert with the content and focus of the project and
coherent within itself (call it a style if you want…)
Review R1: The First Set: is the output of the work you do in semester 3. It is first set called the composed A0 and contains your observations and ambitions. The composed A0 is presented on 1 table. See below for a detailed description.
Review R2: A Set of Sets: Is the mid-term review. The output is a set of 3 composed A0’s presented on three tables. The focus is on the identification of what Performances you propose following the development of your (updated) ambitions as formulated in R1. These performances describe what it is that your proposal will do (it’s affect). Beside the performances there are some
‘projections’: how will you make sure the performances will be achieved? It may sound rather abstract now but this we will develop further in semester 4. There are 3 composed A0’s as mentioned. One is a series of models, the second is a series of sections, the third is open format.
Review R3: towards a final set: is the internal jury and is a kind of general rehearsal for the final jury. Between R2 and R3 your project will be fuelled by observations of operationality: are the performance met and achieved, have other performances been discovered…? There is the space of 5 tables that together form one set, a series of well-crafted
documents of different media and different sizes with different foci, but intelligently composed and coherent. All the documents together are recognisable as a series, they belong to each other and refer to each other. The difficulty at this point is to create a kind of hierarchy that enables a fluent reading of the set. See for example the Studio Socks Set Up.
Review R4: Become One: This is the final set. Basically, an update of the R3 set. Limited to five tables. This is the set to graduation…
