Course mentors:
Guest Prof. Clement Blanchet
https://www.facebook.com/Clement-Blanchet-Architecture-990130841033868/
Univ. Ass. Jakob Travnik
http://nanotourism.aaschool.ac.uk/
- the topic of leisure and architecture will be explored through multiple theoretical reading assignments
- strong focus on working with references in order to develop strong & clear arguements for sharp concepts
- main mode of communication of concepts will be through a systematic construction of physical models throughout the semester
- in all phases, participants work in teams
The site chosen is a circle located North East of Paris on the right river Bank, and is called “la place de la Nation”, a very European like condition. Previously a portrait of Parisian mass tourism pleasures, called the “palace of carousels”, but ironically as well widely known for having the most active guillotines during the French Revolution, Nation plaza currently ends up being a place dedicated to cars and a few trees. The site is meant to have a new destiny.
The society is nurtured by economic realities that inclines it to become a machine to produce leisure, entertainment, easiness. This process has direct consequences on Architecture. We will dedicate the studio to record and to transform them as design tools to reshape architecture and life. We will explore the new conditions of Architectural performance in Parisian condition.
The purpose of the studio is to explore and experiment with the proprerties of entertainment through large scale building and their presence in the urban landscape of Paris and will attempt to recover the ‘Parisian experience’ in a cultural, didactic and playful dimension.
This ambiguity of scale positions the project as much in the architectural realm with its necessary formal expression as in the urban dimension with its infrastructural needs, thus exploring both the extensive (geometrical) and intensive (transformative) nature of the inhabited built environment.
Through these explorations of scale, the projects will aim at going beyond the usual typologies of bigness and their predefined structures.
It is becoming increasingly important for architects to act on two fronts: to produce architecture in
its traditional sense, while also make oneself independent of production to try to understand, at the most basic level, what is happening in the world and how certain phenomena affect the architecture and how architecture might in turn affect the world. The many complex problems of the world are also those of the future, demanding new fields of thought and breaking down old silos of knowledge. This will require going beyond traditional methods of architecture. Increasingly these questions involve many different external perspectives, from those of artists, urban planners, architects, sociologists and scientists, all the while enriching our thinking and understanding. The course will find harmony between training in the academy and the requirements of the profession, between theory and practice, and how these, as one, might map onto and engage the world.
A research-based exploration and observation in Paris will drive us to specific discussions around what Paris was, is and could be.
intro meeting: Friday // 05.10.2018 // 10:00 - 12:00 // Seminarraum 2
weekly meetings / skype sessions: Thursdays // 13:00 - 17:00 // Seminarraum 2
excursion, site-visit & research: 15. - 21.10.2018 // flights and accommodation to be organised individually
