Spain Lab

Who’s working in the service of whose vision? Unexpectedly (for me), this was the question that seemed to predominate the “Common Ground” theme of the 2012 Venice Architecture Biennale. From the main exhibitions the national pavilions, the contributing exhibitors espoused varying understandings of who or what constitutes the commons implied by the title. Curator David Chipperfield’s explanation of the main exhibition theme in the August 27 printed edition of Architect’s Newspaper acknowledged the theme’s generality as intentional:

I don’t think an exhibition about architecture is agile enough to make precise statements. Clearly the whole theme of Common Ground was a provocation to the profession to think harder about what we share intellectually and physically in terms of our inspirations, our concerns, and predicaments. (5)

It’s not clear to me how many of the contributors took up the provocation to think about collective disciplinary concerns per se. In my opinion the most interesting responses to the Biennale theme localized their focus geographically or otherwise. Continue reading »

The range of research projects being pursued in the name of architecture is perhaps more broad than any time in history.  Some would equate this to a trend of uncertainty of agency in the discipline.  In contrast, I find the range of intellectual possibilities to be refreshing.  It is possible to explore architecture in intellectual frameworks as disparate as linguistics and semiotics vs. computation or environmental performance.  In recent years, however, I can identify a few areas of research that have gained particular popularity, at least in the American academic community: parametric design, “green” building, bio mimesis, material research, and digital fabrication.  I would like to compare how these current preoccupations compare to that of our Spanish counterparts.

In my preliminary research I have also developed a question relating to certain terminology used by several of the participating architects, which is the use of the word “emotion.” Perhaps I am misinterpreting, but my initial reading is that much of the Spanish architectural community strives to find a balance between “reason” and “emotion.”  In contrast, I feel that the MIT architectural community is far more invested in purely questions of “reason.”  I am interested in exploring these differences.

Perhaps the combination of “reason” and “emotion” is intriguing to me because I find the most exciting progress happens in architecture not from innovation within a single aspect of architecture but from a confluence of technical innovation and “non-technical” affect, whether that be programmatic, social, psychological etc.  Therefore, I would like to explore how the Spanish architects are using innovation to influence our quality of life and how that compares to other architects around the world.

I believe that no individual research program, ideology, methodology etc. holds the key to innovation in architecture, but instead innovation is the result of a certain intellectual agility.  Each architectural problem presents a unique opportunity for design innovation.  Innovation as a definition means something new, something previously unrecognized, therefore, any attempted rigid definition would not only prove to be insufficient, but in fact be detrimental, inhibiting the spectra of possible architectural futures.  Instead, I am in the process of producing a comparative analysis of various research projects within the Spanish and international architectural community.

Innovacion in architecture so that architecture won’t be its own innovation victim.

If we start from the proposition that innovation is synonymous of improvement or refinement in its most basic sense, there is no better example than the evolution of architecture along the time, when it was conceived to cover the minimum needs.

This is how it shows the change of mentality legacy in current use and enjoyment of what we appreciate as past or old, simple examples are the religious buildings and fortifications that have survived to this day, have not ceased to reinvent until disappearance of, for example, the need for specific defense as a person.

Legacy present with names in the Egyptian pyramids, Acropolis Greek cities Roman fortifications and Romanesque churches, Gothic later …However this change as scheduled, answer those basic needs of life until people end up making architecture, a tool in their way of life, due to the evolved society that is generated in the industrial revolution.

Thus man becomes his own new city center and in vivo legacy enjoy today as an economic and societal. The great city expands itself to accommodate all those who went, and that invested in its best industry. The architecture would be applied to planning your victim committed. Victim of innovation.

Some, like Howard with its garden city or Arturo Soria’s lineal city had longer perspective of the technical and sophisticatedinnovation danger.

They all and knew that in a few decades it’s going to be possible to cover exponential minimum conditions of health and hygiene, and tried to propose models not overcrowding were based solely on production.

Today, many years later, we are at that point, in wich innovation has permitted use technical architecture in the collapse of large cities at the expense of idolatry to production that does not respond to the changing society.

With this innovation we are able to generate high levels of life in a context that begins to fail in all areas, no supporting emotional and / or cultural needs. Crisis at all levels.

Political crisis, financial crisis, enviromental crisis, socila crisis, global crisis.
It is therefore necessary to note that the perceived value to innovation in architectural design is limited and that the margin of tour production is not very big as engine innovation.

Innovation in architecture, as a tool, becomes into an habit that is not filled and which leads to loss identity values and belonging to the expense of production and prompting a consumer mentality that assumes it. The ability to generate new social structures unlike the citizen, and anonymous, in cores first, second or precarious category, but all well resolved.

It is proposed that the bet with the architectural innovation of the moment should be based on the technical means to develop and develop efficiency goals to implement the values of sustainability and energy awareness, but they all applied in a structure which overcomes the production and consumption model entering into a inevitable loop.

That is, beyond the innovation that allows us to develop the best techniques for know from properly apply.

The future is not innovation, but be innovative.
Continue reading »

Intentions

While there has always been innovation, it would be cruel not admit abuse and squeezes ahead of demand, which have come to exhausting its true value, putting the intrinsic economic interest before their sole response capacity historically dependent on needs.

It’s been too easy to tag all innovative proposals when they have been partial and occasional patches of an outdated model, and long-term harmful.

That is why it detects a victimhood with real arguments in their process that throw us into a hole  that doesn’t attend to needs. Faced with this crisis in innovation the response will be so bold radical according to the alarming situation in which we find ourselves.

It would be interesting to answer a series of questions such as: Is innovation dependent on creation or is destruction the key to it? How do you build the path of creation based on destruction? How not to fall in victimhood of innovation?

Members of the group:
A.Becerra, C.Irala, M.Mancho, M.Parra. UFV Students
Continue reading »

While in Venice I will be involved in workshops in the context of the U.S. Pavilion’s exhibition as a member of the Interested Critical Explorers of Publicly Owned Private Space. Check out some more information about that project here!