Verbiest: House and Workshop in a Warehouse

Files: abstract, poster, full paper

Fragments from proceedings (‘artefact submission’)’:

Abstract.

This project addresses the transformation of a large warehouse of about 1000sqm built between 1900 and 1970 in Molenbeek into a single family house and a shared artistic workshop. The project addresses various issues and themes, amongst which the environmental impact of the construction and of the future consumptions. The artefact is not limited to the design outcome but comprises the design process. /…/

Keywords.

Architecture; Transformation; Reuse; Design Process; Sustainability

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The threefold presentation explores a possible medium to create artefacts which somehow can be considered equivalent to the project itself. Through the embodiment of a network of inputs and outputs in a creative act. By enlarging the scope to the entire process and to the stimuli surrounding it. While respecting the subjective nature of such networks. In order to provoke the interpretation of the project by the audience. Resulting in statistic objectivation through the endlessness actualization of graspable combinations.
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Researching in Architecture Practices

Files: abstract, poster, full paper

Fragments from proceedings (‘paper submission’)’:

Abstract.

This paper addresses the methodology of existing researches in active (professional) practices. The author obtained a PhD in his own practice, is currently supervising one doctorate nearing completion, in which the architectural practice is pivotal, and supervises two PhD proposals in young promising practices. In these researches, the subject is essentially threefold. First, there is the knowledge about the practices themselves. Other practices such as music, travelling, writing, fine rts, any practice can be part of the research, as long as they are connected to the architectural practice.

Second, there are the themes, the inspirationaal forces, the field of interests. This field of interest is not closed : other themes can appear during the research, similar to new projects that will appear in the practices during the PhD process. The paper will expand the notion of inspirational force in comparison to scientific subject. Third, the research explores the interaction between the two above. The researched themes provoke understandings about the practices. Inversely, the practice lead to new understandings on the themes. The complex nature of these interaction is inevitably a subject in itself. The methodology is structured around two fields: the practice and the inspirational forces. Inside these fields, the research is situated in specific actions and reflections.

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Keywords.

Research by Design; Architecture Practice; Research in architecture Practice; methodology; inspiration

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Process

Finally, I would like to refer briefly to three artefacts researching the design process. These are different from the former because they explicitly aim at understanding some aspects of the practice. However, they fit also in this paper because they are local research artefacts framing in a research, following different mechanisms which are not related to the global methodology. 

In “Metarbitrariness”, Harold Fallon decomposes the design process of the Carré des Arts /…/  by displaying a series of work documents in a way that reflects the ongoing choices and hesitations. This exhaustive display of sketches and presentation documents on a single display allowed to understand the mechanism of opening up hypothetic possibilities and closing again to workable options in iterative refinements.

The last one is still different. The book “Philippe Vande Maren & Richard Venlet – In Practice” addresses the entire design process from the point of view of the architects, making use of external points of view as sounding boards (a writer, a photographer, a graphic designer…). The account of the design process can easily frame in a research about the practice.

The list of these methodological fragments could be extended. The border between the items of the list is sometimes unclear. Maybe this is not really a difficulty. The value of identifying them is to consider them as underlying mechanisms rather than strict objects or procedures. They show that this kind of artefacts can fruitfully be realized following a diversity of paths. They show also that these experiments are carefully designed by the authors (of the practice and of the research), and thus can become part of both of them.

Field Notes from the Technospace

Files: abstract (Cannaerts and Helbig), poster (Cannaerts and Helbig), full paper (Cannaerts)

Fragments from proceedings (‘paper submission’)’:

Abstract. 

The environments in which we operate as architects are increasingly saturated with digital technologies: internet-of-things, global communication and transportation technologies, mobile devices, increased satellite coverage, location-based services, ubiquitous computing… The post-doctoral research project under the title architecture, agency and the technosphere, investigates architecture’s relation with this technologically saturated environment. The three year project coincides with setting up the Field Station academic design office (ADO) at the KU Leuven Faculty of Architecture. The aim of the paper is to reflect on the ongoing and completed projects and to establish a number of frameworks for the research agenda of the post-doctoral research project and the ADO, and attempt at developing a model for understanding the technosphere. The discussion will address open questions regarding research, teaching and practice of the Fieldstation ADO.

Keywords. 

Architecture, agency, technology, technosphere

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DISCUSSION: UNPACKING TECHNOLOGICAL AGENCY

Fieldstation Studio’s ventures into the technosphere demonstrate that technology is increasingly influencing our environment. Digital technology is obviously human made and for the most part intentionally designed, its agency first and foremost lies with the people, corporations and governments developing and employing these technologies. However, the consequences of the large scale adoption of digital technologies, their impact on the environment, the cultural phenomena they give rise to are largely unforeseen. As such we can ascribe spatial agency to the technology itself, to the accidental emerging megastructure of the technosphere.

The work of this paper is based on is diverse in scope, this paper draws some cross sections through the work looking for come themes and strategies as part of the work in progress of unpacking the spatial agency of digital technologies. Each of the frameworks proposed here – the fertile middle ground to be found when thinking beyond dichotomies; the tentative model of interaction between vertical spheres and stacks, horizontal territories and shifting borders; the novel ways of seeing and mapping technology provides and resulting visual cultures – would benefit from being developed more, both in theoretical framing and in produced work. This paper reports on a research project in progress and hopefully the feedback and discussion will provide fruitful insight for the further development of the research, teaching and practice of the Fieldstation ADO.

Between Drawing and Sculpture

Files: abstract, poster, full paper

Fragments from proceedings (‘artefact submission’)’:

Abstract.

A series of plaster casts in the form of small tiles is the starting point for a reflection on a position between drawing and sculpture, between the two dimensional and the three dimensional. But also, a reflection on the imagination of poetic sculptural concepts through a casting method where negative becomes positive and visa versa. The production mode and the necessity of making a series of these plaster casts will be highlighted.

When a photographer shot detailed photos of a large drawing I made for the creation of an edition, I noticed how the medium of photography added a new reading of the depth in the drawing and of the material quality of the lines and cut-outs in that drawing. Without being able to say exactly what it was, I sensed a potential in these observations for the development of new works. In retrospect I can now clearly see how a text by Jean-Marc Besse on cartography, building and inventing that I studied some years ago helped me in setting up a project to give meaning to these observations.

I started making tracing drawings by engraving lines with an electric mill in wooden casting panels. I made small plaster casts of it. The plaster cast came out with a smooth white surface, and the engraved lines created the notion of an embedded relief. A three dimensional and material aspect was introduced. I could make different casts of the same fragment or look for other compositions. I imagine spaces and sculptures made with tabletops, window frames, ground planes of the studio space, badminton nets, billboards, road signs. The flat white surface of the plaster tile inspired as a mental space where the sculptural entities resignate.

I decided to create a method to investigate further the potentials of the observations I made in the photos. I developed a casting technique to allow the production of series of images where I could investigate the position where drawing and sculpture go hand in hand. According to Jean-Marc Besse these images, and the sequence of the different forms of the images, is establishing the path of the object or the project from which we can reconstitute its rationality. These sequences of images and thoughts don’t stop because something is proven, but because the last act was the right one. The logic of the project is about the work that had to be done and not about the rule that had to be used. It is within this dynamic of the research, within this investigation of open horizons based on a “position” (or a hypothesis or an idea of a form) that knowledge objects are being made which shouldn’t be seen as basic facts. Besse, 2001.

Keywords.

mental space; positive negative; poetics; sculpture; position