International Design Workshop Week University of Antwerp / Faculty of Design Sciences in collaboration with the Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp IDW 2023 13.02—17.02
IDW IDW is the annual International Design Workshop week for master students of the Faculty of Design Sciences of the University of Antwerp (architecture, interior architecture, product development, heritage studies, urbanism and spatial planning) as well as for master students of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of the AP University of Applied Sciences and Art Antwerp. The International Design Workshop week is open to radical pedagogical experiences, which open the eyes, change sides and widen thinking. It stimulates crossing disciplinary boundaries. The week is jointly curated by a team of students and faculty. It provides a forum for international exchange; simultaneously, it is an informal platform for discussing design education and its agency. 1
2 3 In current times where extreme circumstances and polarization are hardening the social debate, designing for social emancipation, cohesion and sustainability can enable students to identify various ethical issues, frictions or social gaps. The international design workshop week aims to STORM through the minds of our students: exploring the power of the critical design approach for social inquiry and engagement through design. Critical Design Attitude Traditionally, designers applied affirmative design approaches in the design process, providing answers and solutions to questions or design challenges, and thereby reinforcing the current situation rather than rejecting it. 2,4 Designers were trained to perform as ‘problem-solvers’ (and ‘solution-focused’).1 Instead of this affirmative design approach, the aim of the international workshop week is to focus on ‘problemfinding’ and explore the power of a critical design attitude: 1 Cross N. Designerly ways of knowing. Des Stud 1982; 3: 221–227. 2 Dunne A. Hertzian tales: electronic products, aesthetic experience, and critical design. London, England: Royal College of Art, 1999. 3 Dunne A, Raby F. Design noir: the secret life of electronic objects. London, England: August Media Ltd, 2001. 4 Dunne A, Raby F. Speculative Everything: Design, Fiction and Social Dreaming. The MIT Press, 2013. 5 Malpass M. Critical Design in Context: History, Theory, and Practice. London, England: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2017. “[Critical design] rejects how things are now as being the only possibility, and provides a critique of the prevailing situation through designs that embody alternative social, cultural, technical or economic values.” 3 “[Critical design] opens lines of inquiry as opposed to providing answers or solutions to questions or design problems.” 5 “Critical Design uses speculative design proposals to challenge narrow assumptions, preconceptions and givens (…).” 4
Interdisciplinary workshops architecture fine arts heritage studies interior architecture product development urbanism and spatial planning 5 3 2 1 # 0 1 Drawing ResearchWeek by Patricia Guaita & Raffael Baur The Drawing ResearchWeek proposes to bring together students from the different disciplines into a research on and trough drawing. We are interested in creating a tacit knowledge that is not transmitted but produced. Through drawing, we will analyse and question spatial, tectonic, urban and material articulation as well as the notion of place. Analysis will take apart and make transparent a seemingly oblique reality, transforming it into a condition of possibility. We will explore drawing by hand, (with fixpencil on paper), with string and with our body in space. Our site will be the one in front of us: the Campus Mutsaard as built but also historically transformed reality. Drawing by hand will be explored not as a medium of representation but as a mediator between construction and the individual. The act of drawing as a physical and spatial experience allows us to observe, measure and construct: to see. The drawings are plastic: built up through continuous iterations, they accumulate numerous strata and temporalities. Each student will draw individually and collaboratively, creating an intimate space of reflection and doubt while working in interdisciplinary groups building up a shared research. The measuring methods and devices may acquire a physical reality (e.g. strings pulled across a terrain or facade) and manifest itself as a new temporary layer in the urban context. The essential aspects of drawing cannot be taught theoretically, they can only be learned through practice. The use of drawing as action initiates a transformative bodily experience generating intensities, frictions and new knowledge that only theonewhomakes can access. The aim is not to build neutral drawings but a space with thresholds and fissures where the necessary doubts of the creative act can exist, where we question our environment and the future of construction.
7 6 1 2 1 2 3 # 0 2 In 1988, 35 years ago, Martin Margiela founded his fashion label after graduating from the Royal Academy of fine arts in Antwerp. Already the first show of the house was set to trigger a paradigmshift in the fashion world and until his exit from the label in 2008 Margiela remained one of the most important and influential figures not only in the creative industry while famously completely avoiding any public appearance. Much reflection and theoretical processing has been done on Margiela’s design methods. So far, however, there have been few attempts to transfer them to other creative fields. The one-week workshop with a group of interdisciplinary students from Margiela’s place of origin, Antwerp will attempt to do so. Using 5 design methods derived from different collections by Margiela, students engage in a transformational performance on their own disciplines. Divided into groups, the students will use small design task to find out how their assigned method can be applied and transferred to another discipline. As an example: Margiela has bought old furniture and painted it white or covered it with cloth. The form or expression has remained the same, but the new uniformity has created a context to other furniture from other eras. The labour that went into the custom-made covers revaluates the formerly discarded object, challenging conventional notions of luxury. Thus, as a first approach to Margiela’s work, students could do interventions on existing furniture in their studio in the style of the 5 methods mentioned above. As the week progresses, the assignments could shift to an urban scale and incorporate more complex social and environmental issues into the work. The final products of the workshop week will consist of small assignments. Theworkswill not contain finished designs, but sequences from the different disciplines - which together represent the interpretation of Margiela’s design method. A red thread, so to speak, based on the method, through fragments in several scales. What we can learn from MaisonMartinMargiela By Julian Brües & Wassily Walter # 0 3 When food storms the squares By Eulàlia Gomez-Escoda & Emma O’Connell Food constitutes approximately 15% of the household budget in most European countries, only behind housing and transport costs. Butwhile urban planning and architecturedeal with questions related to howwe live or howwemove, the question of howweeat isnot usually included in theconcernsof theprojects that architectsdevelop in themetropolis. The way we supply ourselves with groceries — the distances we travel, themeans of transport we use, the type of foodwe buy and the places where we do it — directly impacts in the shape of the city and is different for each type of urban form. In this sense, we can say that the way in which a city feeds its citizens constitutes a unique ‘foodprint’. Food has been central to urban life and to urban social practices over time. At the beginning of the 19th century, market halls werebuilt inmanyEuropeancitiesaspreciseumbrellas that filtered the light intoan interiorof majesticdimensions that sheltered the ephemeral goods sold inside. Markets represented the perfect synthesis between rural and urban world: farmers who sold their crops inside personalized the presence of productive landscapes in the very heart of thecity. In the second half of the 20th century most of these structureswent out of fashion inmanymetropolises, not because they were no longer functional but because they did not fit into the nature of public space and economic activity that planners, architects and politicians had in mind to shape modern city centers. Food supply sites ceased to be the meeting point between producers and consumers and, consequently, the link between what we eat and the territory that feeds us was weakened. In the 21st century, food has once again taken over the squares and farmers’ markets, gastronomic festivals, and bar and restaurant terraces fill public space with smells and flavours. The workshop aims to approach ways of mapping food procurement in Antwerpen — precisely and sensorially — to quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate access to food in the city, analysing the impact on such a daily activity of global issues such as distribution inequalities, cultural sovereignty or the climate crisis.
8 9 3 2 1 1 2 3 # 0 4 Pattern and chaos by Dewi Brunet & Gwenaël Prost We all experience chaotic paper crumpling on a daily basis. Experiments that often ends up in the recycle bin. But, what if this garbagecould become thematerial for amasterpiece? Developed by Nature during millions of years and through countless living beings, crumpling is a universal technic of matter structuration and optimisation. It can be found in the blossom of a flower, in the organisation of our brain, as well as in the pleat of a mountain or even in the formation of a storm. More than a technic, it reflects and questions links between pattern and chaos that surrounds us. The rise of biomimetic in all spheres of human technology, is showing the urge for a better understanding and respect of the world we are part of. We believe that folding, by a direct and simple approach, is a good introduction to nature inspired technic. Rather than a pedagogy based on the objective or problem-solving, our workshop is exploratory, as nature, focusing on trials and errors. We will engage students in experimenting and having fun with paper through a unique folding technique: crumpling. Folding is one of the only creative technic that does not remove or add anything from the original material. It requires no tools but, nevertheless, creates complex and stable structures. We will confront students to face this “white page”, enabling them to discover new horizon by designing with the engagement of their full body and perceptions while co-creating in groups. We will encourage a change of scale, aiming as big as possible, to storm the minds and the places. Large installation, performance, clothes... the outcome could be multiple. # 0 5 Tales of Symbologies: SubjectiveMapping. Centering traditions and philosophies associatedwith tapestries By Hussein Shikha & Sadrie Alves The carpet acts as a subjective map of one’s locality, a temporary home and a space for gathering. Can centering traditions and philosophies associated with tapestries and its symbols be a way to speculate upon newways of design and art-making? From aWestern viewpoint, the carpet has been neglected and reduced to an object, ignoring her potential toopen upother ways of seeing. In thisworkshopwewill not only look at but «see through» the tapestry. We regard the carpet as an autonomous intersection between art, craft and design while examining the forms of engagement and connection she instigates. During this week wewill look into the ancient crafts and symbols of tapestries and woodblocks of different geographies. These art forms are surrounded by immaterial cultural heritages: symbolic ornaments, visual languages that have been undermined by the modernist ‘less is more’ lens and overlooked as an autonomous reference of design and art practice. Together we will translate our surroundings into a collective composition, analogous to a tapestry, in dialogue with residents of the area. Through the use of different media, analog and digital, we translate our locality into a tangible vocabulary. The workshop consists of collective readings, screenings, visual exercises, time for reflection in small groups and the larger group, the crafting of a collective work, and a shared meal. This encounter is a space of theoretic insight and hands-on practice. Students of various disciplines can engage in this workshop with their respective knowledges. We look closely into the metaphor of the carpet as a space; its relation to the large socio-economic context; and the implications of handiwork and domestic labour;. The bibliography and references are interdisciplinary and diverse, we encourage critical thinking and cross pollination with angles that challenge, inform and complement each other. Themain concern of thisworkshop is toopen the question of howwe can relate our practices to broader social concerns; from one thread to a collective fabric.
10 11 3 2 1 1 2 3 # 0 6 # 0 7 Design Against Taboo (DAT): new insights into the mean-making process of wearable design exploration By Beste Ozcan & Muriel De Boeck Critical reflections, which are inspired by any experience that can help people to see the world with different eyes, have the potential to bring new insights into our life. The main focus of the workshop is to tap into this potentially transformative exchange by exploring how design is responding to it and what we can do today, together. The multidisciplinary and collaborative features of the workshop bring students with different backgrounds together to think and act to tackle some social challenges that are somehow hidden from us. These are sometimes embarrassing, risky, weird or uncomfortable topics, such as body, sex, death, gender, and mental or sexual diversities, to talk about out loud and we can classify them as “social taboos”. In times of life-changing crises, they become more visible, and this indeed presents a chance for a society to change. For example, handshake during this time of Covid has become taboo, since it brings fear of disease. During this workshop, it is expected to make certain taboos visible to us through a design exploration, which addresses developing body-borne computational or sensory devices. We are heading the way that humans are getting considered more as a whole -with body, mind, and emotion- and taking advantage of all their abilities. During an interaction between a person and a wearable product, the skills of a person can be considered a trinity of interaction: perceptual-motor skills, emotional skills and cognitive skills. In other words, doing, knowing and feeling. Each assigned should present a clear motivation for exposing a specific taboo, a manifesto declaring their principles, intentions, motives, design or artistic views supporting their wearable design concept and a prototype. The workshop sections: introduction; assigning teams; defining a taboo topic; preparing their DAT Manifesto; conceptualization; prototyping; short video showing the use of the device in a real-life scenario; debating; deliverables.#designagainsttaboo (make your design visible). GRIJZEMATERIE By Davide Cauciello & Octavio Piñeiro Aramburu In the midst of a STORM of resources induced by rising prices and increasing shortages, what is the stock of unused/ undervalued material locally available that we could reuse for building new qualitative and sustainable spaces? In the same way that a STORM leaves a landscape of debris after its passage, did the price increase generate a stock of leftover construction materials in Antwerp? GRIJZE MATERIEwill focuson reuse as a response to theenvironmental emergencies and an occasion to activate unseen networks and interactions revolving around construction materials. GRIJZE MATERIE will explore the residues produced by the recent incrementation of prices for the specific case of Antwerp, which maintains a strong relationship with its seaport where huge amounts of materials are being imported and/or transformed every day. We will focus on the deposits generated this year due to the altered activity in the construction sector (abandonment of construction sites, unsold stocks ... ) and on its possible reemployment for the production of qualitative public spaces, that might consider socio-environmental issues such as replanting practices, water management and co-construction as a participatory driver to enter in contact with the inhabitants and workers of Antwerp. To do so, we imagine different actions that allow to enhance the engagement of each participant - both tutors and students - within the activities proposed throughout the workshop. Morning: collective explorations of the city, its outskirts and the port. In particular construction sites, deposits of materials, industrial zones, second hand resellers. The explorations are also moments to get in contact with some important actors (thinkers, makers, workers, etc.). During these moments some materials will be collected and interviews will be realized if necessary. Afternoon: division in 2 different working groups. One for the production of a short movie and one for the assemblage of materials and for the production of an object/artefact.
12 13 1 1 2 3 # 0 8 # 0 9 Brutal and banal with a hint of floral By Celeste Tellarini Much of human social thinking operates through highly rigid and clear oppositions: something is good or bad, right or wrong, a success or a failure. This way of thinking trough binary oppositions - old asWestern culture - helps us classify, understand and thus control what surrounds us. The disciplines of the built environment clearly align to this scheme andwork through recognisable sets of binary pairswhichwe use in our everyday language. We will challenge this forma mentis, we will explore and interpret what exists between strongly recognisable urban facts, we will allow unclear and unspecified places to become the fundamental starting point of a critical reinterpretation of pockets and slices of Antwerp. Looking for spatial, formal and material features that do not comply with binary logics, we will apprehend a new language and react to new ways of doing, seeing and inhabiting. Giving up dichotomies and oppositions, we will discover, analyse, document and understand ‘scapes’ of Antwerp (unused sealed surfaces, forgotten spaces between properties, outdated infrastructures, unexploited rooftops). We will structure a set of strategies aiming to reinterpret the selected scapes, both domesticating and enhancing them. Leaving margin to experimentation through different mediums and ways of communication, the participants will produce a series of artefacts (booklets, photographic series, drawings, Reels, texts, models, performances, installations) through which the enhancing strategies will be conveyed. The notion of ‘scape’ clearly derives from ‘landscape’, yet it enacts a first critical move: the term ‘landscape’ comes from the old Dutch and originally referred to a portion of the territory that can be grasped with the gaze. It is nowevident how long-established categories do not fit the reality we live any longer and our disciplines sometimes struggle to address a reality which is eccentric to the reassuring margins of a rigid - that is binary – definition. I propose ‘—scape’ as a mean to redefine the matter of what we grasp outside of accepted wisdom. per [bymeans of] FORM [shape; figure; mode; semblance] By Susie Brand-de Groot As designers we often design from a strong vision. By the conscious use of form in designs and the way we perform our designs to our audience, we can strengthen that vision. In Antwerp a lot of different cultures live apart together. The city is a lively and colourful melting pot of all kind of people. But… do they feel connected? Do they interact? Is everyone involved? Just like in every city there are social issues and frictions. I’mconvinced that we as designers can make the world a bit better, more social, more inclusive and save. But how can we use FORM to achieve that intention? What is the meaning of form and how can we use form as a design tool to make the world a bit better? Based on form research and design, students will try to achieve more cohesion in the Antwerp society. I’m convinced that the differences in study background will add value to the assignment, the design process, and the final designs. Students will co-create in small groups. In the end of the week, they ‘perform’ [present; show] their outcomes together to see if they can make Antwerp as one inclusive city.
14 15 1 2 3 1 2 3 # 1 0 # 1 1 Laboratory of the future by Florian Mahieu & Corentin Dalon How to think about design and architecture in a world with finite resources? Accustomed to responding to defined orders with finite processes, how can living matter re-examine us on our practices of production of objects and spaces? We propose to center our workshop around the mycelium, root network of the mushroom, material in positive, binder which comes to grow tocome to “cage” a plant body, along a structure, in a network or within the limits of a mould. The workshop could be organized around three main themes, at cross-cutting scales and disciplines, from granular matter to territory, fromwhich the studentswill propose a project: Process material The mycelium is a growing material that can be frozen temporarily. Returned to the appropriate humidity and temperature conditions, the material can grow again. The form can evolve the life cycle of the material being completed by a life cycle of the form, accompanied or random. Regenerative Material In the world of textiles or construction, research is being carried out so that the growing material can, thanks to the aforementioned characteristics, “heal” torn textiles, cracked columns, etc. The growing house Beyond the object-subject, we can wonder about the decor itself, which creates the conditions of life and growth of these object-subjects. We could also allow ourselves to dream of living buildings, growing and communicating. PRIMITIVEHUT By Leonid Slonimskiy & Artem Kitaev We see this Open Call as an urgent challenge for the new generation of architects operating in a drastically changing world, and therefore we propose an urgent tool for it. The topic of the work will be temporary minimal architecture of crisis as a tool of dealing with states of emergency: social, political and ecological crises of society today and in future. Housing Crisis Many people have been left homeless: because of the war, climatic crisis, personal economic reasons. The basic task of this workshop will be to develop a rapidly constructable housing module for people in need of temporary shelter and refugees. The housing unit should be thought of as an extremely affordable small scale building, assembled from building materials collected within a 10 km radius from the construction site. Students should consider using reused and easily accessible materials; the amount of scraps for the construction should be minimized; non-conventional solutions should be developed. The house should be able to grow: a system should be developed to add further modules as required. Estimated cost of materials will be part of the deliverables.
16 17 1 2 # 1 2 # 1 3 A Soft Storm By Alexander Auris & Lucas de Mello Reitz A soft storm is temporary. When passing, moves things up. A soft storm can embrace the city with tender waves. We will use this soft storm to bring gradual politics that look towards a better understanding of memories that were erased.. We propose a week of soft storm, arriving and rethinking the design of monuments in Antwerp. The monuments erected around the city tell some stories, what other stories have been forgotten? If classical monuments are devices to see, remember, and celebrate acts of (so-called) heroism, we propose designing the celebration and remembrance of (dis)affection in the city through queering it. Queering as a political and ethical tool – an act of change and resistance to ongoing practices of violence. By revision of the history of queerness in Antwerp, we approach supposedly banal spaces in the city to recuperate its memory, commemorate them and retell a story of a community. We propose replacing the roughness, tallness, highlight, and heroismof existing monuments with the softness, touchiness, fragility, and disruptiveness of the queer monument. In this workshop we will conduct students throughout the reflection on howclassicmonuments are conceived, patrimony politics held, and how critically think about the design of new, soft monuments based on queer theory in architecture. The transdisciplinary exercise embraces concepts of Theory of Urban Design and Architectural Criticism, and the field of Architectural Cultures. We propose a lecture and an open discussion on urban monuments, using Latin American and Belgium examples, followed by a walk as an exercise in the cityscape, its monuments, and possible stories to be unveiled. In groups or individually, participants construct a conceptual narrative of soft monuments based on their affection – trauma and untold stories and places of celebration. Later, students are conducted to produce conceptual collages (digital/analogical) to be later exhibited for Soft Monuments. Dreamers Disease By Iga Gorniak “When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.” ~ Haruki Murakami Visiting museums, exploring collections of historical tools and primitive artifacts gives us the opportunity to interact with the past. Studying mysterious objects helps us to understand ancient technologies used by our ancestors and see the progress. In comparison to this, facingmodern challenges and rapid changes triggers an inquiry into unpredictable futures. I would like to invite a group of students for the expedition into the fictional world after the infectious Dreamers Disease outbreak. What alternative medicine has to offer? In the co-creative process we will create a collection of future “instruments” designed to control the situation. We will collectively imagine the aesthetics of “new wave after the storm”, and metaphor will guide us in the process. Created props will be displayed on the final exhibition with short instructions explaining how todo-it-yourself, aiming to stimulate critical reflection and engage social interaction. 1 2 3
18 19 # 1 4 # 1 5 1 Difference and Repetition By Livni Holtz To reuse means to be able to imagine something else. With my workshop I want to explore in a playful and experimental way the high creative and architectural potential that lies in an affirmative approach to the existing. My workshop is about using what is already there to create something new. In his book “Operating Instructions for Spaceship Earth”, Buckminster Fuller compares the Earth’s ecosystem to an egg and humans to the chick that eats a limited amount of supplies for its growth. “Having left its first asylum, the chick must now set its own legs and wings in motion to discover the next phase of its regenerative preservation,” he cautioned. But apart from attempts to reduce the amount of energy used in the production process or to substitute individual materials, many designers have so far made no serious effort to reduce the ecological footprint of their industry or to bring about any major change in the consumption habits of society. In every change that has taken place, certification schemes and standards introduced by governments have played a bigger role than designers. The workshop is fundamentally about creating something new through the repetition and alteration of a singleelement and questioning modern, functional and Fordist-produced objects and the associated mindset of eternal progress in today’s global context as a reaction to cultural standardisation, massification and commercialisation. Finally, in an age of increasingly complicated flows of goods and capital on spaceship earth, any ecological vision must be accompanied by a more global understanding of design and its place in human civilisation. Accordingly, time is not seen here as a linear progression, but as a multiplicity that makes it possible to navigate through history and all the time zones of the planet and to create new connections or assemblages between “signs” that are far apart. An Imaginative Play By Saurabh Mhatre & Atula Sahani “Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.” ~ Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities Imaginative Play: children use their imagination to roleplay scenarios they have seen, experienced or would like to experience, bridging the divide between fantasy and reality. Occupying a physical space, holding onto a piece of familiar toy in the hand, a child might look out the window of an imagined space to invent a journey into the unknown. In order to reignite and sustain this sense of myth that is inherent to our physical environment, we in the due course of the studio will explore ways of making the familiar things unfamiliar. Unearthing the object that are embedded within our physical environment, we will reimagine missing pieces of architecture as the links between imaginary and real. As prevailing circumstances and polarization leading to uncertainties take their toll on our social fabric, the studiowill pay attention to the ambiguous small and playful things – the elements often most vulnerable to the forces of urban erasure, recomposing them with a sense of wonder and absurdity, making a journey, not unlike Alice, when she stepped through the looking glass. We will explore surgical techniques of partial removal and face lifting, process of incisions, tools for underpinning, bridging and stitching in different scales and sizes, to build playfully ambiguous and technically refined architectural absurdities. 3 2 1 2 3
20 21 3 2 1 # 1 6 # 1 7 Antwerp Soundscapes By Michel Kessler & Alessia Bertini Antwerp Soundscapes explores the soundscapes of Antwerp. In this workshop, heterogeneous sounds of different origins will be collected through field recordings and transformed into a playable installation with the aim of intensifying our perception of the city. With the workshop we want to change together the psycho-geographical perception in the city of Antwerp by challenging individuals to tune into acoustic spaces that dissolve the visual boundaries between external and internal worlds. Sound will be understood as a primary element of the spatial structure and aestheticquality of a landscape, no less important for our understanding of ecosystem function than spatial or landscape order. Moreover, it will also be a matter of demonstrating the political potential of soundscapes in urban space and of investigating the creation of new forms of public spheres by means of the immaterial power of sound in a world dominated by the visual. Storytelling for earthly survival By María Mazzanti & Anna Bierler “In these troubling times, the urgency to trouble time, to shake it to its core, and to produce collective imaginaries that undo pervasive conceptions of temporality that take progress as inevitable and the past as something that has passed and is no longer with us is something so tangible, so visceral, that it can be felt in our individual and collective bodies.” ~ Karen Barad With an imminent “apocalypse” coming and survival tactics and lifestyles permeating our cultural and political scenarios, thinking about the end has become, as Mark Bould argues, the central subject of our collective unconscious. From the end of a stable climatic condition, massive extinctions to the downfall of global capitalist economies, the end of life as we know it is deemed terrifying. Still, it serves to think critically about the underlying power structures that hold together problematic practices of architecture and design. Storytelling for earthly survival is a workshop to critically explore ideas of survival, climate catastrophe and anthropocentrism. In the course of 5 days, participants will delve into speculative writing and feminist methodologies as worldbuilding practices to produce a series of texts that delve into ecological violence, non-linear narratives and climatic urgencies. Throughout the week, a series of collaborative reading sessions, writing exercises and explorations of publishing as a site-specific and community-forming practice will occur. The collaborative aspect of the workshop aims to create a temporary community. Instead of focusing on a solution-oriented pedagogy, this approach allows to expose the participants’ backgrounds, ideologies and socio-political contexts, enabling the production of relational and knowledge creation. 1 2 3
22 23 3 2 1 # 1 8 # 1 9 MAKEup By Andy Milligan Taking inspiration from thecreative freedomoffered through asemic writing, (a hybrid artform that weaves words and images together), this sculptural workshop aligns conceptually with existing research precedents such as experience prototyping (Buchenau & Fulton Sur, 2000) and improvisational making in theatre. My current research uses sculpture to reframe the interior as an expanded practice that plays with artefacts of the interior and exterior landscape. I propose to engage Masters students with speculative sculptural approaches that employ simple studio materials, e.g., paper, card, tape, string, pens/pencils, 3D sketching and playful object-making with thoughtful, poetic processes such as asemic making. This offers an inventive attention to the workshop themes towards expanding our understanding of critical design through emotive and expressive experimentation. These are valuable alternatives to the established representational conventions in design education and practice, that mostly occur near the end, not at the start of a project. By making from the start, by feeling our way through materials and responses as repeated acts of enquiry, we can problem ‘find’, and problem ‘solve’ in an active, rigorous exploration that unlocks creative possibilities to provide students with flexible and sustainable low-fi tools to develop new methods of identifying and framing future issues. If I knew then, what I knownow By Ko Nakatsu Critical and speculative design is usually about the future. I’d like us to look at the past. And redesign the past to learn about the present. If the combustion engine was not popularized, what would the world look like? If we never discovered the Covid vaccine, how would our world look differently? If technology in Egypt had advanced toour current knowledge, will the Pyramids look like the Pyramids? The workshopweek will offer individual assignments as well as a group assignment. We will start with a personal project and look to redesign things from our own past. We will then work in groups to identify, research, and redesign artifacts/ environments/monuments/rituals of the past with a modern perspective. Howwould we design things differently? The last project will look at the past from a future perspective. What will the future say about us? What will they think was ridiculous? Howwould the future humans, redesign the current now? 1
24 2 1 # 2 0 Design for Ephemerality By Lara Weller & Jan-Micha Gamer We live in a world of permanent change. Nothing in this world remains the same — even though an inner human need strives to create permanence and immortality. This vehement striving and the resulting careless actions now present humanity with huge challenges to overcome: products are produced regardless of their end of life and generate huge mountains of „waste“; architectures are built in a con ict of material and environment, so that they have to be demolished after a few decades; resources are exploited on such a scale, that the devastating environ-mental consequences are already noticeable; and much more. We are convinced that human intervention and creation is much more mindful, cautious and resource-saving if we are aware of our own mortality, the laws of the natural cycle as well as the complexity of the planetary system. In this workshop, we would like to focus on this aspect of ephemerality together: How does our relationship to our environment changewhen we become aware of our mortality? Howwould we shape our environment if we assume that all material thingsmust also be returned to their original state at the end of our lives? How do we draw creative power and ingenuity from our ephemerality in order to shape this world differently? With these and other questions, wewant to find awaywithin different contexts to get out of the thinking of infinity, limitless power and immortality that we demonstrate to each other on every day basis. We therefore start on a very personal level. In the following, the students are to develop Critical Design concepts in an interdisciplinaryway, according to their strengths and backgrounds. These concepts will make a new statement in this world beyond utopian future scenarios. The knowledge the students have gai-ned in their disciplineswill be used todevelopeach design concept in various group settings with critical questioning and learning how todeal with unresolvable conflicts.
Biographies workshop leaders 27 26 #1 Patricia Guaita & Raffael Baur Patricia Guaita and Raffael Baur co-initiated several research and teaching projects that explore the relationship of craft and fabrication to space, tectonics and the human being. They met at the EPFL in 2010 where their common interests in architectural education led them to develop a pedagogy of making, tested and refined through several project collaborations, notably the interdisciplinary research project A Prototype Pavilion in Textile Reinforced Concrete, EPFL (since 2019) and the Open City Research Platform, EPFL and PUCV, Valparaiso (2013-19). From 2020-22 they were Invited Professors at the HEIA Fribourg where they led the design studio Construction Cycles. Patricia and Raffael have their own professional practices in Lausanne and Zürich, with an upcoming project collaboration. Workshop: Drawing Research Week #2 Julian Brües & Wassily Walter Julian Brües is an architect, teacher and editor in Vienna. He worked for offices such as Lederer Ragnasdottir and Furrer Jud. Since March 2020 he has been working as a research assistant at the department of Raum und Gestalt at TU Graz. In 2020, he received the Start Scholarship with which he founded ‘Diskursiv’, an association for architectural research. Where he co-directed the book “Models”. Wassily Walter is an architect and teacher between Berlin and Vienna. From 2019, he has been working for Kuehn Malvezzi where he was involved in several cultural projects across Europe such as the interreligious initiative of House of One, the conversion of Batiment d‘Art Contemporain or the extension of Komische Oper. Since 2021 he teaches with Wilfried Kuehn and Pier Paolo Tamburelli at TU Vienna. Workshop: What we can learn from Maison Martin Margiela #3 Eulàlia Gomez-Escoda & Emma O’Connell Prof. Eulalia Gomez-Escoda is an architect and PhD in Urbanism. She is Associate Professor at the Department of Urban Design and Planning at the Barcelona School of Architecture ETSAB-UPC Barcelona Tech. Since 2021, she is Deputy Director of International Relations at ETSAB-UPC Barcelona Tech. She is also Design Critic at Harvard University Graduate School of Design (fall 2019), invited professor at international schools such as the School of Architecture of KU Leuven, the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts KADK, the German University in Cairo, the Universidad Mayor at Santiago de Chile and the Graduate School of Planning and Preservation GSAPP at Columbia University. Postdoc Researcher at LUB, Barcelona Urbanism Laboratory. Independent professional activity and collaborations with firms developing public projects of Architecture, Urbanism, Public Space and Landscape. Emma O’Connell is an architect from the south of Italy based in Barcelona. She graduated from Barcelona’s Polytechnic University with a thesis on the role of outdoor terraces in Barcelona and Milan. Currently, she collaborates with BAU Architecture and Urbanism and develops her research on informal food distribution systems in Europe. Her research has been recently published in indexed journals. Workshop: When food storms the squares augmentation, which refers to near-body products that enhance human abilities through the development of technological improvements as an integral part of the human body. She aims to develop a research-based framework for the development of human augmentation products that strengthen the user’s individual and contextual identity through social empowerment while respecting ethical boundaries and sociocultural values. Product semiotics, which poses that products can communicate additional meaning through their appearance, therefore plays an imperative role within her research. Workshop: Design Against Taboo (DAT): new insights into the mean-making process of wearable design exploration #7 Davide Cauciello & Octavio Pineiro Aramburu Davide Cauciello (1992) graduated from the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta (ULB) with a thesis on the contradictions between income levels and quality of life in rural, peripheral and urban areas of the Brussels metropolitan region. As a member of Latitude Platform and in the framework of several research projects, he has worked at the organisation of participatory workshops involving a plurality of actors, both institutional and associative. Octavio Pineiro Aramburu (1993) is a graduated architect from the Faculty of Architecture La Cambre-Horta (ULB). As a collaborator within Latitude Platform, he worked on the researches Brusseau and Cities of Making by producing analytical maps, conducting on-field interviews, preparing exhibitions and organizing coanalysis and co-construction workshops with universities, institutions and citizens. Workshop: Grijze materie #8 Celeste Tellarini Celeste Tellarini is an architect, urban designer and documenter based in Brussels. Her interest lies on a non-conforming perception of the realm, far from labels, binary oppositions and strict definitions. In 2020 she completed her studies in Politecnico di Milano (IT) and Manchester School of Architecture (UK) and since 2019 Celeste is part of the architecture office Dogma (BE). In 2021 she established a multitude: an open research and design practice spanning from discipline to discipline. In 2022 Celeste collaborated with the University of Melbourne, Politecnico di Milano and ULiege. Since 2018 Celeste meticulously documents ultra-ordinariness through microelements and Details of superordinary places: ongoing photographic series shared daily over social media. Workshop: Brutal and banal with a hint of floral #9 Susie Brand-de Groot Susie Brand-de Groot has now been a teacher in Design Visualization Techniques for over 20 years at the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of Technology. Over the years she developed herself to be an independent teacher and design coach, focusing on the visualization part of design processes. Last years she broadens her knowledge in the field of the meaning of form in designs. With her students she researches the influence of individual perception on how we experience form and she researches what body posture has to do with our perception of form. Beside at TU Delft Susie has worked as a teacher for multiple educational institutions, ranging from retail and mechanical engineering students in The Netherlands to interior & design students in Belgium, and has held workshops in Belgium, Sweden and Italy. As a young Interior Architect Susie specialized in theatre design. Nowadays still, her ambition is to reinforce the vision of a director through design. She loves working #4 Dewi Brunet & Gwenaël Prost Dewi Brunet is an artist specialized in folding, as a technique, as an art, as a field of research. More than 15 years of practice in folding led him to gain a strong expertise in origami, pleating and crumpling techniques. His work currently focuses on the link between ecology and technology through robotic folded creations. Gwenaël Prost is a designer, based in Rennes. His practice evolve between experimentation with materials and transmission. The fold never ceases to fascinate him, bringing him into the inexhaustible field of relations between art and science. Dewi and Gwen co-founded in 2021, with Théo Philippot, “Diatom”, a studio focused on folded creation for performing arts and the event industry. Workshop: Pattern and chaos #5 Hussein Shikha & Sadrie Alves Hussein Shikha and Sadrie Alves are collaborators working on the ongoing project ‘Tales of Symbologies’. They have shared their research in various contexts and workshops such as Open Design Course and Extra City. Hussein Shikha is a multidisciplinary artist, graphic designer, writer, and researcher. He was born and raised in Iraq and moved to Antwerp in 2009. He graduated with an MA in visual arts from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts Antwerp. His work deals with the preservation, translation, and digitization of the visual culture from his intersectional experience as an Iraqi-Belgian. Currently, he is doing research on the erasure of handmade Iraqi tapestries and its idea of ‘beauty’ that relates to Islamic art, as a way to de-modernize his creative practices. Sadrie Alves is a Belgian Brazilian multidisciplinary artist, illustrator and performer currently living in Brussels. The core of her artistic practice departs from drawing as a symbolic action and as a catalyst for tender narratives and collaboration. She sees drawing as writing as singing as crafting. Her work is inspired by oral histories, myths, and the beings that inhabit them. Workshop: Tales of Symbologies: Subjective Mapping. Centering traditions and philosophies associated with tapestries #6 Beste Ozcan & Muriel De Boeck Beste Ozcan works at the nexus of design, technology and science. She is a postdoc research fellow at the Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy (ISTC-CNR) working on interactive smart devices. She is the founder of “Transitional Wearable Companions (TWCs)” concept, brand, and its first applied award-winning prototype called “PlusMe”, which is a particular type of wearable social companion for children with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) and “IM-TWIN system” concept, which is an AI-based system for smart therapy of children with ASD. She is also interested in developing other types of experimental smart devices to augment empathy and reduce the anxiety of humans. She is the author of the book “H+ design: time, space, human, machine”. Muriel De Boeck is a PhD student in Product Development at the University of Antwerp. Her research focuses on human
29 28 closely with both director and actors to enhance the play together. In this, she doesn’t shy away from challenging the actors with her designs, making the story stronger along the way. Workshop: per [by means of] FORM [shape; figure; mode; semblance] #10 Florian Mahieu & Corentin Dalon Florian Mahieu and Corentin Dalon both work for Bento architects. Bento is an association of architects that places material experimentation at the center of its thinking. Living matter questions the sustainability of our current production methods and their impact on our lifestyles. Based on this observation and/or this obligation, the architects of Bento make a point of exalting it, going beyond it, to bridge the gap between architecture, art and design. It is around these reflections that Bento won the European Architecture competition Europan 16, on the Brussels site, by proposing to transform the Center for Modern Architecture, the CIVA, into a center for experimentation and production around regenerative materials; and winner of the next Belgian pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. Workshop: Laboratory of the future #11 Artem Kitaev & Leonid Slonimskiy Artem Kitaev and Leonid Slonimskiy both work for KOSMOS architects. KOSMOS is an internationally recognized award-winning architectural practice, that collaborates virtually and brings together partners from different parts of Europe. KOSMOS works on projects of diverse scales and typologies: from furniture, art installations, temporary pavilions and private houses to big public buildings, such as sport centers, office buildings, airports and museums; as well as masterplans, including big urban parks and territorial development projects. We believe that architecture is collaborative, inclusive and multidisciplinary profession, and we often collaborate with other architects, artists, political activists, sociologists, photographers, poets, etc. The diversity of geographical contexts, collaborations and building typologies on which we work allows KOSMOS to be able to rethink the conventional approach to design and propose novel, non-typical solutions. Work of KOSMOS was widely published and exhibited. KOSMOS received the Prize of Geneva for Experimental Architecture, multiple prizes for best public buildings and was named the “New European Generation” by L’Architecture d’Aujourd’hui magazine in 2022. Workshop: PRIMITIVE HUT #12 Alexander Auris & Lucas de Mello Reitz Alexander Auris is a Peruvian architect and researcher based in Brussels (PUCP Peru and KU Leuven). He has contributed in the exhibition Institution Building at CIVA and Oslo Architecture Triennale; and has been a nalist at Venice Architecture Film Festival with his short movie 4.6 km. His work unfolds from an intimate exploration of his intersectionality in relation to space and it is presented in different types of media such as video, writing, performance, and spatial design. His research project Queer World proposes a theoretical framework for the analysis of queerness in the built environment. He has tested this research in Berlin, Pristina, Lima, Brussels and continues to expand it to other cities. Lucas de Mello Reitz is a Brazilian-Luxembourgian Architect (UDESC and Universidad de Sevilla, 2014), Master in Urbanism, History and Architecture of the City (UFSC, 2016), currently lives in Brussels. Independent architect in projects of varied scales and themes, also producing workshops on architecture and art, focusing on critical history of the city, contemporary art and queer theory. Collaborator professor from 2016 and 2022 in public and private Brazilian institutions. Active member in Arquitetura Bicha, reference in queer architecture in Brazil. Artistic fellow at Université Laval (2022); Winner of the Elisabete Anderle Award (Brazil, 2021); Curator and creator of Paralela Arquitetura e Artes (Architecture Council Prize 2018) and the curatorial project Museu do que nos resta (3rd The Wrong Bienale, 2021). Workshop: A Soft Storm #13 Iga Górniak Iga Górniak has literally built her career with LEGO bricks, but that never has stopped her from thinking out of the box. She is a multidisciplinary polish designer and artist, exploring the concept of play in design and its value in learning processes. After her graduation in 2016 from Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Iga has developed concepts for the future of play in LEGO Creative Play Lab and got specialised in Design for Play on Design School Kolding’s Master’s degree programme. Working as a freelancer in Denmark, she has co-designed two interactive experiences at LEGO House, and developed characters for a playful AR adventure introducing children to libraries across the country. Fascinated by the process of co-creation and facilitation, Iga has participated in multiple social projects and cultural events performing play experiments in a public realm. At the moment, she is exploiting her knowledge as a teacher and communication designer in the international high school environment at Akademeia High School in Warsaw. Working as a creative educator, Iga has co-founded clubs and workshops exploring sustainable social innovation, while researching playful learning methods. Workshop: Dreamers Disease #15 Livni Holtz Livni Holtz (*1995 in Zurich) is a designer with a background in object design. Working on a sailing ship, as an art locksmith in Munich, as a silversmith in Nepal and as a furniture maker in the Zurich design studio «Nektar design» have shaped his way of designing objects. His mentors along the way have shaped his way of thinking. Since 2020, he has had the opportunity to reinterpret the accumulated experience and explore alternative working methods as part of his degree at the Design Academy Eindhoven. His practice evolved in the DAE studios Technogeographies, led by Martina Muzi, and Invisible, led by Mario Minale. Through this research-based approach, an interest in hidden cultural phenomena emerged. Through performance, film and objects, he seeks to understand subjectivities and transform them into concept and form. Lives and works in Eindhoven and Zurich. Workshop: Difference and Repetition #16 Alessia Bertini & Michel Kessler Alessia Bertini (1993) and Michel Kessler (1992) both work for Teorema. Teorema is the collaborative project of four ETH/EPFL/AAM architects that focuses on the exegesis of space, technology and landscape through sound, film and textual media. The nature of their work is based on the belief that space is increasingly dematerialized and that the mutated role of architects is to map out zones for connections, relationships and systems. It is on this ground that the interest in impalpable factors and the unveiling of their collateral agents rests, carefully observing and adjusting the reading of an intertwined globe. Their members are involved in academic (ETH), editorial and practical activities. Their individual and collective projects have been part of a number of festivals such as the Biennale svizzera del territorio, Lugano (2022) / Dixit Algorizmi - The Garden of Knowledge, 59th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia (2022) / gta exhibitions #14 Saurabh Mhatre & Atula Sahani Saurabh Mhatre is a trained Architect with a Masters Degree in Urban Design from the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. His work operates along a broad spectrum of scales, from urban design and architecture to interior architecture and object design. He is passionate about the complexities of the urban form and it’s critical inquiry through drawing which operates as a polemic. Atula Sahani is a trained Architect with a Masters Degree in Landscape Architecture. She is passionate about the delicate relationship between the built and the natural environment and engages rigorously to optimise this balance through research and practice in order to achieve positive social and environmental outcomes for future society. Workshop: An Imaginative Play and e-flux Architecture (2020) and published in ARCH+, eflux, CARTHA, NZZ. Workshop: Antwerp soundscapes #17 María Mazzanti & Anna Bierler María Mazzanti is a Colombian spatial practitioner, writer and educator. She works as an editor and organizer at Failed Architecture and teaches at The Sandberg Instituut and Gerrit Rietveld Academy in Amsterdam. Her practice is concerned with ideas of climate catastrophe, infrastructure and feminist frameworks. She was a research fellow at The Sandberg Instituut (2021-2022). Anna Bierler works as an independent graphic designer in Rotterdam. She is interested in publishing gestures: how they create relational experiences and how they can elucidate ways of doing and living together on this damaged planet. Anna’s work materializes as publications, radio programs, workshops (most recently at Zone2Source, StrandLab, Hackers and Designers), writing sessions and poetry. Anna and María share research interests and collaborate on radio and publishing projects. Workshop: Storytelling for earthly survival #18 Andy Milligan Andy Milligan is a Senior Lecturer, researcher, PhD first supervisor, and Programme Director of Interior & Environmental Design at DJCAD Dundee and previously taught at institutions in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glasgow. He uses sculptural processes to examine the interior as an expanded practice through installations, objects and mise-en-scène strategies to reveal allegorical and analytical insights that build upon earlier investigations on domestic, technological, and utopian ideas, or domestechtopias. Andy’s recent works were exhibited at the Royal Scottish Academy, Edinburgh (2022) and at the Confluence: Traditions in Contemporary Art, Dundee (2022) and previously at Montclair State University, USA and Sichuan Fine Arts Institute, China. He has exhibited interior works in the UK, Finland, Germany, USA, Czech Rep, Canada, and China and he is an invited lecturer in USA, Germany, Slovenia, Italy, Belgium, and external examiner in Portsmouth School of Architecture. Workshop: MAKEup
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