John & Patricia Patkau: “Escape from/to Architecture”

 

John & Patricia Patkau: “Escape from/to Architecture”

Patkau Architects was founded by spouses John Patkau and Patricia Patkau in Canada in 1978. The firm has been recipient of several architectural design awards including the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada Gold Medal. Both Patricia Patkau and John Patkau are Honorary Fellows of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) and of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). Of their latest projects, two of their most critically acclaimed are the Varsity Centre for High Performance Sport (University of Toronto) and the School of Art Building (University of Manitoba).

www.patkau.ca

 

 

David Kohn: “The City and its Interior”

 

David Kohn: “The City and its Interior”

David Kohn studied architecture at the University of Cambridge and at Columbia University, New York as a Fulbright Scholar. David worked at Caruso St John Architects before establishing his own practice David Kohn Architects in (DKA) 2007. David won the Young Architect of the Year award in 2009 and in 2010 the practice was named One-Off House Architect of the Year. In 2013, the practice won the World Interior of the Year for the refurbishment of a piano nobile apartment in the Gothic Quarter of Barcelona. Furthermore, David has been a diploma tutor at London Metropolitan University since 2003. He is currently an external examiner at the University of Kingston.

www.davidkohn.co.uk

Solano Benítez : “Obra”

 

Solano Benítez: “Obra”

In 1987, Solano founded Gabinete de Arquitectura, the office he currently shares with Alberto Marinoni and Gloria Cabral. Solano has received multiple awards such as an Honorary Membership in the American Institute of Architects (2012), an Honorable Mention of Paraguay’s National Congress for contributions to the country (2011). In turn, the Gabinete de Arquitectura has among other honors earned the Work of the Decade award, for the period 1989-1999, of the Paraguayan College of Architects (1999). The Gabinete de Arquitectura was also a finalist in the 2nd Mies van der Rohe Award for Latin America (1999), and represented Paraguay in the Venice Biennale, and the São Paulo biennial, and in Lisbon during its stint as Ibero-American Capital of Culture. Solano has been a guest speaker in many universities around the world, including the Harvard Graduate School of Architecture.

His work is part of the architecture that is more inclined towards materials and less concerned about form. Bricks take the main stage in his research, his method being low consumption of construction materials which is also his strategy to deliver his work. His strong commitment to experimentation with bricks has turned his work into an international reference on this specific material.

In the words of Solano, architecture is more a social problem than a spatial one; and it’s not so much about form, the key lies in rethinking construction.

www.scielo.cl/pdf/arq/n51/art08.pdf

Sami Rintala: “Spaces for transformative learning”

 

Sami Rintala: “Spaces for transformative learning”

Sami Rintala (born 1969) is an architect and an artist, with a long merit list after finishing his architect studies in Helsinki Finland 1999. He established architect office Casagrande & Rintala 1998, which produced a series of acknowledged architectural installations around the world during the next five years until 2003. These works combine architecture with critical thinking of society, nature and the real tasks of an architect, all within a cross-over art field using space, light, materials and human body as tools of expression.

In 2008, Rintala started a new architect office with Icelandic architect Dagur Eggertsson. Important part of Rintala’s work is teaching and lecturing in various art and architecture universities. Teaching takes place usually in form of workshops where the students are challenged by practical situations.

Sami Rintala’s work is based on narrative and conceptualism. Resulting work is a layered interpretation of the physical, mental and poetic resources of the site.

www.ri-eg.com

Emiliano López & Mónica Rivera: “Recent Work”

 

Emiliano López & Mónica Rivera: “Recent work”

Monica Rivera and Emiliano Lopez hold a Master’s degree from Harvard University and have been teachers in various schools of design and architecture; such as, the University Rovira i Virgili, Elisava, the School of Architecture at the International University of Catalonia (ESARQ-UIC), and currently lecturing at the ETSAV.

Since it was set up in Barcelona in 2001, the practice has focused primarily on public works in the form of competitions and selected private commissions. Its works has received various awards, including the 7th Latin American Biennale Award 2010, the Young Architects’ Prize of the 10th Spanish Architecture Biennale 2009, the FAD Prize for Architecture 2008 and the AR Emerging Architecture Award 2008.

Their most recent work, House in Port de la Selva has been nominated not only for the FAD Prize 2013, but also of the 2013 Architecture Awards of the province of Girona.

www.lopez-rivera.com

José Miguel de Prada Poole: “Arquitectura evanescente”

 

José Miguel de Prada Poole: “Arquitectura evanescente”

El arquitecto José Miguel De Prada Poole, premio Nacional de Arquitectura 1975, es especialista en estructuras neumáticas, ligeras, tensadas. Su larga trayectoria profesional ha sido reconocida tanto nacional como internacionalmente. En sus estanterías acumula premios de países tan dispares como Japón, Brasil, Estados Unidos, Italia o Francia.

Durante muchos años compaginó la arquitectura con la docencia, ejerciendo como profesor en España, Venezuela, México y Estados Unidos (en el Instituto Tecnológico de Massachusetts).

La conferencia “Arquitectura Evanescente” versará sobre una serie de proyectos aparentemente muy diferentes que tienen en común la posibilidad de transformación, reorganización o cambio de lugar, al estar compuestos por elementos modulares de diversas escalas y tamaños que pueden ensamblarse de múltiples formas para adecuarse a las necesidades de cada situación.

Entre los proyectos que se mostrarán, se encuentran la Ciudad Instantánea en Ibiza, una pista de patinaje sobre Hielo en Sevilla, un pabellón modular para el ADI-FAD en la feria internacional de Barcelona, un Auditorio en Villaverde-Ciudad Lineal (Madrid), o una propuesta de Escuelas Modulares Desmontables para el Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia y la de un Museo Viajero e “invisible” para Manhattan.

www.pradapoole.com

Carlos Quintáns: “Clima”

 

Carlos Quintáns: “Clima”

Una vivienda separada de mi estudio por dos horas y media y la otra por dos días y medio de viaje. Un clima frío y otro cálido. Las dos viviendas en lugares muy apartados, difíciles de encontrar; en donde puedes rastrear como se ha convivido con las condiciones climáticas tan variadas de las dos situaciones. Las dos viviendas necesitan realizarse con lo necesario, dejando fuera lo superfluo, para ofrecer el mejor cobijo: uno cerrado, el otro abierto. Una vivienda intenta mostrar la comprensión de siglos de prueba, destilados por la comprobación y en el otro la mirada puesta en quien no hace mucho planteaba formas nuevas de construir.

Pietro Laureano: “Ecomimicry, the architecture of the fusion: design with Traditional Knowledge”

 

Pietro Laureano: “Ecomimicry, the architecture of the fusion: design with Traditional Knowledge”

Pietro Laureano, an architect and urban planner, is a UNESCO consultant for arid regions, water management, Islamic civilization and endangered ecosystems.

He lived eight years in the Sahara, engaged in the study and restoration of oases in Algeria. In numerous essays and books published since the late 1980s, he has demonstrated that oases are the result of human ingenuity, and that they represent a heritage of technical knowledge to combat aridity and a model of sustainable management for the entire planet. He has coordinated and managed projects based on the recovery of the ancient techniques of water harvesting systems with various international organizations throughout the Mediterranean, and in Yemen, Mauritania and Ethiopia. In particular, he has rebuilt the water systems of Petra, in Jordan, contributing to the UNESCO plan for ‘Greater Petra’, and restored canals and drainage systems in the monolithic town of Lalibela, Ethiopia, as team leader of the UNESCO and World Monument Fund (WMF) projects. He is currently producing an oasis eco-museum for the kingdom of Morocco and a publication that aspires to launch a worldwide appeal and to promote an alliance between Arab countries for the protection of oases.

He is the promoter of the recovery of the troglodyte city of the Sassi of Matera in southern Italy, which had been completely abandoned in the 1960s. To this end he spent ten years in the Sassi of Matera, living in caves he restored using traditional methods and recovering prehistoric systems for the collection of rainwater and methods of passive cooling. He is the author of the reports that led to the inclusion of the Sassi and the Cilento Park on UNESCO’s World Heritage List and has contributed, with his example and activities, to the model of success achieved in these two areas in relation to the recovery of urban ecosystems and the preservation of landscape.

He is founder and coordinator of Ipogea, Centre for Studies on Traditional Knowledge, a non-profit organization based in Florence and Matera that carries out projects to preserve landscape through the use of ancient systems such as dry stone terraces, water harvesting cisterns and catchment tunnels.

He is part of the work group responsible for drafting the new UNESCO Landscape Convention. As Italian representative on the Technical-Scientific Committee of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), and as Chairman of the Panel for Traditional Knowledge, he has promoted the creation of a World Bank of Traditional Knowledge and its Innovative Use (www.tkwb.org). This initiative is being pursued with UNESCO through the creation of the International Traditional Knowledge Institute (ITKI), based in Florence, which will have a decisive role in shaping the new Landscape Convention. His numerous publications and his work in general have been widely reported in the international press.

www.ipogea.org/site2/

Anne Holtrop: “A possible architecture”

Anne Holtrop: “A possible architecture”

In my work I start with forms and materials which often come from outside the logic of architecture itself. With the idea that all things can be perceived and conceived differently, everything can become architecture. Like in a Rorschach inkblot, a butterfly and a lake can be seen in it. The way I work with this material is an intuitive way, more or less without a plan, and that is characterized with not wanting to know the end result on forehand, but being more interested in a certain way of making and seeing. In that way an architecture occurs by inventing what could be its next step, that is based on previous steps taken.

www.anneholtrop.nl

6a | Tom Emerson: “Never Modern”

Tom Emerson: “Never Modern”

Never Modern is an evolving talk explorating of the role of narrative, history, appropriation and craft in the work of London based 6a architects finding affinities between the architecture and Bruno Latour’s notion that contemporary society has entered into a pre-modern age. The talk will trace an approach that favour of metis, an ancient form of intelligence combining ‘flair, wisdom, forethought, subtlety of mind, deception, resourcefulness, vigilance, oppor­tunism, varied skills, and experience’. In the work of artists, Richard Wentworth as in that of Sempé, in Tati there is a fundamental optimism and a fascination with the resource­fulness of people as they get on with their lives. Like contemporary society at large, architecture is fundamentally a work of bricolage drawing from the debris of history and the comedies of everyday life in the world that surrounds us.

www.6a.co.uk