Book Materiality in the Architectural Design Studio: Good Practices
Editors: Vaso Trova, Iris Lykourioti
Publisher: Caleidoscopio
The collective volume Materiality in the Architectural Design Studio: Good Practices edited by Vaso Trova and Iris Lykourioti is published in English by Portuguese editorial house Caleidoscopio.
The book concerns the role of materiality in architectural design process and in the practices of architectural education. The chapters included in the volume are contributions by an international group of architects who teach architectural design in various schools across Europe and Turkey. They consist of an interesting and versatile comparative module of teaching experiences and experiments in spatial materialities.
The publication is the outcome of the tutors workshop organized by the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly in 2018 focusing on the same subject. The workshop was part of the Department’s international partnership within the EU funded Erasmus+ research program MATERIART.
The digital version of the book (open access) can be downloaded from the following link:
Materiality is a major component in architectural design education. Different methods are used depending on the level of students’ education (introductory year, middle years, final year, post graduate studies), the curriculum and the identity of each architectural school. Students are introduced into the use, aesthetics and mechanics of real materials; they learn how to use materials in symbolic ways in order to represent material reality; they learn how to experiment with non material imageries in order to rethink spatial materiality; they learn the techniques, the social aspects and impacts of material production. Handwork, manufacturing as well as high tech, digitalized material production processes are considered as distinct sets of knowledge to be taken into account likewise. They are equally important for the overall training of students of architecture since they provide a diverse context in the shaping of our material cultures.
In September 2018 the Dept. of Architecture, University of Thessaly organized the Volos Tutors’ Workshop within the framework of MATERIART project. The workshop functioned as a platform of exchange of good teaching practices of different schools of Architecture with regard to the methods used to integrate materiality in architectural studios. During the presentations and the discussions, a variety of methods and tactics have been presented and discussed, ranging from computational design to quick concept modeling.
Materiality as techniques can be understood in terms of the materiality of the final constructed product (a building, a structural detail, an object). A number of participants have shown how the specific restrictions, the potential and the structural properties of materials which are going to be used in the implementation of the project, have to be incorporated into the design processes and therefore shape the final outcome. This doesn’t necessarily mean the subordination of the creative process to a technicalreality. On the contrary, the challenge refers to the negotiation between imagination and technical frameworks and could lead to innovative results. Materials can function as a media isolating and transferring qualities of urban scale to abstract models. They enable us to focus on the specific which is normally interrelated – and therefore hidden- in the interweaved world of urban experience. Materiality could facilitate our way of thinking about certain spatial properties while at the same time it could create ambiguities which force us to reconsider the reality. The visual and the structural aspects of materiality interrelate in the process of understanding the existing and creating the new.
Modelling is a form of thinking, not just a presentation of an idea already completed. The process of design is a continuous negotiation between the abstract thinking and the materiality of the model. In this sense materiality plays a crucial role to the development of the design concept. Models as artefacts are constructing abstract relations between elements (as the sketch in drawing) but instead of lines they are using materials which insert their own properties into the design thinking process. From hands-on explorations to computational design the thinking-making process is heavily based on materiality and the rules imposed by it.
Materials have texture, they create atmospheres, soundscapes, they convey feelings, they formulate physical sensorial experiences. In this sense the poetics of materiality remain an issue which contributes to the design process, either with reference to the materials of the final product or with regard to the materiality of the design process and the thinking-modeling practices.(Introductory text by the editors)
Diploma Projects Exhibition 2020-22
Department of Architecture, Polytechnic School, University of Thessaly
Duration: 31 May - 30 June 2023
Opening: Wednesday, 31 May 2023 // 19:00
Ground floor - Central corridor, DArch UTh, Pedion Areos, Volos
The exhibition presents the 78 best Diploma projects completed at the Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly (DArch UTh) in the years 2020-21 (52) and 2021-22 (26). It will be on display from 31 May to 30 June 2023 and seeks to showcase the efforts and achievements of recent graduates as well as to shed light on the dynamic changes in the educational culture of the Department as it was shaped in a critical juncture.
In these two years, the diploma projects, and all educational activities, persisted amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and unprecedented public health protection measures. The Exhibition marks the return to activities in physical spaces and the reconnection of the academic community. It provides an opportunity to reflect critically on a condition that has tested not only individual and collective limits but also established methods of teaching in architectural education and to reconsider its priorities in the face of multiple crises: from pandemics to climate change.
The exhibition occupies the main corridor of the ground floor, where students, teachers, employees meet every day. It thus seeks to contribute to the re-appropriation of the building as a common place of reference and to emphasize the connections between the broader academic activities of the Department and the reflections, new ideas and design experiments that are developed primarily in diploma project through the close collaboration of faculty and students. Each of the 78 projects, and the exhibition as a whole, underline the importance of architectural education as a crucial field of coexistence, dialogue, creation, and fostering of hopeful perspectives for the future.
We dedicate this event to the memory of our dear friend, colleague, and scholar Spyros Papadopoulos (1966-2023) who passed away prematurely. The diploma projects he supervised as a faculty member of the Department since 2000-some of which stand out in this year's exhibition-are only part of his multifaceted research and teaching work that left a strong imprint on the identity and community of the Department. Closing the 2023-academic year with the Exhibition as a collective praxis, we make a first attempt to come to terms with the hard-to-fill void left by Spyros Papadopoulos with a celebratory, exuberant, and optimistic event, as we imagine he would have wanted it to be.
You can download the exhibition poster and the catalogue.
Curated on behalf of the Department of Architecture
Paniyiris, Costis
Micocci, Fabiano
Symeonidou, Ioanna
Phokaides, Petros
Supported by
Diamantouli, Εliki
Lioka, Styliani-Georgia
Marou, Thalia
Μitsimponas, Dimitrios
Savvidou, Stella
Topaloglou, Eleni
Laboratory of Environmental Communication & Audiovisual Documentation:
Eleni Pispiri
Giorgos Kalaouzis
Administration:
Nancy Gata
Department Secretary:
Dimoulas,Christos
Koniari, Sofia
Lecture by Maroun El-Daccache, chair, department of Architecture and Design SArD - LAU, entitlted “Project for Beirut Port: RECONNECT THE CITY”, room E, 11:30 am on 30th of May.
"The destruction that occurred on August 4, 2020, made us once again to review the components of the city in general and the affected area in particular to reveal the historical phases of the city, which are based on its social, economic and architectural fabric to develop a contemporary design vision for the devastated area of Beirut city.
The lecture discusses the recent project that we developed for the Port of Beirut and its relationship with the city, by reconsidering the waterfront of Karantina area, the city-center, Mar Mikhael area, Gemmayzeh, Charles Helou station, the Archeological area and the Silos and their relationship with the Port and their impact on the architectural and urban vision.
The intervention aims is to propose an integrated project as a result of civic and social factors and changes in the port area and its surroundings, within a new perspective for the city’s development. The real dilemma is that cities are no longer a source for the function and economic needs of the community, but rather a false economic structure based only on mass consumerism. In a destroyed city, the problem for citizens is the memory, the loss of objects and landmarks. This “nostalgic logic” has conditioned many reconstructions of post-war cities. But rebuilding the exact “city image” before the destruction means erasing an episode of history, because even destruction can become a moment of reflection and self-criticism."
Webex [link]
DEVISINGS_ HOW WE WILL LIVE
Symposium and Local Festival of the “OPEN UP” Creative Europe Program
Place: Building of Department of Architecture, University of Thessaly - Polytechnic School Campus
Time: Monday, May 29, and Thursday, June 1, 2023
The History, Theory and Conceptual Design Laboratory of the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly participate in the Symposium organization.
Thematic:
The convergence of impasses on a planetary scale, from climate catastrophe and the adverse dynamics of the Anthropocene to the crisis caused by state competition and international social inequalities, raises a question of the responsibility of the broadly understood creative subjects of today and their practices, the way they locally think and act in their daily lives, at work, in the community, and at home.
Life Co-shaping
Life organization, from the proximate domain of the private sphere to the spatial domain of various symbioses and the immaterial domain of planetary networking represent the focal point. Work, health, extended kinship or love, the relationship with each other’s field of residence, and the multiple interaction practices constitute the collective subject through relations of care and support, both between human and non-human subjects (more than human). Interest turns to Planetary Care, along with survival at the proximate scale of related bodies with a local reference. Through this "program", we inquire about creative subjects jurisdictions, responsibilities, desires, and shortcomings. Creative subjects are not defined only by their knowledge baggage and professional responsibilities but form an extended social entity sharing responsibility towards a destructive world fighting itself and mortgaging its future. Nothing is given anymore, at the same time that the facts remain suffocatingly much: How will life be constantly devised through the practices of those who live it and co-shape it?
Devisings and Creative Practices
The "Devisings of Life" Symposium intends to disturb already performed practices of responsibility from the new subjectivities and agencies of creation in architecture, art, and poetic practices. Poetic-creative practices do not refer therefore much to the already defined institutional fields of art - like museums - or the corresponding fields of the professional practice of architecture - such as architectural offices -. They refer, as generic as it may be, to planning, curating, and the act of life itself. Namely, poetic-creative practices refer to the constitution of everyday life, to the material and virtual experience of residence, to the new forms of life that emerge violently, somewhere between the digital workplace, the ground we tread on, the water we drink, the proximate and the distant bodies, the mechanisms and techniques, the nutritional values we metabolize. What is the modern subject, how is its residence resiliently constituted and how does this define, together with others, the field of its conjunction with what we call life or life-with-others?
Local Open Up Festival: Field of Speech and Action
The Devisings Symposium will be hosted for two days, within the Local Festival of "Open Up".
It will be a week of “poetic” acting and presentations around life issues and practices, concerning water, crops, and nutrition, assembly techniques of our intimate space, materials reuse as well as a poetry readings performance by the group of the FRMK magazine. During the two-year "Open Up" program in Thessaly, and with the participation of a multinational group of contributors, there had been corresponding actions for household objects construction through the assemblage method, development of cultivation practices at home or in public spaces, and collective food practices. In addition to their presentation, they will continue and be completed with the actions of the Local Festival. The prime responsibility for this activation will have the community members of the Department of Architecture of the University of Thessaly. The external space for the Symposium and Activities will be the Campus of the Polytechnic School. Symposium files together with the Festival Activities documentation will be assembled into a digital catalog and corresponding publication.
Thematic Sections of the Symposium
The Symposium participants will be able to include their presentations-lectures-performances in one of the following thematic areas:
A. All in One_New Domesticity
B. Nature/Culture Agencies
C. Resilient and Creative Subjects
D. Curatorial and Care Practices
Download the poster.
29/5/23 14:00 room Γ & Zoom
The Laboratory of Environmental Communication & Audiovisual Documentation (LECAD) of the Department of Architecture of UTh, the "Diophantus" Computer Technology and Press Institute and Appoplou kindly invite you to the conference where the results of the project "Escape through Culture" will be presented.
The one day conference is scheduled for Sunday, 28 May 2023, 09.30-15.30 at Marasleio Didactaleio (4 Marasli str, 10676 Athens).
Check the programme (in Greek).
Color Greece, Omega Technology and the Laboratory of Environmental Communication & Audiovisual Documentation (LECAD) of the Department of Architecture of UTh invite you on Thursday 25 May 2023 at 17:00 to the Results Presentation Day of the project:
In the context of the course WATER BODIES (Evelyn Gavrilou, Costis Paniyiris) and in collaboration with the walking trails of BIODIVERSITY TRAILS on Tuesday 23.05.2023 at 13.30-17.30 a visit to Lake Karla and places/ locations around it will take place.
The aim is to get in touch with the history of the lake, to learn and understand the function of this man-made lake. The journey will be made by University bus. Course participants have priority. There are additional places for non-course people.
Persons interested can fill the doodle below by Tuesday 23.05.2023 midday.
www.doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/bWQr8Kxe/vote
See the poster.
Useful information for the walking trail in greek here.
* The BIODIVERSITY TRAILSstarted in the course URBAN PLANTING (Mrs. Thalia Marou) with walking trails in the outdoor space of the Polytechnic School of UTH and the abandoned part of Pedion of Areos, continue with the visit of Karla Lake and one or two more walking trails in urban post-industrial spaces in Volos. Organisation and implementation by Eliki Diamantouli (architectural engineer UTH, on-going master student in landscape architecture TUM, visiting student at UTH for her research).