This design studio is testing a reversal. The usually overlooked materiality of architecture becomes the starting point of the design.

Studying architecture often privileges formal conceptions over material parameters of a scheme. Thus, the possibility of a deeper tectonic research remains systematically outside the prioritiesof the young architect.

Here, we’ll get familiar with the voice of materials, and with structural arrangements and articulations, perceiving them as primary spatial events that generate and communicate architectural meaning.

In order to comprehend the inner reason of a construction we must operate as anatomists. We must deal with the inner fabrication of forms and consider densities and gaps, ordered coherency and its disintegration, the laws of the materialsand their violations. Through this approach we may acknowledge the intrinsic economy in the practice of building but also the poetic transgression of this economy.

We will particularly study the accidents of architecture, the deterioration of matter, the manufacturing diversity and morphological collage of shanty constructions. These cases are of great interest because they physically embody the violence of their own destruction. They imply strategies deeplyopposed to the instrumental modes of production of conventional architecture. Their intense aesthetic impact is forcing us to question the dominant conformism of building industry as well as the shiny ultramodern fixations.

The subject of the studio is the creation of a new lightweight and ephemeral construction on top of a small ground level building at the waterfront of Volos (Argonafton str. 1, tsipouradiko ΝΑΥΤΙΛΙΑ). Selecting a use compatible with the site, we must devise a supporting framework, anchored on the existing edifice, which will progressively get elaborated with siding and covering elements. The investigation will be carried out with models and drawingsin1:20 and 1:10 scale.  

In parallel with the evolution of design, a series of lectures will deepen our understanding of structural and expressive qualities and cultural significance of architectural matter.