New academic year and brief in the Architectural Association
'A
new scale: ...no formula for the contemporary expression of the world. See with
open eyes.'
Oswald
de Andrade, Manifesto Pau-Brasil
Intermediate Unit 8
will continue to work on the design of a block in a Latin-American metropolis.
This design will interrogate the civic role of large buildings in vast polycentric
cities, considering for it the coexistence of public and private premises. The
block will be located within São Paulo heterogeneous grid, and its size will
range between 90 and 150
metres in each of its sides depending on the chosen
neighbourhood.
Being one of the
first countries opposing neoliberal policies widespread in Latin-America, Brazil
has become a reference for an alternative model of economic and social
development. São Paulo,
its economic centre, has a fragmented urban configuration full of contrasts
consequential of a rapid economic and social growth. Each of its fragments is a
result of different negotiations between government and private investment,
what has left a disjointed urban grid with no continuous street wall, full of
interior borders and lacking urban cohesion. The unit proposes to work within
this heterogeneous grid to explore a polycentric city model and the fundamental
role of large urban blocks in bringing centrality to each urban fragment by
their civic performance.
For this purpose, the
structure of the academic year will be divided in three interrelated parts:
1. Field: Maps, photographs, indexes
and observations on social, cultural and economic issues in the city that will
inform the programmatic brief of the block and its civic role within the city.
2. Form: Analysis of formal spatial
configurations that will articulate the block programmatic content. Some
examples of Paulista
School architects, such
as Vilanova Artigas, Bo Bardi and Mendes da Rocha, and large urban block
proposals by other contemporary authors will be studied.
3. Interface:
Studies on the responsiveness of the block, focussing on the relationship
between the city and the block and qualities such as porosity, permeability and
interaction will be explored through model making in a wide range of scales and
larger material tests of building envelope. Finally, the unit will prime
portfolio development and a holistic understanding of the design, investigating
different possibilities of the axonometric view.
