photo by Laurent Dejente
IN today’s world of amplified social interaction and increased focus on issues of connectivity, adjustability and dynamic relations, there is a need for our built environment to evolve beyond its current relatively static state. In 2012, AA Athens Visiting School, in collaboration with the NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS Post graduate program Architecture Space Design, will address architectural themes involving participation and active engagement with design prototypes that are characterized by action.
Action-designed structures enabled by technology today, have never been embraced by architecture to this extend, both in utopia and in the world of realized designs. The AA Athens Visiting School will embody in the design process, materials and scientific devices as vital parts of the end-creations. It will use those to bridge the two worlds of the inanimate and animate and in its’ methodology, it will rethink habits of designing, building and experiencing space in its’ horizontal dimension. Here, moving from one place to another becomes the starting point for developing a working kinetic prototype, energized by motion upon horizontal planes. Capable of responding to external stimuli, the structures being proposed will address the concept of motion and real-time reaction to various parameters. In “CIPHER CITY”, horizontality becomes essential reference as dynamic, plane pathways of information get unfolded into parallel waves of beautifully crafted experience models. The 7-day computational workshop, will also embody manufacturing techniques enabling the design teams to actively experience the diverse range of digital fabrication systems like CNC printers/routers and 3D Printers.
The dimension of horizontality versus verticality will be tested through an online platform linking two independent AA Visiting Schools of contrasting architectural agendas. AA Athens and AA Istanbul will act as design affiliates challenging the two extreme spatial dimensions. Participants are encouraged to join both workshops in order to experience the transition between the two architectural limits.
