Production of Architecture

cities are made of this

cities are made of this starts April 8th 10 AM at Tensta Konsthall

The course cities are made of this aims to develop an understanding for alternative processes in the production of urban conditions. We will look into how non-planning and positions between fast forward late capitalism and residues of traditional planning methodologies have started to produce new understandings of our urban environment. We will introduce and propose new concepts and tools to work on topics of urban development. Away from traditional models of planning and ill-disguised cynical trends towards a more down to earth, active and participatory approach to urban and spatial questions.

Sunday 6 APRIL International Festival and students from the School of Architecture brought together a new piece CAPITALISM! Bring It On Again NAIF at Nederlands Architectuurinstituut

“International Festival dresses up, addressing concepts of costume between architecture and performance, in combination with "thing" and expectation, projection and containment. CAPITALISM! Bring It On Again is another dress code for present day production of relations, a series of in situ productions laid out as grid where landslide and curtain raiser is parallel, and suit and suite is perpendicular to silicon and rubber boots. International Festival will remix dance group with sweatshop together with a team of architects, dancers and others to create a compilation celebrating haute couture, striptease, down dressing and facades.”

Technology not only surrounds us but has also become incorprated in our everyday lives, working as extensions of ourselves, shaping our experiences and our methods for creative production. This seminar takes its starting point in some classical texts in the field of new media theory. We will discuss how the formation of space, image, identity and language have been informed by the development of ever more sophisticated technologies.

The theme for this seminar revolves round notions of technology and identity. How do our technologies influence our understanding of identity? Does new technologies challenge old ideas, or are these two separated? How does art and architecture respond to technological development?

The assignment consists in reading and discussing a text within the group and then to present the text and the author/movement to the rest of the class on Friday, relate the text to your interests in contemporary architecture, both as buildings or as practise. Try to connect the different theories to your own experiences. The presentation should be no longer than 45 and no shorter than 30 min.

The assignment is about place. How do we appreciate places, what politics, economy, gender, social behaviour does a certain place generate and how do interact with it? Can we resist the politics of a certain place? Should we?

Production of Architecture starts January 21th 1 PM at the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm. "Talking about the new is just so last Friday. On the other hand, by saying the same we always create something new. In this work we are using all kinds of different strategies and different materials, connecting and re-connecting things and contexts. Instead of thinking that changing something means doing the opposite, which means simply reversing the image in the mirror and continuing doing the same, this work is all about changing the way things change. Or as Nike put it in a recent ad: "On our way to innovation we passed something beautiful."

check back for updates, extensive schedules, studytrip plans, lecturers, assistant teachers and more

The Second Life Hypermedia is a self-generated conversation about the world of Second Life, its possibilities and its flaws. It's a compilation of texts written by students at the School of Architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. The different texts have been organized into topics concerning different aspects of Second Life. Then the texts are cut into pieces and are redistributed amongst the topics they have created. Thus forming conversations discussing the topics from different points of view.

Follow this link (http://fswe.se/hypermedia)

Material research: In this assignment you will work in groups and research new/alternative building materials and put the information together in a presentation. This means that we will have a large archive of knowledge that you can use later in your own individual projects. - Each group has to find 10-15 possible building materials and show how these are meant to be used. - Each group also has to chose one or more of these materials and conceptualize a different field of use. Relate this investigation to your own experiences and think especially on the following questions: What relation has it to the field of architecture? If used as the basis for architectural conceptualization what kind of architecture does it/could it produce? What aesthetics are produced?

Can quality go out of style? Each group has been given two texts, one that is read by all and one that is specific for each group. The text that is to be studied by all is the seminal essay "Avant-garde and Kitsch", written by Clement Greenberg in 1939; one of the most studied and most debated texts about the differences between highbrow and lowbrow culture.

pink styrofoam starts April 16th 9 AM at the Royal Institute of Technology Stockholm. "During this course we will examine how contemporary building materials and technologies relate to the production of architecture. New modes of production and new materials have continually developed and changed during the last few decades, at the same time it has become difficult to trace how this development have transformed the way we understand architecture. Traditional modernistic ideals as honest accounts of material, function and construction have given way to an increasing occupation with architecture as image, which in turn has lead to an increasing separation between architecture/construction and form/structure. Today we see (maybe more in Sweden than anywhere else) built examples of this simplification of architecture. The ambitions in this course are to see if it is possible to reformulate these issues. Is it possible to think architecture that, instead of routinely obsessing with style and external attributes, actually relates to contemporary building materials, construction technologies and modes of production?"

Follow the final review, live videostream at The Office in Second Life.
Friday March 16:th (9 AM to 6 PM, 2 AM to 11 AM SL-time) we will present the results of the course Production of Architecture at the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm.
Come and join us. (The Office SL-url.)

Before the Renaissance and before the invention of the linear perspective spatial experience was detached from imagery. Earlier images proposed relations to human activity, symbols of power and emotional reflections. The experience of space was confined within the specific practice of building. Architecture was media specific.