In the last several years, a crisis of capitalist development has redefined our understanding of cities in terms of international policy making, political constituencies and individual and collective political expressions in the urban realm. Inter Unit 8 has been experimenting with possible new scenarios for this political readjustment at a global scale, departing from its most basic expressions in the city. As a result, students have constructed innovative political arguments by experimenting with the relationship between everyday material activities–such as waiting for a bus, dancing, chatting in the streets, or wheeling and dealing in the city squares–and a particular material organization. In these common everyday practices, students have found the materials from which to reconstruct the political experience in the city. Manifested in public and constructed as a physical material expression, these everyday practices acquire a political value — understanding the political as what Hannah Arendt described as action in public — and redefine new models of the interaction between the individual and the collective in the public arena.

27.2.10

Tutorials W6 + Grasshopper

Next week tutorials will be as follows,

Monday 1st March
11.00Yong
11.30 Maud

Tuesday 2nd March
8.45am-9.45 Grasshopper tutorials
2nd Year-Table review Open Room 3
10.30am -1.00pm Merve-Lyza-Olivia-Stavros-Costa

3rdYear-Tutorials Inter Unit 8 Space
2.00 Atta
2.30 Kayvan
3.00 Gary
3.30 Uliana
4.00 Karl
4.30 Max

Thursday 4th March
Concept review-Inter Unit 8 Space
3.00 Costa
3.30 Maud
4.00 Atta

Friday 5th March
8.45am-9.45 Grasshopper tutorials
10.30 Merve
11.00 Lyza
11.30 Olivia
12.00 Uliana
2.30 Gary
3.00 Yong
3.30 Karl
4.00 Kayvan

26.2.10

Brief 05 W1

W7 Materiality
01-05 Mar

Throughout this phase, concepts will acquire more accurate material expressions. Students will work with models and material structures for their explorations in relation to their Technical Studies work.

Seminar by Mehran Gharleghi and Amin Sadeghy. 26 Feb

Readings
Farshid Mousavi and Michael Kubo, The Function of Ornament, Barcelona: Actar, 2008.
Brooke Hodge, Patricia Mears and Susan Sidlauskas (eds.): Skin+Bones, Thames & Hudson, 2006.
Surface Consciousness, AD Magazine, Academy Press, 2003

Brief 05

SKIN MATERIALITY

The second half of the term will explore skins’ specific material dimension. This material exploration will rely largely upon physical models, although 2D and 3D construction drawings will also be required and completed during the next term.
(4 weeks)

Seminar - Materiality

Next Friday 27th of February there will be a seminar on materiality in open Room 3 at 3pm. see you there.

Studio Integrate
www.studiointegrate.com

Mehran Gharleghi,BArch MArch (The Architectural Association)Mehran Gharleghi received his Master of Architecture from the Emergent Technologies and Design Master Programme at the Architectural Association. He is an architect and researcher. He has been collaborating with prominent architects in Iran since 2002 and recently collaborated with Plasma Studio and Fosters and partners in London. He has been jury member in Diploma unit 10, intermediate unit 7&8 since 2008. He lectured at the Smart Geometry09, AA Fab Research Cluster Symposium and ACADIA 2009.

Mehran Gharleghi has been interviewed in the book entitled ‘Conversation With the Young Architect' in which he seeks the current role of young architect through a conversation with award winnig architect Nasrine Faghih. Mehran Gharleghi and Amin Sadeghy exhibited their ‘Responsive Pneumatic Systems' research at London's Design Festival 2009. Amin Sadeghy BArch MSc (The Architectural Association)Amin Sadeghy received his Master of Science from the Emergent Technologies and Design Master Programme at the Architectural Association. He is an architect and researcher. He has been collaborating with prominent architects in Iran since 2002 and collaborated with Fosters and Partners in London. He lectured at AA Fab Research Cluster Symposium 2009. He has been jury member in intermediate unit 8 since 2008. He lectured at the AA Fab Research Cluster Symposium. Mehran Gharleghi and Amin Sadeghy recently exhibited their ‘Responsive Pneumatic Systems' research at London's Design Festival 2009.

21.2.10

GARY Dupont

QUESTIONING SKINS

EXCHANGE


Team
Gary DUPONT
Laura CAMBRA RUFINO
Beatriz DEL CATILLO DE LA FUENTE
Tania GARCÍA-ALBERTOS FARIÑA
Cristian GARCÍA-PARRADO SÁNCHEZ-CORTÉS

MADRID WORKSHOP 2


Stavros' Team


Lyza's Team Atta's Team


Maud's team

Gary's Team

Kayvan's Team

20.2.10

Tutorials 2nd Year + 3rd Year

Next week we will divide Tutorials+Pin-up as follows,

Wednesday 24th February
2.00-5.00pm Tutorials (Round Table) 2nd Year
Inter Unit 8 Space Morwell
5.00pm Gary
5.30pm Atta
6.00pm Karl

Friday 26th February
Tutorials (Round Table) 3rd year
Open Room 3

2.00 pm Uliana
2.30 pm Max
3.00 pm Kayvan
3.30 pm Maud
4.00pm Yong

Bring your schematic skin designs and sketches of your material solutions.

5.00pm Seminar for all students in Open Room 3

19.2.10

Brief 04 W5

W5 Interaction/Participation
22-26 Feb

The ability of skins to work as interfaces that can draw upon individual participation is a recurrent interest in contemporary society. Students will explore this dimension in their designs through performative diagrams.

Readings
Bruno Latour, Making the things Public, Atmospheres of Democracy, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Markus Miessen and Shumon Basar (eds), Did Someone Say Participate? An Atlas of Spatial Practice, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bullivant, Lucy (ed.), 4dsocial: Interactive Design Environments, AD Magazine, Academy Press, 2007.

References
Rafael Lozano, Body Movies, Rotterdam, 2001.
BIX, installation in the Kunsthaus , Graz, 2003.

18.2.10

MADRID WORKSHOP

Inter Unit 8 will be in ETSA Madrid , Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, from the 15th to the 19th of February. There we will be working with Madrilean students and tutors.
Sunday 14th
11.00 am
Atocha Train Station
Main Entrance
(Tube station: Atocha Renfe)
Monday 15th
12 am
ETSAMadrid
Avenida Juan de Herrera, 4
Main Entrance
(Tube station: Ciudad Universitaria)
Tuesday 16th
09.30 am
Tuñon & Mansilla Office
(Tube station: Cuatro Caminos)

Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
10.00 am
ETSAMadrid
Avenida Juan de Herrera, 4

Thursday 18th
5.00pm
Visit to Rafael Moneo Office
Meeting point XS7 ETSAMadrid @4.15pm

Friday 19th
3pm Final Presentation
Aula Magna ETSAMadrid

12.2.10

KAYVAN

QUESTIONING SKINS

MAUD Sanciaume

QUESTIONING SKINS

LYZA Rudyk

QUESTIONING SKINS

Brief 04 W4

W11 WORKSHOP AT THE ETSAM, MADRID.


15-19 February


This one-week workshop with the GEP Unit (Andres Perea, Paula Montoya, Izaskun Chinchilla, and Jose Luis Vallejo—Ecosistema Urbano) at the ETSA Madrid will explore democracy in current societies through individual spatial experimentation.


augmentedbook
AA-ETSAM workshop
Madrid feb-2010

Foreword
Architects are failed readers. We are trained to browse on books to extract the
maximum information out of images, charts, tables and legal manuals. The missing text
linking one piece of info to another is replaced by creativity.
But architects also live among books. They are companions and instruments for our
creative work as well as objects of desire for potential knowledge.
This AA-ETSAM one-week workshop in Madrid presents a challenging opportunity for a
collaborative design studio around books --reconsidering contents, contexts and
containers.
By infiltration methods, students are expected to develop consistent experimentations
on design procedures manipulating previous existing materials, binding and unbinding,
infiltrating and relocating information.

Chapter one: the aim of the workshop
The raw materials are 13 booklets produced by inter unit 8 students at the AA. These
booklets are dealing with designs for politically involved scenarios. Collaborative group
of students will transform these booklets through a series of particular operations whose
aim is to imprint and feed with information the initial document.
The title of the workshop refers to the paradox of books as self-contained but extensive
systems. From a concise and coherent piece, the book unfolds as a major expression of
collaborative connections. Architects become editors who convert a book into a pod in
which to cultivate information.
As a local tribute to James Joyce’s procedures, the only condition of this transformation
is not deleting anything and increasing the contents (minimum x2) inserting texts,
images, drawings, instructions, prototypes etc…
Measuring unit will be bytes.
Following those constraints the aim of this workshop is to change the nature of the
book augmenting its attributes and transforming them into something different by
modifying some of the following aspects:

Type of book 1
o Physical aspect
o Contents
o Order of the contents (chapters)
o Reading sequence
o Beginning and ending

Note 1
Taxonomy of books (relating themes and containers)
Fiction
Scientific books
Pop-up books
Illustrated albums
Atlas
User’s manuals
Graphic novels
Object- books
Music scores
Travel guides
Cooking books
Recorded books

Chapter two: operating manual for transformations
Students will select concepts and architectural evidences in the AA material liable to be
transformed or further developed. Amongst other possible operations we propose (not
to be taken literally):
􀂙 Apply new patterns to be used over the existing projects
􀂙 Transform what is extensive into intensive
􀂙 Propose a reversible version of the scheme
􀂙 Extract one or several pieces proven as inefficient and insert a replacement
􀂙 Swift form mundane to extraordinary
􀂙 Map the budget inside the proposal
􀂙 Trace maps to link several projects
􀂙 Increase the graphic material to describe a scheme
􀂙 Increase the conceptual material of a project with examples.
􀂙 Change the working context of a programme
􀂙 Reduce carbon dioxide emissions of whatever contained in the book
􀂙 Transformation of the object-book
􀂙 Increase in four degrees the “working temperature” of the book
􀂙 Merge books together to change the scale of the proposals
􀂙 Define grammar to be applied to book contents

8.2.10

III Research Seminar on Urbanism

Next Monday 8th of February tutor Nuria Alvarez Lombardero will be lecturing in UPC Barcelona her Phd Research work. "Breaking the Boundaries of Modern Urban Planning."

7.2.10

Pin-up W3

Before leaving to Spain we will have a pin-up on Friday 12th Feb in Open Room 3 from 10am to 7pm. Bring a selection of your work till date and the lastest drawings.

6.2.10

Tutorials W3

Tutorials will be in Inter Unit 8 space as follows,

Tuesday 9th of February
10.00 Costa
10.30 Uliana
11.30 Atta
12.00 Stavros

2.00 Karl
2.30 Kayvan
3.00 Maud
3.30 Max

Wednesday 10th of February
10.00 Yong
10.30 Gary
1.00 Merve
1.30 Olivia
2.00 Liza

Brief 04 W3

W3 Transparency/Reflection/Projection
08-12 Feb


Transparency is a fundamental property for any politically healthy environment. Projection and reflection are increasingly important for representational purposes in political activation. Therefore, students will test these three qualities through drawings and conceptual models.


Readings
C. Rowe and R. Slutzky Transparency, Birkhauser, 1997, pp.21-56.
Josep Quetglas, “Fear of Glass: The Barcelona Pavilion”, in Architecture Production, N.Y: Princeton Architectural Press, 1988, pp. 122-151.
Jeffery Kipnis, "The Cunning of Cosmetics", Du 5 no.706 (May 2000), pp.6-9.


References
Walter Gropius, Total Theater for Erwin Piscator, Berlin, 1927.
Pierre Charreau, Maison de Verre, Paris, 1928/32.
Giuseppe Terragni, Casa del Fascio, Lissone, Italy, 1932-36.
Peter Zumthor, Bregenz Museum, Austria, 1990-1997.


Visits (tbc)
Laban Contemporary Dance Centre, Creekside, Deptford – London, Herzog and de Meuron, 2003.
30 St. Mary Axe Street - London, Foster & Partners, 2004.

5.2.10

Images from Cuba

Plaza de la Revolución Havana Vieja


Coppelia Ice Cream Place, Havana



School of Arts, Havana

Nautic Club, Miramar, Havana




Design and research work of Intermediate Unit 8 Architectural Association School of Architecture London UK