| The ULTIMATE OFFICIAL WORKSHOPS EASA in Scandinavia 1997 "Advancing Architecture" "the NOMAD MONAD / moving isolation" "Do not eat this soup" Description:Workshop about the "Genius loci" of displacement, about the inside of travelling and the outside being uncovered, unveiled, discovered. Materials: self-supporting "Colour Inside Us" "The Face of the Place" Description: Face for the place - process to decide what kind of space
definition we can use and then to define anyones face of (or for) the space
in stone or glass, brick or steel, paper or pure idea. A photographic workshop.
"Doomsday Machine" Description: To create a phenomenologic machine which destroys itself
during the two week process of making it and at the same time affects the
other workshops. (the idea is not to blow up the train). "An Horisontal Tower of Babel - an Inquiry on the State of Utopia"
Description:To realise a film investigating the print of Utopia in reality.
As when winter leaves a physical mark in summer in the form of prints and
traces, forms and elements. Our cities are funded on dreams of the city
that once was not there, the aim is to find these traces and to find traces
of Utopia in the reality of today, to record these prints, develop a story
and tell it in a short film. "EASA on the air " Description: Radio EASA on air, having speakers in each compartment
of the train working together with umbrella, telling people the "hottest
news" about the event, making anouncements, play music, make interviews
with the cities, etc. "Envelope" Description: Our memory plays an important role in defining our identity. It connects us to people, to a place, a culture and our language. It enables us to establish relationships, to feel at home in one place, and to feel foreign in another. It is our "luggage" while travelling, and through its eyes we will see the places to visit. On our journey through Scandinavia we will work with our experiences and memories. In the workshop we will create an object - a container or a shell - suitable for gathering and transporting our äcollectionô. We can carry it with us or wear it on our bodc. We will support you to choose materials and constructions, that are appropriate to become folded and stowed away as well as unfolded and extended to carry your collections. Our "objects" will become a representation of our experiences. Those personal readings lead to the development of a collective map: our envelope. Structure: 1. We visit places the and collect our "material". 2. Simultaneously we build our object. 3. We work together on a common "envelope". Discussions and working in groups will be part of the workshop. Materials: - "Changable and Controlled Environment"/ "Mobile Live
Exhibitions" Description:The workshop will take place in a space that will be determinated and structured by pannels of an L-shape. The pannels will be set beside the train in a different way each time, so they will form different spaces at each station. The pannels can be placed in horisontal or in vertical manner forming an exhibition and working surfaces. At each stop - on the basis of certain key-words from the tutors - the work-teams will choose to construct something on a pannel. For example: -to create a story based on what impressed them on thier way there or in the city that we stop. -to design a city (model-sketches) -to design something that this town needs -to create a collage of items to this town or area. At the next stop the working teams will change item of work. One team will continue the work of another tam so we can create links between the idas and between the stations. What we have to the place behind us is a amemory of a live exhibition. Nothing stable. What we take is the inspiration, tha starting points, the dialogue that lead us to creation. Materials: CD-rom player + TV (if this is impossible: slideprojector) "The Train Twilight Zone" Description:this workshop will consist out of a theoretical and a practical part. 1. Theoretical part: about the realtion between movement & architecture, on the one hand there is a architectural environment, which is strongly realted to other things in motion, a rail, a station, for e.g. But most of the time these elements remain quite useless and without a further sense, than just to be there. On the other hand there lays a big quality in these spaces, as, being part of the moving element (e.g. watching out of a running train), you have the unique chance to watch the environment in a motion relative to yours. And it is just this psecific motion, that puts a sense into its surrounding, and makes the special environment considerable. We will try to deal with this phenomena, looking for a way to determine it in an architectural manner. (theoretical background:..meaning-access-legibility-deformation-deterritoriality-juxtaposition... In a time where quality in architecture is connected to legible form concept, the speed of the train, disconnected from the site it's crossing, destroyes and tries to mix the surrounding of the railway. The city as an accumulation of networks, is deformed by one of them, and more, by on that should be a tool for communication, circulation of informations. The other great physical circulation of informations is the road network. The workshop proposes a parallell reflexion on those two networks, trying to propose an antinomic analysis of both (starting from K.Lynch's proposal for highway design) A look to the utopic design of American highways and cars could also help the reflexion about a new interior design of the train cars for a new aprehension of the surrounding deterritorialised space of the moving train, if a new design seems to be needed. The definition of this deterritorialised and immaterial space is also a main question. Question: Can you connect this unexisting space to the lack of personality and intimacy of space as a train car, and is this lack of personality and intimacy of the space because of high functional caracter of the space in train cars or something else? The last reflection of the workshop would be about the sign left of the passing train: the railway itself, which is also so strongly connected to its function that it cannot have any other meaning, and for that is turning completely absurd, for example as a city form.) 2. Practical part: We architects (specifically) are generally planning and building spaces, which are required for specific purposes of human being, according to the request of functionality... For each task there are to fulfil particular parameters. The needs of human being is reduced to Modulors (Corbusier) or to determined ammounts of squaremeters per person (Neufert) All these Modulors and parameters have one disadvantageous attitude in common; For the purpose of practicability, they are treating human being as still lifes or furniturelike objects. Instead of calculating with a request of 1.2 cbm we would like to experience the effective space in use according to real human being in motion. The task of this workshop will be the development of a modulor in motion. We will build up a model of a human in motion, like a walking e.g. to experience the space required by a person moving. We plan on building a 1/1 model of the outer shape of a movement out of wire. The result will be kind of a tunnel which you can walk through, repeating the origin move and have an impression of the act remaining in space. This could lead to space-requirements and architectural surrounding taking this visible movement in consideration. Materials: slide-projector, videos, 200 m steel or zinc wire "Blue Hour" Description: Since two years we explore the nightly, hidden identity of places by way of workshops and lightexperiments. And endless voyage through the nightlifeof space. When the night has fallen over the city and enlightment chases the dark, it is not the same world we see. The dusk leads us into another reality. A reality with other possibilities and laws. The metamorphosis of the city by day to the city by night is our fascination. At night it appears in a new manifestation, looses its heaviness and becomes elusive. The blue hour of dusk is not simply a part of the day-night cycle, of appearing and disappearing, but it gives the city a new identity. The colors of dusk are the initiation into the magic of the night. The dark recreates the city. The balance of the day disappears and the world regenerates itself in an elusive way. The city changes from a touchable result of human effort into a fantasma. The workshops are large-scale experiments with the imaginative power of light to get known with space. Each space, each place has an identity that is unique, in platonic sense, and reveals itself differently dependant on the circumstances. Darkness gives us the oportunity to reanimate surroundings, to free those of their heaviness and show a lighter version of their identity. Theaterlights and slides projectors are the most important elements in this process of sublimation. Making our own slides is the first step in the process of awareness of the identity of a location. The slides give the opportunity to fold fotographed textures and images around existing objects, to add new layers to surfaces. In this way a weaving of meanings develops, representations of the surroundings are projected on the surroundings. Interpretations of a place are presented at the place. Together with the slides, theaterlights make it possible to edit texture, structure color and transparancy of materials. And to create reflection, shadow and silhouette. We start with as less as possible formal concepts and try to be guided by the magic and energy of a site. With light, unknown facets and appearances of a situation are made visible to penetrate to the essence of a place. Materials: theatrelights and slide-projectors "Mark" Description / Program "Absolutely Nomads - Aren't We All?" Description: How can a multicultural, multilingual and multiethnical
tribe present itself? What message can we bring to the worlds we'll encounter
on our trip to nowhere? To move: a journey just for the sake of it, a research
in progress, a process of acquiring knowledge by constant contact with
the outside world. We belong to everywhere and to nowhere; we don't believe
in an exclusive tradition. Contamination is our goal, the exchange of our
cultures is enriching our life journey. For two weeks, a nomadic tribe
will move around Scandinavia, through different landscapes and different
environments. We will take this wonderful opportunity to reflect upon the
idea of our life in which moving has become essential: are we the new nomads?We
will try to find a way, each time anew, to bring our message, we'll decide
what kind of message it is going to be. The goal of our experience won't
necessarily leave a permanent mark on the land we'll visit, but to create
a subtle interchange between us and them. "The Possibilities of Technological Solutions of Architectural
Element" Description: According to the theme of the mobile society of EASA 1997, I propose a workshop based on different possibilities of technological solutions of architectural elements related to the places where they are situated. I'd like to discover how simple elements like pluvials, fixtures, etc... change for different reasons or for tradition. For these reason it's necessary to identify the elemnts that should be studied by small groups of approximately 3 persons each, in order to understand their evolution over the years and form some hypothesis for their restoration. This work should be done through drawings, photos, some written texts. Cooperation with a workshop of photography would be interesting or, if that's not possible, I would take some photos on my own. Materials: 1 camera, 1 zig-zag ruler, 1 rull ruler, equipment to draw (all this for each group) AND some millmoard panels or wood to stick drawings and photos (presentationmaterial) "No Title" / Fifth corner group Description:"Travelling was a way to be on another place or to
be nowhere today it is theonly way to experience the feeling that man is
really somewhere. At homesurrounded by all the informations from all the
screens, I am nowhere, and I am in all the world in the same time, I am
in the world banality. It is the same in all the countries. To land in
new town, in some foreign language it means suddenly to be found here and
nowhere else. The body meets its own case. Free of all the pictures it
finds imagination. (Jean Baudrillard) "Fragmentation, Deconstruction and the Disintegration of the
Image of the City" Description: A discussion on the principal phenomena that generated the breakdown of the traditional unity that characterised the art forms the pre-industrial era. The lecture traces the predilection for the fragment in sculpture and architecture from Michelangelos "Torso del belvedere" through to the works of Rodin, to the concept of abstraction in modern painting. The idea of the "ruin" is at the base of the fragmentation of the town in the postindustrial era, and its representation in the works of the Futurists and the german Expressionists. The experience of the modern town as descibed by 19th and 20th century novellists is translated into contemporary architectural movements, including deconstruction, which characterize the built fabric today. Materials: a slideprojector for 25mm slides + tools and materials for balsa and card-models and drawings "Personal room, Family room, Social room" Description: -What characterises these rooms. -How do we experience them, what happen to you in these rooms. -What is the quality for you in them. -What is their essence, if you take away this part the room will loose its value and meaning. -Which possibilities do they give us. -What are your resources -What is quality, what recognise it, how does it take place, how is it achieved. -Development, who are you, where are you going, how do you get there. The frame of the workshop will be; how to gain from interaction in a process of learning and creating. The goal will be that each one of the participants contributes with their personal resources, and at the same time make profits of the others. In the workshop there will be several different themes. The result of this work will not be a certain product or answer, but to achieve a personal understanding of the themes discussed. The working process will be both physically and mentally: The discussions will be seen from both the personal and architectural points of view. Structure/Basis of the work -introduction, presentation -discuss expectations, make them realistic, get a consistent sense of reality -"cocktail party", get to know each other, exercise -presentation of the working model; the big group, the small groups and the mixed groups -«the star exercise», illustration of the advantages of the group dynamics -work in the groups Wake-night, what is your being, what is the motivation for all your actions. (Even Stormyhr is currently studying body oriented therapy at the Danish Bodynamic Institute, and has tutored groups in the pedagogic field.) Materials: - "Diamoving" Description: Remember EASA'95 in Zamosc. Sure you have to remember the Multivision workshop. This time we have something special for you. Materials: - "Traincording" Description: Record the unrecordable, save the unsaveable. We will try to record everything that is going on in the train filled with people and travelling for two weeks across beautiful countries. To catch all the moods and climates which are the exact thing that is remebered by people. We will not concentrate on facts, but rather how can we feel them. Through subject point of view things can look in many differnt ways. So the global goal is to record that subject point of view. Materials: The most important equipment are photo-cameras (in every participant's hand) - but it belongs to them - as well as the handy-recorders I need the material such as slide-films and audio cassettes. "Inner Landscapes" Description: This workshops is aiming at getting conscious about our inner biases that influences the designing process. So we will take a project, and do it in our normal way, and afterwards with the help of a deck of Tarot (not the traditional one, but an adapted one) cards we will try to see how we feel about it and what is in the basement of this process, and then we'll do the same project again. LONGER DESCRIPTION: I know this thing sounds kind of weird. But let me tell you the whole story. My father brought me one day a deck of Tarot cards (till then I didn't know what it was all about). The best thing was that it was not an ordinary one, but one which was adapted to the idea of Zen philosophy (yeah, another weird thing also!). So instead of concentrating on the "pragmatic" part it was more abstract and it had as a purpose to help you find what you have in mind "here and now" one of the precepts of Zen. So every card have names like "The Fool", "Change", "The Dream", "Laziness", "Go with the flow" and you can find some explanation about this but also in the Zen way (when someone ask something to a Zen master the answer is not the answer but half an answer so the whole answer you must find it for yourself). So THE POINT IS: that using this card-reading technique you can reveal some of the problems and the mindsets that are running in the background of your mind and thinking, and which are very often the barriers to be broken in order to achieve progress. This workshop is an experiment trying to see if the use of these cards can really solve some real problems, or if they can give you some insights to what's happening in the inner side of us. It is more like a Roucherski test (I don't know if I spelled the name right) in which you look at the abstract drawing and tell what you think it is, and usually what you say it's what's on your mind. HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO THE THEME? In the ever-changing of the landscape which we were passing through and into the ever-changing landscape of life (which is changing faster and faster) there are no more rational rules or methods on which we rely to navigate. So what we can rely on is only what our intuitive part can say and this deck of cards is one of the methods of tuning in and listen to ourselves. And having a better understanding of ourselves we can have a better understanding of what is going on, and of things that are going on faster than usual. Thanx a lot for reading and please send me feed back! Materials: several decks of atrot cards (self-provided), modelmaking and drawing material, modelmaking and drawing equipment "Paysage" Description: see the work of the "Haute couture"- workshop,
Poland 1995 "The power of form?" Description: The workshop would be dedicated to the investigation of
power and weakness of forms (visual, audio, perceptual, material, rational,
spiritual,...) which man through history has discovered. The accent would
be on the mobile society and possibility of formatting or non-formatting
such a way of living. Is the formative way of living and the formative
way of thinking the main reason we became conscious of our smallness? Is
that the main cause of all our frustrations? If our lives are so well-formed
in advance, isnt the sense of living reduced to some sort of machine-rules?
Braking the form apart might be a big step forward. This is the step we
have done in the post-modern era. And where are we now? Is it possible
to live in the non-formatted world? Or is our reduction to simple forms
too abstarct and too rough? Maybe it is the time now to learn from the
nature? The nature is much more complex. If we always focus ourselves to
particular object, being, event,... the diversity of form is immense. It
is very difficult to separate all sorts of forms without ver high level
of abstraction. Could we try to reduce our abstract way of thinking and
percieving to the basic level, trying to look on the world as the whole
(as one) in wich there are just slight variations in the forms when moving
through (whatever "moving" means; through space and time, but
also: perceptually, rationally, spiritually, mentally,...) The nature is
not static. It is mobile too. It changes all the time. But some changes
we can percieve and some of them are outside of our limits. The changes
in nature are usually veru slow, mild, smooth, gradual (of course in the
situations that are not catastrophic). Could we build our mobile society
in which connectivity, gradually, cintinuity, smoothness,... instead of
dissolution, decomposition, division, dissociation, ... would take place?
Which form, or forms, could be the most appropriate for the mobile society?
Formless forms moving on some formless curv? The forms that can be easily
transformed into another shape? Soft forms? Forms that can be lengthened
and extended as much as we wish? The forms easy to build, move and remove?
These are some of the questions on which the investigation in the proposed
workshop would be focused. "Experience topography" Description: modern tourism has become means of consumption of place.
Captured by illusion industry we travel to places of our desire robbing
and using up everything what made them to object of this desire, leaving
there the rubbish of our mediamade expectations. As a result of ever accelerating
speed of travelling we return before leaving, thus spending our future
experiences even before they happen. How can a mobile temporary community
on its journey towards periphery reverse this process? Can there be a fullscale
timetrue notation of experiences of such a group of individuals created?
This workshop will try to find a strategy of de-consumption of place by
scanning the five different places we will get individual frameworks consisting
of our own points of interest, noticed surfaces, possible events and spontaneous
moments, stratification of which will give us an experience map with our
representations of places, directions, ruptures, penetrations, voids as
examinated in the real place. This will be a notation of place both in
space and time, recorded currently throughout the five surroundings. In
each of these locations a place will be chosen, in wich a temporary intervention,
based on the interpretation of a fragment from the created map, will be
performed by the group, in order to retransform the experience back to
the original space and time. During the journey we will explore five various
places and create a plan with our notations of all of them. This could
be something like the map of a continous place. Regarding the notion of
mobility, continous place could be a place of nomadic community. We will
work both in pairs and team. "On the way from techno-tecture to architecture" Description: ...An ettempt to transcend travel without by the journey within... On nomadism, mobility and the essence of architecture. I.About the form The workshop, wich, wich we would rather call a "work-shock", will try to evolve into a collective creative journey through space and time (a metaphor/symbol of the life-journey itself). We will observe, discuss, draw, analyse, meditate, experiment, project, build(?) and present... it all depends upon the process itself that will generate the contents and the forms of our communication (between us and with the others as well - we will try to collaborate with other groups as well...) based on a clear structuring of an inner foundation for a common/and personal experiences. II.About the contents In the context of this years' theme (with its travelling experiment) we will try to structure the "workshock" (which always spans universal human and global themes with specific cultural and regional ones) as a study of a: -globally mobile but rootless -globally efficient but desacrilised -globally virtual but spaceless -globally designed but homeless -globally technical but essenceless -globally consumers but empty... ...etc. Society and culture of the end of the XXth century world. And we will surely try to search, find and show the ways out of the ethical, professional and global crisis an individual, architecture and the world are deeply into nowwadays. We will try to look for the origins of nomadism (through old greek "només" and old egyptian "nomá") and the ways modern culture has perverted its authentic meaning. The tensions between dynamic and static principles, virtual and real worlds, utopos and topos will be some major themes through which we will try to explore the essentials of "archi-tecture" (again trying to transport and transform it's original meaning into the context of informatic, post-industrial society. We will try to look for examples of architecture that succeeds to combine/balance the challanges of an universal civilisation with the ones of autonomous cultures we will travel through... (and discuss the examples of Utzon, Vandkunsten, Asplund, Lewerentz, Erskine, Fehn, Aalto, Pietilla, etc). Since we always try to be in "here and now" (present) during our workshops we will also try to integrate the readings of a direct spatial, cultural context "by the road" into a "key-experience" that any architect can apply anywhere in it's surrounding. We will actually offer the basics of reading an elementary architectural language... (and the ways of how to search for one's owns centre by travelling around...) The results (drawings, writings, buildings(?),...) mostly depend upon the concrete circumstances of travel and upon the atmosphere of the common process we will share all together. (we will also prepare a lecture and show some projects of ours') Materials: white/transparent/sketch papers, pencils, colours, ink, ..., casette player, video-recorder (?), slide-projector, architectural magazines and books from scandinavian countries slide-projector, screen, video-recorder, casette player "Listening to the course of time" Description: We will try to translate the spirit of the places we travel
through into images and sounds. To figure out a way of sharing and communicating
to others the feeling of being in transition from one place to the next
following "the course of time" in Wim Wenders own words. We,
architects, are so many times enclosed in our small, slefsufficient own
world. We will use the experience of travelling together to learn what
it is difficult to say with words. Nature, culture and human interaction
will give us the clues. Cinema, literature and Music will be our guides.
Wim Wenders' movies, Kavafis poetry or Paul Winters' music will help us
to discuss along the way, how we can let inspired by nature and communicate
our feelings. We will apply ourselves in learning from their experiences
trying to understand our town. The outcome will be a mixture of our own
experiences being an international, multicultural group of people with
a common destiny: Narvik. Our vision for architecture will only improve
by letting us be wide open to the external stiumuli first, and by finding
ways of communicating to the rest then. We will work on both aspects. In
each place we will sketch, photograph and record sounds. We will try to
get people involved from the differnt places we go through by exposing
them to our own views of their habitat after mixing them with our favourite
sounds and images brought from abroad. Projections and slide shows in the
streets (like in "cinema Paradiso") together with other performances
according to the group (concerts, performings or installations). We will
collect the material to prepare a final presentation showing the spirit
of the trip. (DO you remember the tape Pablo Neruda recieves from his friend
in "Il Postino?") "Priscilla queen of perception" 1. Short description: based on perception, reflexion, translation into abstarctions and, if possible, personal interpretations of the world surrounding us. 2. Longer description:we are born with some skills for seeing, smelling, hearing, touching and feeling. With these skills we start exploring our world and we also grow. We learn not only in our lessons. There we learn to develop certain skills and we learn to organize our experiences. In this way we develop a view of the world. When we store our experiences a smemories we select those which have meaning for us. We relocate what we learnt and choose what fits our needs... Perception is more than what eyes can see. It is highly connected with the development of our skills, thoughts and reasoning. Material needed: we will mainly use the already excisting places, objects and people. However, in order to experiment and to express some abstractions we may need sime simple materials like cardboard, strong tape, glue, staplers, clothes....(We will bring (from spain more specific materials and some dossiers or note-books and hopefully a video-camera)...) "Mobile Hom(m)e" Description: Two scenarios. "Passagen - To breathe or not to breathe" "Crossing-Mobility" Description: "Virtual city; transportation: transformation" A short description: transportation - the body or other equivalent with
perception transformation - giving different meaning to the existing space
"No Title" Description: Problem of interactive functional zones - problem of borders
researching of zones interactions - borders between cooperating zones -
problem of bufferzones... "Films Without Cameras" Material needed: Portable Light Boxes, 35mm Viewer, Decor Glass Paints, Paint Brushes, OHP Pens & Refills, Scissors, Scalpels, 35mm Splicer Materials: Other info: Would like access to a 35mm Steenbeck to view completed film & edit it, near the end of the journey (Stockholm or Copenhagen probably). These are available in most film studios (they are big!). Gaining sponsorship for tutors and materials from this end, but it would be good to know if smaller items (scissors, scalpels) will be availbale anyway. "dying young" This project is fascinated by the way that we tell stories through architecture, and how architecture can be used to tell stories. (for more theoretical background read the articles by Shaheed Salem) IMPLICATIONS: It is anticipated that the following points will be investigated through the project: the relationship between : a memorial as a permanent physical object / a memorial as an 'essence', a fluid or temporary experience. the official / the unofficial. the institution / the public. individual heroism / obligation to the state, to a crew or to humanity. interpretation of: the text - as a source of programme the text - as the creation of a myth and how these are explored and expressed through form and drawing making. Materials: - "Lys" Workshop Proposal: LYS (To build a device to acknowledge & measure
the changing light as we journey from Vastkusten to Narvik and back to
Stockholm) |