SPECIAL TOPICS | QUEST ON STRUCTURES

8th semester

Instructor: Yannis Zavoleas

Theme subject: Systemic approaches in architectural design. Archetypical schemas and their transference to space

Short Description

In the research framework outlined by a systematic understanding of space design, the course focuses on an analysis of archetypical schemas coined in the modern and the late modern era. Archetypes with reference to the grid, also to linear arrangements and their derivatives such as the web, the mat and the matrix, were developed as schematic interpretations of verbal descriptions about space, being descriptive of its structure. The related quest has evolved over the last twenty years. Advanced archetypical systems have been generated, whose nominative characteristics respond to contemporary issues about architectural design, also to a variety of conditions and qualities describing space, including the relationships among its units.

In reflection of the above, new archetypical alternatives are investigated over the course. As a general observation, there is a shift of interest concerning design methodologies. Specifically, an interest in preset typologies describing space would give way to a quest of its inner logic, stemming from the interaction among the parameters about an architectural project, thereby bridging the gap between analysis and synthesis.

UNBUILT WORKSHOP | ATHENS | 2008

The attribution Built may only be given to a small percentage of designs that were actually constructed, whereas most of the designs have remained in paper for many reasons. An Unbuilt project may be supported by heterogeneous, laborious, even innovative design methods. The workshop focuses on such attempts, also with the aid of analogue and digital tools and techniques for the inquiry of original architectural languages. Experiments may be grouped in various categories, such as: structural unit/system, fluidity, circulation, folding, cladding, surface, limit, continuity.

The above categories are related to similar experiments of the architectural avant-garde of the later period: Daniel Libeskind, Peter Eisenman, Zaha Hadid, Coop Himmelblau, Lebbeus Woods, Bernard Tschumi, Morphosis and ΟΜΑ. Much before developing an architectural project, these architects had explored their ideas by gradually advancing their individual research methods of design, a process that eventually led in defining their architectural character. Being part of a broader avant-garde in philosophy, linguistics, social studies and art, these architects surpassed the recent Modern tradition. In fact, their work may be related to similar attempts of the early 20^th century, which would flourish only when it became socially and technically compatible. The results may be viewed as successful, or controversial; either way, as design research they have been very influential to the architecture of today.

Workshop duration: 6-15 July 2008.

Organizer: Yannis Zavoleas.

Location: National Technical University of Athens, Department of Architecture.

Presentation: July 16, 2008, 18.00 – 21.00, Athens Byzantine & Christian Museum.

Exhibition: 15 July – 3 September 2008.

DIGITAL MEDIA IN ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN | FIRST SEMESTER

Instructors: Yannis Zavoleas (coordinator), Vasilis Stroumbakos, Demetri Zisimopoulos, Vasili Patmios-Karouk, Nancy Psaraki, Natassa Kantidaki, Anna Chartofili.

Location: School of Architecture, University of Patras.

Years: 2008-10.

Theme subject: Analysis – Synthesis. Principles of architectural design with the aid of digital technologies.

Short description

The course aims at developing the ability to conceptual thinking, also to comparative research and experimentation in architectural design by exploiting the potentials of computer systems. The computer is introduced as an advanced medium that is also symbolic of the analytic operations it supports. In such, operations with the computer interfere with perception and spatial experience being understood as an aggregate of information. This introduction helps to nurture the critical framework upon which expressive processes related to presentation, representation, rendering and communication, take place.

Architectural design is about the analysis and the reformation of information invested in architectural elements, in order to create new spatial experience. In such, the dipole analysis/synthesis describes schematically two opposite processes. The computer is used as a medium and as a referent to methods first applied onto the material object, then onto its projection to image and drawing, giving emphasis to the reduction of its form and its aesthetics to the structural relationships lying low.