theory

Design approach _

Through form and organisation of space as essentially political tools [not in a symbolic way but socially, physically], we work towards generating an architecture that authentically reflects and houses contemporary social life patterns and provides generous and indiscriminate opportunities and qualities to an increasingly contradictory,ubiquitous atomised society.

- The majority of our projects are questioning boundaries between spatio-political realms such as the public and the private spheres.

- We are developing strategies that formally and programmatically unify disparate elements into a coherent whole.

- Configuring space and activities elastically we derive at forms that are fine-tuned around specific requirements and express the multiple aspects that informed them.

- We use physical space and ephemeral events as emancipatory and integratively acting tools: these do not depend on [exclusive] linguistic, cultural or intellectual readings but can be experienced and interpreted individually as pure physical and phenomenological experience.

Reconfiguring boundaries_

The current planning laws dissect the cities into lots and separate areas of work, live and leisure and protect the real estate. They promote architecture as mode of exclusion through inflexible definitions of boundaries as perimeteral fortresses; separations of inside and outside where the need for climatic filter becomes a device for social disconnection.

This use of collage and patchwork as predominant mode of spatial production produces difference and disconnection retaining our environment acting as a collection of individual confined islands. Through Integration of a wide range of constellations and processes, we intend to interweave singular objects and instances with each other and the larger context.

This includes the re-definition and -articulation of transitions between different spatial and sociological conditions, for instance inside and outside or private and public spheres. By transgressing mindsets, site boundaries and period constraints these spaces may enable and potentialize new and different forms of social interaction.

Shifting values_

As informing factors blur and dilute and on the other hand the scope of possibilities grows exponentially, traditional methods of spatial design and production can no longer be relied on for the creation of an authentic and meaningful environment. This can be seen in the majority of new buildings and other contemporary structures as exchangeable commodities, alien to the actual life, spirit and humanist potential they are supposed to embody.

What is left of culturally relevant architecture is in danger of becoming polarized by the media and postmodern cultural assessment pattern into styles and brands. Consumed and sometimes produced as such many architectural projects are only able to shift or extend given conventions in either direction yet fail to question these in general.The results are iconographic monuments, unintentional motifs and vehicles of market forces and media culture.

We do not just avoid iconography, images or other semantic modes of communication but attempt the opposite: through abstraction, morphological shifts and innovative use of material we intend to produce ambiances that are unfamiliar [new, unusual, exotic..]. What appears abstract at first becomes a part of a larger story through the active experience and discovery of the space.

[This abstraction of the spatial phenomenological configuration is discussing the relationship between internalized norms and expectations and the actual spatio-political and sociological conditions. Bergson describes in his work 'Matter and Memory' this process of induction and reaction of spatial experience and memory. He describes memory as a kind of taxonomy of clichees that enable the filtering of an overcomplicated and dense reality. Departing from Bergson, Deleuze found (in 'Cinema2- The Time Image') expressed in Italian Neorealist cinema a certain condition: the environment, completely vacant of known signs is transporting the protagonist into a moment of pure presence- experience without discrimination.]

Unfolding potentials_

Most design challenges start with existing contexts that are more or less orthogonal and proportioned towards basic functional programmatic rules. Economical, practical as well as ergonomical factors give good reasons for appearance and performance of our built environment. Yet in many cases an inherent potential for a specific, meaningful, high quality solution is brushed away by a commonplace one.

Our projects seek to expand such ubiquitous rationalistic ordering systems. Their strengths (in terms of human scale, clarity and versatility for instance) are capitalised and used as modelling instruments in the design process.

Yet our designs unfold from those given frameworks, acquiring geometries that are closely informed by multiple environmental, social and intellectual conditions.

'Engaging Topographies' by Douglas Spencer

'Formsache - Notes towards a dissimulation of form' by Christopher Hight