Recent demonstrations in public spaces of our cities are confirming a profound crisis of political institutions worldwide. While citizens are claiming a change in national political agendas to ask for more focus on their own everyday life concerns and less on global finances, public squares are emerging as places of political discussion. Moved by this contemporary interest, Intermediate Unit 8 have worked on redefining what constitutes a public space today, which is the role of the architect and the agency of people, and how innovation on fabrication methods might serve as fundamental tools for constructing a city of the commons.

This year the work of the unit has been located in the city of Mexico, a metropolis developed under neoliberal rules for the last two decades. The particular site for the unit work has been the massive modernist housing complex of Tlatelolco, and more specifically, the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. This urban square is well known not only for the mixed presence of Aztec, Spanish Colonial and Modernist constructions, but also for its past political life including the students’ massacre before 1968 Olympic Games. Based on a confrontation with the everyday life in the city, students have researched on the most “mundane” contemporary issues, including insecurity, informal economy, drug cartels, social segregation or cultural repression. These issues are the ones employed as alternative micro-agendas to inform the public space of today. After intense research and reflection on the realities of the city, students have proposed different material and programmatic tactics, reflecting on how traditional construction methods can be used to generate new fabrication techniques in which citizens have a more active role. Therefore, social participation and public action are considered a fundamental part in the definition of new political spaces as an endless process of contestation, negotiation and transformation.

6.1.12

Technical studies

Next term you will be working with Manja and Clive (TS tutors) on your TS projects. From now on you should book your appointments with them. As you know, from the meeting we had with them last term, in our unit we will be working on kinetic structures related to the action part of your designs.
The TS project should have the following parts,
-Research - on the topic selected (kinetic structures)
-Case studies
-Experimentation - some experiments on the structure proposed
-Success/ Failure - after the experiments you should sum up the succes and failure of them
-Skills and Knowledge - Transfer/ Application - From what you learnt you should transfer your proposal to the unit design
The criteria of evaluation is: the skills demostrated in each of the parts. It will be especially appreciated the research quality of the design when the knowledge is transferred to your design.
In our unit we have option 2. Thus our Preview will be in the week between the 5th and 9th of March, and the Submission between the 23rd and 27th of April.
Here you have some references,
Emilio Pérez Piñero
Article:
Arquitectura Viva Número 138 M. Cámara y F. González Utopian Mechanics
Two Masters of Crafts. The exhibition devoted to Jean Prouvé at the Ivorypress gallery in Madrid coincides with the fiftieth anniversary of the travelling theater of the brilliant and prematurely deceased Emilio Pérez Piñero.
(Video in the right side of this blog)

Hoberman Associates
http://www.hoberman.com/home.html
Hoberman, Chuck: “The art and science of folding structures: New geometries of
continuous multidimensional transformations.” In Sites n.24, 1992, p.34-53


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