Step 8: Communicating Proposals

We are starting to close our proposals. Time has come to complete all our documentation, introduce all changes we've been finding from different points of view, match all approaches in a single design and produce final documents that efectively transmit all ideas we've been able to have and develop. Therefore two are the basic aims of this last design entry:

- Complete all previous stages of your designsand unify them in a single clear proposal.

- Develop an intellegent communication strategy to transmit your proposal.

Again we've selected 4 different type of documents to present your designs. Obviously you must finish, correct and complete other stages. But all your decisions, must be condensed in these four documents (as on other ocassions, on Monday we should be told what member of each design team is going to be resposible for each document. Anyway, this last step will need a lot more coordination and team work, for no disagreement will be aloud on this stage):

1. Plans, Sections and Elevations. 

You've been all working on these basic documents for a month or so. But curiously they are problably the less accurate of all documentation you've presented so far. So now it's absolutely compulsory that you generate a good and complete 2D description of your proposal. They are the main instrument to communicate our ideas between architects. Minimum scale 1/200. We recommend some document/s using 1/100

2. Final Model.

You've all made at least a couple of models. Some regarding preexistance. Some concentrated on contructive issues. This model we request now must be the main document you'll show to present your proposal. It must be very carefully made, and very accurately built introducing all the information you've designed. Of course it must show how the new proposal relates to it's surroundings and the rest of built environment. This model must constitute the basic strengh of your communication strategy. Compulsary minimum scale 1/200

3. Images.

Architecture is judged not only by architects, but by absolutely everyone else. People without technical education often have difficulties in understanding our plans, sections or elevations. They feel much more confortable with 3D representations of the future. We  want you to present three images of how the new biulding will look like, what activities will take place in it, how this new built environment will be used,... Although these images are directed to a non-profesional audience, that doesn't mean we do not have to make the most accurate and suggestive images we are capable of. We discourage the use of direct rendering from a 3D model, and we recomend more sofisticated drawing work, introducing different technics and inputs (digital and analogical, of course). Compulsory minimum images, 1 exterior day, 1 exterior night, 1 interior

4. Concept Panel

At the end of a design process, it a good moment to remember and resume which of your initial ideas you have really used in your proposal; which of the initial contraints have found a correct answer with your design; which of the environmental disfunctions you detected have been corrected with the new built materiality; etc... So, it's time to gather all those basic ideas that have guided your design process and sinteticly represent them on a panel. You should make clear your initial intentions and your final achievements. And, of course, what means you've used to reach them. You must all try to think as publititians, marketing consultants, etc... Condense your designs in a few maps, diagrams, sentences, slogans, jingles,... able to explain your reasoning as architects. It's the only way we might be understood and, therefore, useful for the rest of society. Minimum documentation: 1 DIN A1.

That's our last design step. Deadline Monday 20 May at 12.00. Discuss and correction, 6 and 9 May. Work really hard these couple of weeks, complete previous steps and ... make us buy your eight proposals.  Good luck

Better...

... but late is never better.

After our last public critic session, I must say, things seem to be running better. Of course there are big differences between Design Teams, but, we can say the Unit is correctly progressing. I'll give you some specific indications below, but what is most important is the following: 

We are completing next step, next Monday. I remind all Teams about timetable and documentation requested (remember to upload everything to our dropbox folder before Monday at 12.00). After that, we'll only have one more step to go (Monday 20 May). On Friday 24 may, we'll celebrate our Summer Jury Session, and Thursday 30 May will be dedicated to Final Presentations.

What does this mean? You really have some three weeks to complete your proposals. After 20 May, all work will be just dedicated to build Jury's Exhibition and Final Presentations. So that won't be time for a specific and new design work on your proposals. Therefore, all Teams and, most of all, all Team members, must make a great last effort for these last two entries (29 April and 20 May). Generate and introduce all your ideas now!

Apart from this, in order to make you have a clear idea about how you're working, here you have a brief comment:

Team 8, missing.... very, very difficult.

Team 1, excellent work. For two reasons: Because it's really continuos and high quality; and because you are being an excellent reference for the rest of teams bringing your work and discussions to each session. Continue like this, and try to follow the suggestions we reached today to complete your entry.

Team 7, good effort. You might feel you're struggleling a little bit with your complicated proposal, but I think you're doing an interesting effort. I still think you'll make it

Teams 2 and 4, better. At last you're on the road. That's the way. Three weeks to go and a lot of work to do

Team 3, better again. At last you've reached a plan.... Continue. Your've not completed your proposal yet.

Team 5, you've reconducted your proposal. Well done, but now quickly redraw all these ideas you've had.

Team 6. Started late with a new model, but you've got it. Complete it and extract all the possibilities the model really has.

Come on everybody... Three weeks to go. See you at 12.00 on Monday.

Yellow card, Teams 6 & 8

Short entry, just to point out a couple of things:

- Yellow card for Teams 6 & 8. We still don't know what task is going to be assumed by each Team Member during this Step 7!!!! Amazing. I think we've asked for this information quite a few times during last week and a half.
- Resuming our work in process sessions for this step, we may say that: Team 1 and Team 7, have brought some new work everyday and we've discussed it in every session. Teams 3, 4, 5, have pointed out some difficulties today, Monday. We know nothing at all about want Teams 2, 6 and 8 are doing... Strange. And even stranger when we do know some of you are actually developing your tasks... But it's more difficult if you don't discuss your progress with us during our sessions.

Next Thursday is the last public correction before deadline next Monday. I think EVERY Team should show us how their step is going... Specially those that haven't yet brought anything.

See you on Thursday

TaA: De la Pantoja y Calatrava…(o "el linchamiento que salvó al condenado")

De la Pantoja y Calatrava…

(o el linchamiento que salvó al condenado)

Esta semana me he encontrado con dos noticias judiciales que por algún motivo se han asociado en mi cabeza. Por una parte, la condena de nuestra ilustre folclórica Isabel Pantoja, por haber cometido todo tipo de desmanes con los dineros públicos y privados en el Ayuntamiento de Marbella. Y por otra, la nueva demanda que le han metido al otrora aclamado arquitecto valenciano, Santiago Calatrava, por problemas graves de impermeabilización en la cubierta de las Bodegas Domecq.

Evidentemente, mi asociación mental podría deberse a la judicialización de ambos asuntos. O a que no me sean nada cercanos ni los protagonistas ni el arquetipo cultural que cada uno representa. O a que, extrañamente, encuentre un ligero parecido físico entre ambos. Pero no. Mi asociación me produjo cuando vi las imágenes de la Pantoja desmayándose, rodeada y acosada por decenas de personas y periodistas a la salida de la Audiencia donde había escuchado su sentencia condenatoria.

Dejo de lado la autenticidad del desvanecimiento de la folclórica (muy dotadas todas ellas para el drama, como demostró la gran Lola Flores con su magnífica frase, “zi me queréi’, ¡irse!” en la boda de Lolita). Pero ocurre que, por algún motivo, siempre que veo a alguien, sea quien sea, y haya hecho lo que haya hecho, perseguido por una masa enfervorecida, siento una irracional simpatía por el acosado. Como Malkovich en Las Amistades Peligrosas, “no puedo evitarlo”.

Pues ante el incendio provocado en la prensa por esta enésima demanda contra Calatrava, me ha ocurrido algo parecido. En cuanto salió la noticia, toda la prensa nacional se apresuró a apalear al que antes llamaban “nuestro arquitecto más internacional”. Y han citado torpemente los problemas del puente de Venecia, del recubrimiento del Valencia, de la pasarela y del aeropuerto de Bilbao; y se han rasgado las vestiduras recordando los honorarios cobrados de Valencia o Palma, los desvíos presupuestarios de sus obras y su residencia fiscal en Suiza. Pero la cosa no se ha limitado al ámbito de la prensa generalista. Las redes sociales especializadas, los blogs de arquitectura, las cuentas de twiter de arquitectos y sus muros de Facebook, siguen haciendo de gigantesco e inmediato altavoz de la noticia, maldiciendo al antes intocable, celebrando por fin una venganza, parece ser que  mucho tiempo esperada.

No diré nada con respecto al periodismo en general. Ellos sabrán cual es su criterio y su manera de tratar las noticias. Personalmente, mi decepción es mayor cada día que pasa. Pero no me siento ni con fuerzas ni con ganas de intentar comentar lo que me desagrada ese modo de hacer tan … facilón. Otra cosa es la comunicación entre los propios arquitectos.

El daño que ha producido Calatrava a la Arquitectura es mucho más grave que ciertas deficiencias constructivas, desviaciones presupuestarias u obscuros tejemanejes económicos con el sector público. La gran culpa de Calatrava es que estaba profundamente equivocado. Se equivocaba al creer que su arquitectura podría fundamentarse exclusivamente en su supuesta genialidad y mágica inspiración. Se equivocaba al confundir complejidad inevitable y complicación innecesaria. Se equivocaba al equiparar estructura con arquitectura. Se equivocaba al entender que la apariencia lo es todo.  Se equivocaba al desdeñar el lugar. Se equivocaba al sustituir calidad y reflexión por virtuosismo repetitivo. Se equivocaba perseguir el equilibrio y la simetría como la única solución posible. Se equivocaba, en definitiva, en casi todo.

A pesar de las apariencias, una manera infantiloide, superficial y simplona de entender la Arquitectura que, al igual de los fuegos artificiales, tuvieron inmediatamente gran éxito de público… y, para sorpresa solo de algunos, de crítica especializada. Obviamente, surgieron imitadores por doquier. Las aulas de las escuelas se llenaron de alumnos, tan inspirados como el maestro valenciano, que también querían expresar su genialidad innata libremente. Un gran error y un gran engaño, que ha tenido que esperar a la llegada de una crisis económica para ser desenmascarado (dicho sea de paso, demonizando, desde una pose ética bastante pueril de reciente adquisición, a demasiados arquitectos bajo el manido nombre del star-system arquitectónico.  En realidad, absolutamente nada tienen que ver unos con otros. Unos estaban equivocados y otros no).

Como arquitecto, ese fue el gran delito de Calatrava. Desde luego, no demandable judicialmente. Pero sí enjuiciable desde el razonamiento y la crítica arquitectónica que, gracias a Dios, ya hace algún tiempo que le ha condenado a la pena máxima: el olvido eterno. O, como mucho, a la presentación de su obra como el ejemplo de una equivocación que, durante muchos años, a muchos engatusó.

Para la Arquitectura, Calatrava es un caso cerrado. El linchamiento público por parte de aficionados me parece, como poco, innecesario, ventajista y repugnante. Que la justicia haga su trabajo en silencio. Pero el linchamiento por parte de muchos arquitectos, que solo ahora se apuntan ahora al carro cuando antes se rompían las manos aplaudiendo, es aun peor. Y además puede llegar a ser contraproducente y provocar el efecto de salvar el alma del condenado. La repulsión hacia este linchamiento apoyado en cuestiones técnicas y económicas de toda índole, puede obligarnos a  olvidar su primera y más importante condena para la Arquitectura: estaba equivocado.

Dicho esto, espero de todo corazón, no tener que escribir una línea más en toda mi vida, sobre la figura de Calatrava. Aunque puede que sí de la Pantoja …

Individual tasks within Design Teams for Step 7???

At the moment we have only received information from Design Team 1, about the individual task each member will asume during this Step 7. Please, could all other 7 teams comment this entry indicating which of the four tasks requested is going to be done by each member? 

Remenber the four tasks are:

1. Structural 3D Model (digital or physical)

2. Constructive Section

3. Constructive Model

4. New Plans & Sections

We need this information as soon as possible, please.

Talking about Architecture: Carta de un arquitecto expatriado

I'd like you to have a look a the following letter I have copied from the excellent architecture blog, http://www.stepienybarno.es/blog/. It appeared two or three weeks ago, and our little architecture world in the internet, immediately went on fire with comments, answers and all type of opinions about what the letter exposes. Its certainly a tough experience but I think it's worth thinking about it...

“A quien corresponda.

Durante mis últimos años de universidad trabajé en varios estudios de arquitectura y digo trabajé y no hice prácticas, pues a pesar de que en mi contrato figuraba el puesto de becario, mi día a día consistía en sacar trabajo adelante como si fuera un arquitecto más.

Así, trabajando y estudiando, la carrera se fue alargando más de lo deseado y pude sacar el título de arquitecto al borde los treinta. A partir de ahí, y en plena crisis, intenté buscar trabajo en varios estudios de arquitectura. Cientos de cv enviados, pocas respuestas recibidas y algunas de ellas, que me proponían trabajar gratis, mejor no haberlas recibido. Por ello, y muy a mi pesar, acepté trabajar como falso autónomo en un estudio que tenía el pequeño aliciente de ser de los de las revistas. Los jefes eran majos y el trabajo no estaba mal, pero con mil euros al mes (a los que había que descontar seguridad social y tal) justo me daba para mantenerme precariamente.

Aun con todo, y pensando desde las tripas, decidimos traer nuestro primer hijo al mundo, una maravilla de bebe que pone luz en toda esta oscuridad. Por supuesto, no tuve ni baja por paternidad ni nada que se le parezca. También decía que mis jefes eran majos, pero todos los días trabajaba más de 10 horas y muchos fines de semana tocaba ir a terminar algún concurso. Así que, diremos que eran relativamente majos. Todo hay que decirlo, ellos pringaban como los que más.

Pero la crisis no perdona y ellos también se quedaron sin encargos y tuvieron que cerrar el chiringuito. Por supuesto, lo único que recibí en la despedida fueron buenas palabras, una palmadita en la espalda y, con una mano delante y la otra detrás, volví a buscar lo que fuera.

Así, sin paro ni subsidios, pasó un año, en el que trabajé de camarero para llegar a fin de mes y llegó el momento en el que nos planteamos irnos del país. Mandamos curriculums a medio mundo y al final decidimos irnos a Londres.

Nuevamente, tuve la suerte de encontrar rápido trabajo, eso sí, en un supermercado y poder sobrevivir durante medio año. Es cierto que, había muchas más ofertas de trabajo, pero mi perfil parece que no encajaba. Arquitecto que tardó más de 10 años en terminar la carrera, sin ningún master ni nada que se le parezca y con más de cuatro años de experiencia laboral que, evidentemente, no podía demostrar de ninguna manera; así que, a efectos prácticos, cero años de experiencia profesional.

Por lo tanto, después de hacer varias entrevistas, sin llegar a trabajar en ningún estudio, decidimos probar suerte por otros lares. De hecho, esta carta la escribo desde Brasil, estando recién llegados y sin tener ni idea de qué va a ser de nosotros. Dicen que hay más oportunidades, aunque, la verdad, estamos muertos de miedo.

Ah! y eso de que somos arquitectos e ingenieros, suena muy bonito, pero cuando se lo contaba a los ingleses, en las entrevistas de trabajo, me preguntaban que dónde estaba la homologación que lo corroborase. Evidentemente, en ningún sitio.

En fin, muchos años de esfuerzos, de sacrificios, de darlo todo por la arquitectura, para acabar siendo expulsado, de malas maneras, perdiéndose, quizás para siempre, toda la inversión que se realizó en mi formación. Ahora, si hay suerte para mi, otro país se aprovechará de ello, de mi formación y de la de miles como yo. A buen seguro que, no hay nada tan caro para un estado como que toda una generación nos tengamos que ir a ganarnos la vida fuera.

Me despido ya, recordando que estas letras las he escrito yo, pero podían estar escritas por otros miles de jóvenes españoles que, hoy, nos acordamos de todas las medidas políticas tomadas para rescatar a un país, o por lo menos a los bancos de este nuestro país: españa. *”

* Nos hemos permitido esta licencia literaria para situar en una ficticia primera persona una evidente y dura realidad.

TaA: 47 calles de Valdebebas dedicadas a Arquitectos

No es fácil en estos tiempos encontrar noticias agradables hacia la figura de los arquitectos. Es posible que incluso con algo de razón, el colectivo (esto quizás sea lo injusto) habitualmente es el blanco de las más duras acusaciones. Por este motivo, es de celebrar una iniciativa, por pequeña y simbólica que sea, que venga a reconocer y recordar los aspectos más positivos que nuestra querida profesión ha sabido legar a la ciudad de Madrid y sus habitantes.

Tras una larga y compleja iniciativa comandada por el COAM y la Junta de Compensación de Valdebebas, ayer se presentaron oficialmente 47 nuevas calles del nuevo desarrollo urbanístico dedicadas a notables arquitectos que, cada uno a su manera, han tenido una importante y  relación con Madrid. Sin ningún tipo de matices la iniciativa ha sido muy de agradecer y debe hacernos sentir orgullosos a todos los arquitectos. 

No soy yo desde luego demasiado afín a la estructura colegial. Pero en este caso, más allá de mi propia relación personal con uno de los homenajeados, no puedo sino aplaudir la idea, agradecer el esfuerzo y dar las gracias al COAM y a todos sus miembros. Por otra parte, también es revelador que estas calles aparezcan precisamente en el desarrollo urbanístico reciente de Madrid que más atención ha prestado a las cuestiones arquitectónicas, urbanísticas y paisajísticas: Valdebebas. El planteamiento de Valdebebas seguramente no es perfecto, pero resulta obvio que es un avance muy significativo con respecto a operaciones también muy recientes de la capital. Además y por lo que se ve, ese avance, o riesgo, o esfuerzo, está teniendo una respuesta más que buena en el desarrollo económico y edificatorio asociado. ¡Son prácticamente las únicas grúas con actividad que se pueden ver en Madrid en estos tiempos de desánimo generalizado! De nuevo, solo se puede agradecer a Valdebebas el interés y enorme esfuerzo que seguro ha sido necesario para llevar a término un desarrollo urbanístico, al menos mucho más cuidadoso, de un gran trozo de Madrid, simbolizado en este pequeño gesto final de denominar a sus calles con el nombre de 47 arquitectos. 

Nunca es fácil hacer una lista de nombres. A las dificultades más evidentes derivadas del criterio de selección  se han unido otras coyunturales, según nos cuentan. Algunas comprensibles, como por ejemplo, que en el municipio de Madrid solo pueden tener calle  personajes fallecidos. Otras menos razonables, y que por fortuna pudieron sortear entre todos los intervinientes (en un alarde del absurdo al que se llega al llevar a su extremo el discurso políticamente correcto, en un momento dado se solicitó realizar una lista alternativa en la que se respetara un porcentaje del 50% para arquitectos hombre y mujeres). 

Cualquier lista es discutible. Pero lo cierto es que contemplada la enorme talla de los 47 elegidos, podemos concluir recurriendo a la frase hecha, "son todos lo que están, aunque sin duda no estén todos los que son".  Pero, más allá de los nombres, lo que es de celebrar, es que por fin la ciudad de Madrid rinde un pequeño homenaje a los arquitectos. Y eso es un gran e inusual noticia.

Ahora lo que nos queda a nosotros, es estar a la altura del reconocimiento...

Assessment Step 6

Not bad. But not good either.

We could say differences between Team Designs have enlarged. We have some very good designs in the Unit; and some others that are still on a very primitive stage of development. We must say the difference is basicly related with the amount of work and effort each team has put in their proposal. It's not that much a matter a quality but a matter of quantity. We have a little more than a month left until the end of the semester so we encourage teams that are a bit asleep to work really hard and to have a look at what design groups that are doing better are capable of producing.

For this step we've assessed each student twice: Once for their team work and the second time for their individual task. We must say that teams that, for whatever reason, haven't handed in any of the documents required, haven't been penalised in their global assessment for this absence. Our assessment for global Team Proposal has been mostly supported on the global attitude and characteristics of their Design, independent of qualitity of individual documents. On the other hand, Individual assessment has regarded just the effort and the degree development of the document and task assigned to each one of you.

Here you have our global assessment for each of the eight designs and a brief comment on some individual documents:

Team 1: 

Excelent work. If something should be said, we found both your enviromental approach and your plans a little less accurate than sections and elevations. Anyway, very good work all of you. Continue this way.

Team 2: 

Good work. Particularly your enviromental approach. Pity you had no sections but we are sure you'll be able to update your proposals' documents with this next step.

Team 3: 

Just enough. Obviously your plans, although not completely correct, demostrated and amount of work higher than the rest. You have and excellent initial model that you must turn into a real project. It's really pretty easy. It only requires work and compromise. Come on!

Team 4: 

Just enough and great differences between the work developed for each task. Good enviromental approach. Good program study but no real design associated to it. And very insufficient sections and elevations. Two advices: Work as a team; and each member must do his/her individual task at each stage.

Team 5: 

Strange and slight step back of your proposal from your initial model. Perhaps you've simplified it too much. Nice enviromental approach but plans and elevations didn`t explore the real possibilities of the model. It certainly didn`t help you hadn`t sections. Mend it on this next step!

Team 6: 

Good work. But again, too large differences between effort and work demostrated by each member. Great new model and interesting plan approach that should be completed. Suggesting sections. But most disappointing elevations and no enviromental study at all. We encourage those members with less compromise with the team to quickly join the main stream which in running on the correct direction.

Team 7: 

Good (and difficult) work. We understand difficulties. And you must know although you've worked hard, your proposal hasn't yet arrived to a good end. But we feel you'll make it if you continue trying. You must all continue your effort to understand the enormous possibilities of this kind of slighly more complex geometry. All of you, but speacially sections and, most of all, elevations.

Team 8: 

Very close to the edge. Perhaps just enough and properly drawn but you really must increase your compromise with the proposal. You must introduce in your design decisions obvious aspects as topography, existing structure, built environment, etc... You've shown us you know how to draw, specially with elevations and plans, but the global degree of compromise of the proposal must be higher. Go for it as a team!

As you can see, four team have done a good job and the other four increase their speed on next stages. We want to close the gap between the two groups in the Unit and I imagine the four teams in front are not going slow down. So the other four realy have to accelerate right now. 

Step 7: Materializing Designs

We are arriving final steps of our semester. This seventh one is concentrated in approaching the materialization of the eight designs in the Unit. We'll maintain the same team structure as last steps', and each team member will be assigned a new specific task for this next stage. Deadline for this step is April 29, at 12.00, as always.

Teams are expected to analize different solutions to materialize their proposals; discuss and critisize them and, finally, select the most appropriate strategy to build their designs. Each one should study different structural posibilities for their model, regarding both preexistances and new volumes for the site. You must also decide what constructive materials and solutions you'll use in your proposals. Obviously, all these discussions and decitions will certainly modify and complete your initial approaches (in some cases it's desirable that in a really significant way). So teams will also be expected to produce new general project information (plans and sections) that include all these changes and more precise definitions.

The four different tasks for each Design Team during this assigment are the following:

1. Structural 3D Model (physical or digital): You should study the structural strategy of your whole design. From foundations and topography, to roof level, we want you to make a 3D model of the structural system that supports your design. Of course your model will include the part/s of the existing building you maintain with your proposal, and it will describe the way new volumes establish their structural relation with the old ones (for those who prefer to make a physical model we suggest a scale not bigger that 1/200, because otherwise it'll be very difficult to introduce the amount of detail required)

2. Constructive Section: You'll have to select the most important part of the sections you've presented. Study it carefully, and select and design all the constructive decitions you'll need to materialize it. Of course you must discuss the final image you have in mind for your proposal both in its' interior and exterior appearance. You'll have to select all different materials, match them with the structural model you are developing at the same time, and build up a significant constructive section which clearly shows the way the proposal should be built. We suggest you work on a scale around 1/50.

3. Constructive Physical Model: Structural and constuctive decisions will be shown together on a physical model of a significant part of your proposals. Again we suggest scale 1/50, and first decision should be to choose what part of the proposal you want to modelize. It would be advisable that you had part of the old and the new areas, and from ground to roof level. With this model we want you to demostrate your capacity to integrate all the design decisions you've been making in a real construction homotetic to the project you imagine.

4. New Plans and Sections: All these discussions and decisions have to modify and complete your previous design. We now want you to re-draw all that general usual documents we commonly use to describe our proposals, introducing all these change and preciseness. Most teams didn't complete their documentation in the previous stage. So this step is the opportunity to introduce those changes we've spoken about individually with each group during last session, and those new decisions you'll certainly have to make during this materialization stage.  Now we do expect you to hand in all plans and sections with a high degree of correspondance between all documents.

Next Thursday each team leader must inform us about the specific task assigned to each team member for this stage. We only have a couple more to go, so work hard and build a solid proposal.

Cuando apruebas un trabajo en grupo...

I was having a look at your team proposals when I found this entry on http://pedacicosarquitectonicos.com/ (a web a strongly recommend)

Absolutely great, don't you think?

New OneDayWorkshop: Quick Prototypes with Max Risselada

Here we leave you information about a new One Day Workshop Esayt is organicing at the FUCOAM. In this case it deals with quick models and prototypes supervised by Max Risselada. It looks fun and interesting!

It's taking place on April 20, in the same location as the last one we had with Spiros. Here you have some more information.

Dropbox.... ajustes

En español para que no haya "misunderstandings"...

He hecho algunos ajustes en nuestra carpeta de Dropbox para que tengamos espacio suficiente todos para seguir compartiendo la información. Básicamente he eliminado (después de guardar copia), información menos relevante, fotografías de estado actual (no demasiado útil ya), fotografías de maquetas (pedimos subir 1 y no 23), algunos reportajes excelente pero muy pesados de Joaquín, etc... El resultado es que ahora nuestra carpeta pesa aprox 700 MB. De tal manera que debería ser suficiente para que todo el mundo pudiera seguir trabajando y compartiendo desde allí (incluso aquellos que disponen únicamente de 2GB).

Por lo tanto, ahora qué hacemos:

1. Aquellos que fueron incapaces de subir alguna información relevante por falta de espacio, que lo hagan. Ojo: 1 fotografía de la maqueta, no más. O las propuestas de tandems programa-maqueta. O... Lo que sea pero cada cosa en su sitio, ordenadamente y sin colmatar la carpeta.
2. He cambiado los nombres de las subcarpetas para que quede todo un poco más claro.  Y he creado 8 subcarpetas para cada uno de los 8 equipos de la siguiente etapa de entrega. Por favor subir la documentación en su sitio.
3. Recuerdo que para esta entrega hemos pedido .pdf de los documentos que entreguéis y, más importante, los ficheros .dwg de trabajo originales de cada uno. Sería bueno que los nombrarais todos con un cierto orden. Por ejemplo: DesignTeam[3]_[nombrealumno]_[seccion1].dwg o pdf. A ver si conseguimos que sea un caos solo moderado...

A por ello... Nos vemos el jueves.

El octavo pasajero...

Finally we do have an eighth Design Team:

DESIGN TEAM 8
Team Leader: Panagiotis

Individual Tasks
Plans: Panagiotis.
Sections: Martha
Elevations: Arturo
Environment: Ángel

Base Model: panagiotis
Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... New Library

Besides: Today we been able to have a look a some sketches and ideas developed by three teams (ther was a forth that presented but it's difficult to consider their extremely brief discourse as a real starting point...). We remind you we are on a critical stage of our semester. You MUST work daily on your TEAM and INDIVIDUAL tasks so you can arrive to a successful design for next Monday. There will be NO time after that. We'll be demanding other documents that you'll be absolutely unable to develop if you haven't started you proposal on time. Next Thursday we shall present some projects we feel might be useful for your designs and you should ALL show us haw your ideas are going on.

Congratulations to the three Teams that actually have started their proposals. Even if they were not running on a correct direction, experience is always most useful.

See you on Thursday...

More Details for Step 6

A few more details for our next step:

- Date and Time for Final Entry of this Step 6 is Monday 15 April at 12.00.

- Scale: We are defining our seven proposals. This demands accuracy and compromise with design. Therefore you should work on your Plans, Sections and Elevations thinking at least on scale 1/100. Urban environment responsibles should work with a range of scales from 1/100 to 1/500. We establish this scales  although entry formats for this Step might too small to print documents. You may print them to a different scale in this Steps' Entry. But you should work on the scales quoted regarding Final Semesters' Presentations.

- Printing Formats: For this entry we'll be using DIN A-3. As many as you consider necessary. We remind it's Team Leaders' responsibility to obtain a global presentation of teams' proposal as a whole. Hence he/she should decide main format characteristics, that all team member should stick to with in their drawings and final presentations. It's also advisable to regard our general Book of Styles' indications.

- Documents: Minimum documentation for each team member will be the following: Plans, all of them (min 2); Sections, all necessary to describe precisely the proposal (min 2); Elevations, all necessary to build up a cler description of proposals image (min 2), Urban Environment, all those necessary to define the way the new buiding interacts with its' surroundings in all scales (min 2).

- Uploading documents: Apart your printed entries, before deadline for the step arrives you should upload to our Dropbox folder your proposal. Two type of files must be uploaded: .pdf of the printed documents you hand in; and .dwg files of your designs.

See your first sketches tomorrow...

Team Work & Individual Work, Step 6

In this design step we expect from each student to demostrate two different capabitilies and skills:

- The first one is ability to work in a TEAM environment. You are expected to generate and develop ideas within a global design strategy.

- The second one is your own individual capacity, creativity and work. 

For this reason we have made the 7 design teams, but we've assigned individual responsabilities inside them for each student. Therefore, all of you must certainly work, discuss and define the global design. But you must do it mainly from your own area of responsability. We want you to concentrate in your area, generating its' own ideas and producing its' own designs and drawings. At the moment, we don't expect a complete agreement between all documents of each design. Futher more, at this step, we understand it's most useful and fruitful a certain amount of disagreement which will be solved afterwards.

Therefore, as we said, each student will be doublely assessed on this step: Once for global teams' design and secondly for individual work. First and best way to arrive to a good global design is to produce a good individual contribution. 

So, we'll now say a few things about each individual task assigned:

Team Leader:

Team leader has the responsability to garantee the understanding of the design as a whole. From concept to final presentation, he/she must work out the basic global decisions that must be followed by every team member so that everybody works in a similar direction. Each team has a model and re-program assigned, so general patterns should be clear. But probably and desirably new ideas and new designs will appear along this process. The team leader must evaluate them, direct discussions and finally make decisions upon all these new possibilities so that the final design can be understood as a single one (anyway, don't forget about what we've said about partial disaggrements... don't worry too much...at the moment). As a much easier task, the team leader has to manage final presentation: team leader is responsible of final documents, type of drawing, layout, names....

Plans:

Plan show how built environment is organised. They show how the building works, how we get around, how the program is developed, where each activity takes place, how people move and use the building. Responsible for plans must clearly show teams' reprogramming strategy and how it's materialized in their design.

Sections:

Sections show built environments' space. The space of architecture. The space of human activity and mouvement inside the building. They show the specific physical characteristics of each area, of each itinerary. They show how our five human senses perceive their surroundings. Responsible for sections must clearly show the space of their design.

Elevations:

Elevations show the image of architecture. They show how architecture is seen, it's materials, it's textures. Elevations are materiality. They expose the object all architecture is, even if it doesn´t want to. Even if it wants to disappear. Responsible for elevations must show the image of their design.

Urban Environment:

Architecture always appears in an specific context. Urban, suburban or natural. It's appereance automaticaly generates an intense dialogue with that context, creating a new environment. For some architects most important decisions of a design must be a consequence of the type of relationship the new building will establish with it's context. Responsible for Urban Environment must clearly show the type relation the proposal has with its' surroundings and the way it's physically materialized in their design.

We hope each one of you has a clear idea of what we expect from each one of you. We'll have a look at your work in progress on Monday and Thursday. We advise you to start quickly... Good luck and good weekend.

Step 6: Defining Designs

Ok, time has arrived to define your proposals and designs.

28 students came to our last critic sesion. 4 students neither attended nor presented any proposal; if they are interested in continuing their semester they will have to form another independent design team, choose a model and a program just as the rest of the Unit did, and develop their design. 

We sorted out the other 28 students in the Unit after presenting and discussing your individual models and re-programmiing strategies, into 7 DESIGN TEAMS:

- Each team must present a single design.

- Each team is composed by 4 students.

- Each team has been assigned a model upon which they must develop their design.

- Each team has been assigned a basic re-programing strategy for their proposal. 

- Each member of the team has his/her own area of responsability in this Step (Plans / Sections / Elevations / Urban Environment)

- On plus, one student of each team will assume the role of Team Leader for this step, as it was his/her model the one selected for its' future developement.

- Each student will be assessed in this step with two qualifications: one regarding teams' global design and a second one related to his/her particular area of responsability.

Here are the 7 DESIGN TEAMS, quoting their members, assigned responsabilities, re-programming strategy and selected model:

DESIGN TEAM 1

Team Leader: David

Individual Tasks

Plans: Jesús

Sections: José Antonio

Elevations: Laura R.

Environment: David

Base Model: David

Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... Nature and Water Cultural Center

DESIGN TEAM 2
Team Leader: Bárbara

Individual Tasks
Plans: Dimitra
Sections: Bárbara
Elevations: Cristina
Environment: Íñigo

Base Model: Bárbara
Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... Vegetarian Gastronomic Center

DESIGN TEAM 3
Team Leader: Enrique

Individual Tasks
Plans: Laura A.
Sections: Jorge
Elevations: Carlos
Environment: Enrique

Base Model: Enrique
Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... New Residential Site

DESIGN TEAM 4
Team Leader: Miguel

Individual Tasks
Plans: Sergio F.
Sections: Sergio L.
Elevations: Lavinia
Environment: Miguel

Base Model: Miguel
Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... Public Security Services Center

DESIGN TEAM 5
Team Leader: Daniela

Individual Tasks
Plans: Daniela
Sections: M.José G.
Elevations: Andrés
Environment: Rafael

Base Model: Daniela
Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... Sports Center

DESIGN TEAM 6
Team Leader: Aikaterini

Individual Tasks
Plans: Aikaterini
Sections: Adela
Elevations: Michele
Environment: Luis

Base Model: Aikaterini
Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... Educational Center 

DESIGN TEAM 7
Team Leader: Arian

Individual Tasks
Plans: Arian
Sections: Alberto
Elevations: Francisco
Environment: M.José R.

Base Model: Arian
Re-programming strategy: from zombie to... Performance and Cultural Center

This is it. On next entries we'll explain what we expect of each team member in each if the different areas and tasks.

Assessment Step 5

Everyone of the 14 couples that presented their matching proposals between individual models and re-programming strategies did pretty well. Congratulations (except for the 2 couples that didn't present any proposal at all)

Again,  we could all realise the strenght contained in your models was clearly better that the functional proposals. But anyway, during the critic session we managed to generate some kind of 7 proto-programatic strategies that should be developed in future weeks. 

We also selected the 7 models on which to continue working. It's a pity some good models have been left out our selection. Anyway, we encourage all teams to remember all those good ideas, and feel free to introduce them in their final designs.

New teams and description of next steps on next entries... Let's continue.

On the road again...

I hope you've had a wonderful Easter Holiday! Time has come to conclude our semester. A couple of months and it'll be over.

Therefore, two brief and quick reminders to re-start with:

- Next Thursday 4 April, we'll decide which models and re-programming strategies will be developed by the whole unit these two last months. So it is really important that all the 16 couples made for this step, present their proposals, so we can all select our favourites. Sharp, at 12.00, every couple should have their DIN A-4 ready to be presented in front of the Unit. After presentations we'll have a short discussion and critic session, and finally Joaquín and myself, we'll present next step and make the new teams of students.

- I've heard some people are having problems uploading some documentation to our Dropbox folder. It's another issue we'll discuss on Thursday, but I believe the problem is that due to Dropbox procedures, EVERY member of a shared folder must have enough space in his/her account. We'll speak about possible solutions. Anyway, couples who are able to upload their proposals for this current step before Thursday, please do so, in a specific folder.

See all of you on Thursday!