Studio BA5 (Truwant et Rodet)

AR-301(an) / 12 credits

Teacher(s): Rodet Dries, Truwant Charlotte Cornélie

Language: English

Withdrawal: It is not allowed to withdraw from this subject after the registration deadline.

Remark: Inscription faite par la section

Summary

Modernism has instilled within us a fear for leaks, consequently fostering a desire for a hygienic, comfortable, and hermetic environment. We live in a watertight vessel. However, in the event of a glitch the Drize river in Geneva will start to leak, flood the city, and infiltrate our homes.

Content

Leaks happen, leaks are everywhere and inevitable. The Swiss Gas and Water Industry Association estimates that pipelines lose an average of 12% of the water they carry, due to leaks caused by construction work or corrosion. So, we find ourselves looking for methods to repair leaks, inventing countless building materials and construction techniques to create more water-resistant structures, improved plumbing systems and waterproofing materials.

Our fear for leaks reflects our modern desire to live in a hermetic environment, where all our resources are enclosed in narrow private compartments. We hide our pipes, our sewage, we cover our rivers. Consequently, our domestic space, our cities have gradually been transformed into an ultra-clean, ultra-hygienic and ultra-efficient vessel.

But leaks happen, leaks are inevitable and fascinating. There is something intriguing about a glitch in the infrastructure, a rupture in a joint, a miscalculation of pressure. So, instead of resisting, can we increase the leak? Can a leak become a new proposal to the wicked problem of an impossible hermetic environment?

The hidden Drize river in Geneva will be scrutinized, its pipe broken open to flood the PAV neighborhood and infiltrate our homes: Architecture proposal for this uncertain condition.

 

Keywords

Water, leaks, Landscape, Ecology, tales, Fiction, cycles, Time as material, Geneva, Transformation, Renovation, housing, public programs.

Teaching methods

The atelier is the first act of the project. Together with the students, we will curate this space as the weeks go by. We want to go beyond a studio focused on a mid-term or a final review but rather organize continuous research.

The context is a fiction depicting a leak in the Geneva PAV area. To trigger fantasies around the theme of water, students will receive a series of media such as paintings, data, facts, drawings, texts, details, photographs, film excerpts, screen captures. This body of information will be organized by associative method searching for formal, visual, theoretical, historical, or logical patterns between the elements. Throughout the semester, this corpus will evolve, will be completed by new texts, fragments of projects, model images, plans, sections. This first research forms the basis for the narrative of a set of projects. The student projects will be developed using models, projections & drawings.

The atelier is a place for exchange between the students themselves and guests that are invited for input lectures, movies, site visits. An on-site intervention will be organised at the PAV in geneva during the PAV living room events, curated by Blerta Axhija and Nina Guyot.

Assessment methods

- motivation, engagement in the discussion, participation in the studio curation

- creativity and richness of the expanded research collection (clarity of the explanation of the connection between media, quality and relevance of the new added references and other medias, quality of representation)

- capacity to react to changing conditions

- Proposal quality: translation of a narrative into a spatial project. (Representation in plans, section, visuals and models.)

 

 

Resources

Notes/Handbook

A reader will be handed out at the beginning of the semester.

In the programs

  • Semester: Fall
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: Studio BA5 (Truwant et Rodet)
  • Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Type: mandatory
  • Semester: Fall
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: Studio BA5 (Truwant et Rodet)
  • Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Type: mandatory
  • Semester: Fall
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: Studio BA5 (Truwant et Rodet)
  • Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Type: optional
  • Semester: Fall
  • Exam form: During the semester (winter session)
  • Subject examined: Studio BA5 (Truwant et Rodet)
  • Lecture: 2 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Project: 4 Hour(s) per week x 14 weeks
  • Type: mandatory

Reference week

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