ROCK n ROLL ARCHITECTURE
Tutor: Theodore Spyropoulos
Team: Miguel Miranda [ Puerto Rico ] Said Fahim
Mohammadi [ Germany ] Katharina Penner
[ Germany ] Yifan Zhang [ China ]
Our architectural intention is to challenge the idea of the ground we
inhabit as solid. The research aims for the creation of a soft-body architecture –architecture made to challenge and discuss the notion of rigidity and motionlessness in architectural thinking. Defining soft as the in-between line, linking static and dynamic, solid and liquid, it is in the constant shifting of this line that a soft-body is found. An important characteristic of a soft architecture is the creation of a soft inhabitable space capable of ‘moving‘, merging and combining1 – as a first step towards creating a larger life-like organisation with the capacity to structure a flexible space that adapts over time to environmental changes. The property of ‘softness‘ is interpreted
(and controlled) through material distribution and circulation, energy flow network, transition between solid and liquid, correspondent elements, and the opportunity of inverting negative aspects of movement into positive
features in architectural design. Through both material distribution and
geometrical setup the intention is to achieve a time-based, reconfigurable2 architecture. Soft-body architecture exists to provide a life-like organism, a body capable of absorbing, adjusting and reconfiguring itself to a condition without losing its internal equilibrium –an ecology, unstable and stable, capable of containing the everyday changes in human nature and life.
1_ There is an important difference we would like to state between merging and combining. Combining is the act of combination that can coexist with but doesn’t need to merge as a single body.
2_ Similar to the Fun Palace project from Cedric Price, but creating a more active behaviour rather than a passive one.