Date: 2013
Location: DIA – Dessau Institute of Architecture – Germany

TOPIC

CITC IV looking at the architecture of masquerade, of the ornate veil; the architecture of reproduction and the [t]issue of Atrophic [RE]Topography. The Term ‘atrophic’ mainly is used in medicine and biology, however the material built fabric as well as the understanding of it is subject to atrophy over the centuries. We will cross over the boundary of first attempts of architecture towards its new existence as on-going decay and rejuvenation. This semester the studio draws its inspiration from Venice, Italy. Paired with advanced bio-computational knowledge the city’s fabric slowly transforms to an intrinsic materialized network of emergent structures and tactile topographies. As a sinking city, subject to gravity and structural and material instability Venice provides a birth-ground for advanced architectural systems and ideas, which work on either, a phenomenological, surreal level or a level of advanced architectural design engineering. The wooden foundations of the city, inserted in a fluid environment emerged in the architecture of Venice as an architecture of romantic debris and equally the manifestation of an absence for repair and decay. An architecture of desire and passion furnished with possibilities and solutions for masquerade as a survival strategy. CITC IV is looking at growth of sublime, meaning philosophically and tectonic challenging architecture and the idea of architecture as hierarchical or non-hierarchical, emergent organism. The architecture found in the studio is an architecture of iterations, of a para-architectural quality, in analysis, process and outcome.

We believe that FORM IS A VERB AND NOT A NOUN!

‘Clarice, the glorious city, has a tormented history. Several times it decayed, then burgeoned again, always keeping the first Clarice as an unparalleled model of every splendour, compared to which the city’s present state can only cause more sighs at every fading of the stars.’
Italo Calvino, Invisible Cities

PROJECTS
‘Rhizome’ (J. Parsons)
‘Transformative Metempsychosis’ (E. Song, N. Choi)
‘Rhizome for the Crux’ (Y. Karadayi)
‘Panoptic Imago’ (M. Adler, R. Rathod)
‘Swarm – Autonomous Robotic Machinations’ (M. Jeffers)