Re-start from straw

This paper describes the concept and realization of an earthquake-proof prototype to verify the appropriateness of an orphanage to be built in Haiti. The construction system utilizes mainly natural and local materials like rice straw bales and bamboo. This work is the result of a master thesis in Architecture at the Politecnico di Torino. It originates from the collaboration with Architettura senza frontiere Piemonte, an Italian NGO. The wider scope of the project is to contribute to returning to rice farming and to recognizing rice straw as an appropriate building material for Haiti. Both goals would constitute a step towards establishing an integrated social, economic, environmental, agricultural, and architectural process

“Bernard Rudofsky. ‘La progettazione dovrebbe essere rivolta essenzialmente all’insignificante banalità della vita quotidiana, che trascende la moda’”

Una sintetica reazione al tema del numero di Piano Progetto Città, centrata soprattutto sulla parte del lavoro di Rudofsky piú “antropologica”, in quanto si occupa della cultura materiale, in particolare della vita quotidiana delle persone

Loos'sche Denkweisen bei Bernard Rudofsky

Rudofsky and Loos share a "cultural understanding" of architecture. Loos defined architecture as a practice providing the background for an individual cultural evolution (and not producing art). Rudofsky deepened that view by providing a series of "fundamentals" that enable individual emancipation, found in cross-cultural comparisons (Mediterranean, Japanese cultures etc.). Loos took the American culture as an example to teach the Viennese, Rudofsky used all "architecture without architects" to demonstrate that western "modernity" had developed as an autonomous art that lost its touch with human issues. The paper is part of a project about the history of thinking styles and not the history of building styles, tracing both the roots and the ramifications of Hoffmann's and Loos's ideas

Il progetto pilota

I paragrafi "Esempio applicativo di rilievo costruttivo finalizzato al recupero antisismico" (p. 52-55) e "Indicazioni preliminari per il consolidamento" (p. 55-56) sono di Corrado Curt

ArUcoE: Enhanced ArUco Marker

This paper presents a novel fiducial marker type called ArUcoE. It is obtained from a standard ArUco marker by enhancing it with a chessboard-like pattern. With our approach the pose estimation accuracy of any ArUco marker can easily be increased. Further methods to increase the accuracy are analyzed. By applying a subpixel algorithm to the corner regions we are able to locate the corner points within a pixel and overcome the restriction of pixel-level accuracy. A deep-learning-based super-resolution method is used to artificially increase the pixel density in the same regions. Additionally, the effect of using a single and a stereo camera setup on the accuracy is shown

Un catálogo de posibilidades. Un viaje por las ideas rudofskianas sobre la Lebensweise

Sin entrar en una reconstrucción cronológica y lineal de la obra de Bernard Rudofsky, el texto propone un recorrido a través de los puntos más sobresalientes del pensamiento rudofskiano, aún fértiles y de gran actualidad. En concreto dedicaré especial atención a su búsqueda incansable del “arte de vivir”: Rudofsky reflexionó en muchos de sus escritos y exposiciones sobre la calidad de la vida doméstica, apostando por un equilibrio entre la austeridad y el hedonismo. En su estudio comparativo de las prácticas esenciales, propone una mirada no convencional e interdisciplinar, apoyado en la antropología, con la finalidad de redescubrir las razones de nuestros actos y de nuestros espacios de habitar. La prioridad de la calidad íntima de la vivienda frente a su aspecto exterior, la integridad del cuerpo, la intensidad de la estimulación sensorial, la dieta, el viaje, el estudio de la arquitectura sin arquitectos, son parámetros profundamente interconectados en su obra. Su investigación, además de ofrecer un amplísimo catálogo de posibilidades, constituye también una oportunidad para comprender cómo la limitación de los medios, o la elección consciente de la frugalidad, puede tener consecuencias positivas sobre el medioambiente y el estilo de vida. Rudofsky apostó por el anticonformismo y la curiosidad; sus argumentaciones no fueron enteramente originales, pero supo elaborarlas en un conjunto coherente y holístico como pocos intelectuales del siglo XX