Teoria e desenho no ensino da Arquitectura: intersecções e paralelismos

Publicado em “Encontros Estúdio UM”, ISSN 2182-6749. #7 Investigação baseada no desenhoO Desenho, entendido como a capacidade de criar e/ou manipular imagens para expressar ideias, é um instrumento que permite ao arquitecto cruzar as várias áreas disciplinares da arquitectura. Deve ser usado como instrumento de pesquisa, não só no projecto, mas também nas cadeiras teóricas. Num Curso de Arquitectura, os alunos devem ser treinados a sintetizar o que aprendem criando e manipulando imagens, desenhadas à mão ou com o computador, capturadas com uma máquina fotográfica, digitalizadas de revistas ou descarregadas da Internet. Não interessa o modo, desde que mostrem capacidade de cruzar campos disciplinares e habilidade para comunicar ideias. Mas não só para as aulas de Desenho e Projecto; é igualmente válida para o ensino da Teoria

A luz como material de construção: a Piscina das Marés em Leça da Palmeira

Publicado em "Atas do Congresso Internacional Comunicação e Luz". ISBN 978-989-8600-58-5Na obra de Álvaro Siza Vieira a luz é um dos instrumentos mais importantes na concretização das qualidades espaciais da construção. Nos seus projetos, os espaços, linguagens e formas criados por um grande número de arquitetos modernos são usados como inspiração, num processo que se aproxima de uma colagem, mas que pressupõe um propósito de comunicação que é quase literário. Esta metodologia está relacionada com uma conceção da arquitetura como arte, onde o desenho da luz se torna essencial, tornando a vivência dos seus edifícios uma experiência com efeitos surpreendentes a nível visual, sensorial e cognitivo. A arquitetura de Siza é simultaneamente poética (harmonizando uma intenção estética e a comunicação subliminar de uma mensagem) e tátil (feita de sensações e detalhes); por isso, não pode ser entendida apenas pela observação de imagens, deve ser experienciada num percurso no espaço e no tempo: as várias dimensões da sua arquitetura só podem ser entendidas por um utilizador em movimento. A Piscina das Marés de Leça da Palmeira é um exemplo perfeito da importância da luz neste processo de comunicação.Este trabalho tem o apoio financeiro do Projeto Lab2PT- Laboratório de Paisagens, Património e Território - AUR/04509 e da FCT através de fundos nacionais e quando aplicável do cofinanciamento do FEDER, no âmbito dos novos acordos de parceria PT2020 e COMPETE 2020 – POCI-01-0145-FEDER-007528

Mr. Valery: report on two experiences of mixed fields of research

In the last thirty years, there was a revolution in the way we work and teach, with the introduction and development of different ways of creating and manipulating digital images. Consequently, architects and students give representation more and more importance every passing year. This growing prominence of representation can be dangerous because it can lead us to think that a good project is the one that makes a good rendering. But the perfection of the render is many times hiding the deficient understanding of the problem presented by the client, the site and/or the program. To prevent this from happening, it is important that Studio classes are focused on the ideas behind the images. However, this evolution has a positive side too; induced by the digital paradigm, students can learn how to use another kind of architectural means of research in the process of design. They seem to easily acquire the skills to create images that explain the concepts, the ideas, rather than the actual form of the building that they are representing. So, architecture students can be taught to create and manipulate images that express ideas, as tools for interdisciplinary research that can be used outside the Studio, in other Curricular Units. In the work done for a Theory exercise, students can also develop methods of analytical research as a support for the communication of ideas. This paper will show two examples of the work done by Master students in classes of Studio and Theory of Architecture, trying to explain the specific objectives of each one and to summarize the results. The first one is from 2008-09 (Curricular Unit of Studio III, for second year students); it’s a practical exercise that aimed to simulate the relation between architect and client: on an existing site (located near the School), the students had to propose a house for the fictional character “Mr. Valery”, from the book with the same name by Gonçalo Tavares. In this book, Mr. Valery (a strange character, inspired in the philosopher Paul Valery) explains his ideas of the ideal holiday house. Confronted with this peculiar client, the students should try to design a holiday house responding to his demands, which had to be suitable to the site and also function like an (almost) normal house. The idea was to confront the student with the idiosyncrasies of a difficult client, but also to make them understand that it is possible to relate the architectural practice with the fields of literature and philosophy. The results showed unusual relations between site, form and function and led to many different approaches to a very common program. The second example is related to the first: in the next year, the same group of students attended Theory III (in the third year of the same course) and were asked to do a group exercise, in which two colleagues had to produce a critical analysis of a previous Studio work that they both shared, comparing their ideas on a paper and on a multimedia presentation. Many of them chose the “Mr. Valery” exercise, and their results were the most interesting: maybe because it was a small program, which was simple to compare, but also because it allowed a very clear discourse on the reasons for the project options, which sometimes were quite the opposite, in the two different proposals

The cognitive methodology of the Porto School: foundation and evolution to the present day

As a consequence of the international impact of the work of Álvaro Siza Vieira (Pritzker winner in 1992) and Eduardo Souto Moura (Pritzker winner in 2011), the so-called Porto School has become a global phenomenon. But the expression ‘School of Porto’ implies much more than the work of these two architects: it designates an identity that relates the pedagogy of a teaching institution with the ideas and architectural practice of its professors and/or former students. The Porto School was born as an idea of Portuguese Modern Architecture with the work of Fernando Távora, between the publication of “O Problema da Casa Portuguesa” (1945) and the building of the Market in Santa Maria da Feira (1954-1959). This individual action (adapting international modern models to Portuguese physical and cultural context) became a collective trend between 1955 and 1961, the years when the Surveys on Portuguese Vernacular Architecture took place. In the early 70s, we find in Siza’s work a non-visual character that reinterprets this identity and anticipates Kenneth Frampton’s definition of ‘critical regionalism’ (1985, pp.313-327); in the 80s, the work of Souto Moura will emerge with a personal interpretation of this idea of School. Today, this identity subsists, as a result of the transmission mechanisms of a cognitive methodology - a way of thinking connected to a way of doing. Nonetheless, the persistence of this idea of School, nowadays, implies the respect for the heritage of its way of thinking but, paradoxically, it also needs a continuous critical exercise concerning the update of this legacy.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Segurança e sustentabilidade: processos urbanos e criminalidade no Porto entre 1928 e 1988

Este texto procura resumir as principais ideias da dissertação Segurança e Sustentabilidade: processos urbanos e criminalidade na cidade do Porto, realizada no âmbito do 2º Mestrado em Planeamento e Projecto do Ambiente Urbano (FAUP/FEUP, 1996-98), orientada pelo Prof. Arq. Manuel Fernandes de Sá e elaborada na sequência do estudo “Crime e cidade: uma perspectiva dinâmica”, realizado no Centro de Ciências do Comportamento Desviante da Faculdade de Psicologia da Universidade do Porto no âmbito do projecto “Segurança Urbana”, conjunto multidisciplinar de trabalhos de investigação (com coordenação do Prof. Cândido Agra) encomendado pela Câmara Municipal do Porto em 1995 e apresentados publicamente no III Fórum Sobre Segurança Urbana (realizado nos dias 3 e 4 de Outubro de 1997 na Fundação Dr. António Cupertino de Miranda)

The language of the SAAL program. Similarities and variations in the work of the SAAL Teams in Porto

In the SAAL Program, Portuguese architects faced a paradoxical situation, given the urgency and scale of the needs of local populations and the will to apply two basic principles: the right to the city and the right to architecture. Porto architects understood the need for a pragmatic approach, to enable an effective response in the short term. The need for rationality and economy justified a language with modernist roots; so, most of the resulting housing schemes showed an uniform approach (resulting from the need to respond to similar circumstances), with common characteristics: organization in parallel volumes, often unrelated to the alignments of the pre-existing city, with long and narrow duplex dwellings, a set of stairs in the centre and openings on both the opposing façades. Although they all share similarities, we can distinguish two different approaches in the low density housing projects built in Porto: in S. Victor, Francos, Lapa and Maceda we can find a purist language and a rigid volumetry; on the contrary, Contumil, Antas, Leal and Chaves de Oliveira share an hybrid language, in which the typological and formal solutions are best suited to their specific urban environment and seem to be more agreeable to the populations.This work has the financial support of the Project Lab2PT - Landscapes, Heritage and Territory laboratory - AUR/04509 and FCT through national funds and when applicable of the FEDER co-financing, in the aim of the new partnership agreement PT2020 and COMPETE2020 - POCI 01 0145 FEDER 007528

A Escala do Porto

No estádio de Braga, se é notável a capacidade do edifício se assumir, em simultâneo, como objecto na paisagem e como parte integrante desta, demonstrando que a sua dimensão Sublime não tem, forçosamente de implicar uma atitude anticontextualista, se é admirável como a obra consegue manter a simplicidade de um gesto minimal numa escala “Bigness”, sem que isso implique perder “verdade” na relação contentor-conteúdo (são os aspectos funcionais, sobretudo, que pagam os custos desta honestidade...), é sobretudo extraordinário o modo como este monumento consegue, apesar das críticas, chamar a si o reconhecimento praticamente unanime da qualidade da sua arquitectura, encarada enquanto arte (não só nos meios eruditos, mas também, e sobretudo, nos meios populares)

Nulla dies sine linea : research by drawing in the teaching of theory of architecture

"Nulla dies sine linea" (no day without drawing a line) is a dictum of Viollet-le Duc that Fernando Távora quoted, regarding the education of students of architecture. Being undisputed for Architectural Design classes, it is equally valid for the teaching of Theory of Architecture. Understanding the role of the architect in a Vitruvian philosophy, as a specialist generalist (a technician/artist who knows how to relate with other technicians and other artists), implies an idea of comprehensive education (not specialized) of the architecture student, so that he can become a professional who, by the scope of his training, can organize the synthesis of all the elements that have to converge in the process of architectural design. Drawing, understood as the ability to create and manipulate images that express ideas, is an instrument that allows us (in conjunction with writing) to relate different areas of knowledge, and should be taught as a tool for interdisciplinary research, both in the Studio classes and in theoretical units. Architecture students should be taught to use images as tools for interdisciplinary research, but this research by drawing should not be confused with mere representation: the consideration of the concepts implied should always be a criterion for the evaluation of the images produced. This kind of work takes place in the Design classes, but can also be developed in the teaching of Theory, where students can develop analytical research as a support for the communication of ideas. This paper will show examples of the work done in classes of Theory and History of Architecture, where students articulate the study of different themes (physical and cultural context, geometry, function, tectonics, etc.) and where the relationship between text and image (drawings, photos and diagrams) is crucial for the communication of ideas