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GREENLAND MIGRATING

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INTRODUCTION In 1973, the small settlement  of Qullissat was closed down due to the demise of its mining industry. Its population migrated to Ilulissat and took an important part of the community with them; their meeting space, their church. Today, this building stand as a symbol of how meeting spaces are of vital importance to a community. Movement and migration have been and are an intrinsic aspect of the Greenlandic culture. A MANIFESTO We propose a masterplan alternative, based on people as a resource, all kinds of people. Those who live there, and those to come. Capitalizing on density and the migrating community, whether it be for one day, one season or one lifetime, this strategy aims to promote “meeting” as a resource for growth and economic sustainability. We suggest 4 interventions, where architecture can be the catalyst for “meeting” and a more cohesive Ilulissat. It is the present and future Greenlander, where ever they may come from, that will eventually form the Illul...

WHAT EXISTS IS A SMALL PART OF WHAT IS POSSIBLE

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With the studio's moto as lecture title, we introduce this years latest work to open the Lund academic year. Lund Architecture School, Sweden

DEPLOY "The Space Between the Folded and the Unfolded" 

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WORKSHOP AT COPENHAGEN ARCH. SCHOOL by David A. Garcia Introduction: From the thousand year old umbrella and all the way to un-foldable space stations, the built environment has accumulated a catalog of folding and unfolding capabilities. Spatially, the two extreme stages of the deployment/collapse are less important than all the stages in between. This middle range is malleable, it can take various routes, and its elements change their interrelation from one second to the other. Students of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture

ENERGY SYSTEMS "Building from within"

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WORKSHOP AT COPENHAGEN ARCH. SCHOOL by David A. Garcia Introduction: Continuously avoided by the architectural discipline, the energy systems, services and general “arteries” of any built environment, have been hidden, masked or even ignored. Different movements in the architectural tradition have embraced the spacial potential hidden/ignored in these systems. A vital example is Center Pompidou, where ventilation systems become external elements of the facade. What if this attitude was extended to all the elements of a built environment? What if electric systems, solar panels, ventilation, sewage etc... become the architecture, the spaces we inhabit, with out hiding or masking them? Students of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture

ZOO NETWORK

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The competition guidelines called for "An environmental zoo where consideration should be given to a symbiotic environment that includes the activities of humans with animals." The proposal aimed to enrich both humans and animals by closer contact, while using the same environment. If the contemporary aim of zoos is to understand how animals and humans can be enriched by each other, then the proximity between animals and people is essential. This can be done by sharing simple rituals, like eating, resting or training. If these activities are done in the same architectural space, the spatial environment becomes important to both, animals and humans. Architecture is the perfect language to solve the physical challenges of such a proposal. This has to be understood as a serious undertaking and a way to enrich each other’s social necessities while creating new spaces. Imagine your self, reading in a cloud of butterflies in the central library, swimming with dolphins in the publi...

ALL IS NOT WHAT IT SEEMS

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WORKSHOP AT LUND ARCHITECTURE SCHOOL, LTH By Peter Cook and David A. Garcia Introduction: “If you do not expect the unexpected you will not discover it.” Heraclitus The project aims to encourage your awareness of architectural language or ‘representative form’ and to take a stab at manipulating it in a highly conscious way. Thus the building programme is kept simple and offered as a series of ‘A’ or ‘B’ constituents. Students of Lund University School of Architecture

COVERT SPACES" Ideas of the hidden"

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WORKSHOP AT COPENHAGEN ARCH. SCHOOL by David A. Garcia Introduction: Traditionally, human desires and needs for the subversive and the hidden, have always found a way of expression in architecture. From secret libraries in monasteries, to mafia offices in the back of restaurants, the possibility to create space also allows the possibility to hide space. This typology with in the realm of the built environment is often determined by great inventiveness. The constraints are of such unusual and extreme character, that the results tent to be equally unorthodox. Students of The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture