Incompiuto Siciliano.
Re-visiting the Sicilian Incomplete, Giarre, Sicily.
Semestre 5 – Atelier Edouard Cabay assisted by
Constance Meunier
Re–
Re– refers to
the ambition of the course to work from an existing environment, may it be
buildings, structures, infrastructures, urban plans and to re-think their very existence, re-adapt them to new uses, re-trofit to new
conditions, re-visit their architecture.
The atelier develops a
process-based approach to design which unfolds from the creation of
cartographical catalogues of the physical context in order to reveal emergent
organizational patterns and to create new opportunities for design.
The atelier relies on drawing and mapping as
exploration tools to activate a generative design process. Catalogues of
cartography from uncharted information of a context, are thoroughly developed
by means of parametric design techniques. The investigation of this methodology
leads us to explore new grounds for unpredictable opportunities and unseen
characteristics, triggering novelty in the reading of space. Repetitive
graphical translation of maps enables the emergence of new material and
organizational patterns creating an exploitable transitions between mapping and
design.
Uncharted Cartography
“What about confusing clutter? Information
overload? Doesn't data have to be "boiled down" and
"simplified"? These common questions miss the point, for the quantity
of detail is an issue completely separate from the difficulty of reading. Clutter
and confusion are failures of design, not attributes of information.”
― Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information
― Edward R. Tufte, Envisioning Information
The studio started its investigation with the
elaboration of cartography that attempts to depict usually unobserved
phenomena’s. Amongst others, the movement of pigeons, the location of cigarette
butts or the displacement of chairs are some of the clues that one can examine
to detect patterns of occupation of an open space. The Jardins du Luxembourg
was physically scrutinised by the students during several days, carefully
mapping events and translating them to quantitative information organised on
the flat space of the page. With an emphasis on the nature of the graphical
code, all maps went through several phases of notational translation to reveal
once non-evident patterns of use of the gardens.
Re-visiting
the Sicilian Incomplete
The Campo di Polo of Giarre, on the slopes of
the Etna, is an abandoned infrastructure which destiny was, paradoxically, to
not being used. At the center of a political manipulation intended to create
employment and vote, its construction was carefully calibrated to remain
incomplete. Today, these 27.000 tons of concrete rest unused within the rural
Sicilian landscape.
The ambition of the Atelier is to question the
very nature of existence of the infrastructure attempting to propose new
pragmatic scenarios that arises form inherent quality of the construction itself.
Once again, cartography is at the basis of a bottom-up process searching to
depict characteristics of materiality, spatial occupation or energetic
behavior.
The projects that are featured in this
exhibition are as many courageous speculations on how to use a spatial support
in a way in which it was not envisioned at its origin. They address the
necessity to reconsider our built environment and the very notion of its
use.
With special thanks to:
Andrea Masu, Jose Sorbello, Andrea di Stefano,
Leonard Gallegos, Brice Maurin, Alexandre Dubord, Emilien Deloche, Christian
Delecluze, Yasmine Abbas, Maria Martinez Gragera, Nathalie Rosenzwaig, Dieter
Dietz, Teresa Cheung, Emmanuelle Chiappone, Marie-Hellene Fabre, Cedric Libert,
Michel da Costa Goncalvez, Louis de Funes.
