+ AALU Pinup

Streetscape Diagram of Sheik Zayed ROad, form Jen Hwang

AALU Pinup

Initial drawings to configure a infrastructural landscape of canal/wetland, by Angeliki Koliomichou

The large scale territorial mappings of Angeliki (see image) start to suggest potential strategies of knitting together already existing lineal infrastructure of water management in the fringe between mountain and sea in Oman. It looks as if she is going to push it forward for Wednesday!

More news before the pinup: A network of food distribution / growing is about to seed a system of agricultural skyscrapers within the fabric of Dubai. Matt Wilson (see image attached) seems to be quite keen on explaining it to the audience.

Second term pinup for Landscape Urbanism will take place on morning Wednesday 21st @ 37GFF. Students are expected to be able to translate their readings of the site (see drawing attached form Alejandra Bosch) and typological research into a strategic base on top of which be able to articulate a discourse on where does Landscape Urbanism stand in the contemporary Middle East. Who wants to be first?????

On Thursday 15th , Young Zhang gave a presentation about his previous engagements of work in the Middle East. Students got to have a good impression of the different problems which architects face when planning large scale cities which get to be built and thought at an unprecedented speed. Issues about density, distribution of population across the territory and response to a commercially demanding client came across after the presentation of projects which place traditionally considered utopian ideas of city building into the arena of common practice in the Middle East.

LU students return from Istanbul Workshop

Landscape Urbanism students Alejandra Bosch and Matt Wilson have returned from the the Istanbul Fibrous structures workshop. CNN Turk will be airing the projects along with interviews from the workshop coordinators Claudia, Nilüfer, and Marco, on Monday, March 5.

The workshop was conceived and directed by Claudia Pasquero and Marco Poletto (ecoLogicStudio) and Nilüfer Kozikoðlu(Tuspa)
with the support of structural engineers and designers AKT London
in collaboration with Meltem Aksoy (Assist Prof. Dr.ITU) and Arkitera

http://www.cnnturk.com/
http://forum.arkitera.com/showthread.php?p=70869
http://workshop.arkitera.com/fibrous/

More Middle East for AALU - 15th march

Harvar graduate Young Zhang, who has been recently involved with OMA, will give an insight of the work in this office related to developments in Dubai and Middle East. Young will also participate in the third term AALU pinup 23rd of March.

AALU + Fibrous structures

AALU students Mathew Wilson and Alejandra Bosch (models in the image beside) will follow their projects by participating in the Fibrous structures workshop, held in Istambul, concived and directed by former AAstudents Claudia Pasquero – Marco Poletto (ecoLogicStudio) – Nilufer Kozikoglu (tusba) with the support of structural engineer and designer AKT London and with the collaboration of AALU graduate Ivan Valdez and of Meltem Aksoy (Assist Prof. Dr.ITU)

The course will start by learning the basic principles of parametric modelling and by understanding their potential as generators of “machinic” diagrams. The architecture of Muqarnas will also be the subject of an early investigation, from which geometrical rules will be extracted and will serve as base structuring logic for the assemblage of the fibrous components. In parallel to the development of the parametric digital diagrams, multiple physical counterparts will be fabricated. Finally the structure will actualize as a pavilion. As a result the models, both physical and digital will acquire a more specific scalar dimension and will be able to express more peculiar structural, ornamental and microclimatic qualities.

http://workshop.arkitera.com/fibrous/

Charles Waldheim, Ford’s Fields seminar 8th-9th May

Charles Waldheim is Associate Dean and Director of the Landscape Architecture Program on the Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design at the University of Toronto where his research focuses on contemporary urbanism in relation to landscape. Waldheim coined the term “landscape urbanism” to describe emerging design practices in the context of North American urbanism and has written extensively on the positions, practices, and precedents of the topic. On this topic he has recently edited The Landscape Urbanism Reader (Princeton Architectural Press, 2006).

Charles will lead “Ford’s Fields” a short seminar during the third term in relation to the renewed relevance of the field of landscape within the current understanding of contemporary city.