INTRODUCTION

Architecture is a problem in itself. While it solves a myriad of real-world issues, in our view, its true meaning still resides in its relational function. As a basic artifact, architecture is a “built fact”; it is the mental and physical bond between inhabitant and habitation (as both habitat and habit). We believe that such fact is equally self-evident, since it does not require proof or explanation, and self-explanatory, since it is what it does, as it works through its effects (rather than from supposed causes). Under such basic premise, we believe architecture endures in a double squaring: at the same time, every building is a “model of the world” and it “models the world”. In fact, squaring, beyond its mathematical or geometrical connotation, refers to the right balance, the alignment or agreement, between two distinct forces. Thus, under the notion of quadratura mundi (the Latin expression for “squaring the world”), the studio will reflect on the capacity of architecture to be a self-referential domain. As the third iteration of a public infrastructure for a rural landscape, the project will be an art center in the horizontally extended format of a cloister (a quadrangle around an open courtyard). The building will be located within the winery network of Chile’s central valley. This courtyard-studio-dwelling will be interrogated as a reflective artifact, not only with the capacity to resonate with the ever-changing forces of nature but also to reflect a sense of seclusion, of autonomy and self-sufficient form of life. Following our Naïve Intention program (a longterm research on the apparent contradiction between intentionality and chance, rationality and futility, prediction and circumstance, authorship and anonymity), students will follow a very precise sequence of formats according to three stages: Inventory, Drawing and Image. Projects will be developed in pairs, through handmade models, drawings, and many paintings. The program includes a studio trip to Los Angeles, to visit museums, artist studios and other selected buildings.

INTENTION

“Naïve Intention” is a term introduced on a lecture we gave at the Center for American Architecture & Design (University of Texas, Austin, 2014) and later published as an essay book (New York: Actar, 2017). Its central paradox is simple: nature is unintentional; artifacts are not. We keep thinking that even the infinite field of sources of our supposedly total network is not enough to annihilate the inertia of our most traditional beliefs. In our over-connected metropolitan territories, and more so in the marginal reservoirs left between one periphery and another, there is still a need for basic fantasies, myths and desires. Being a cultural invention, any work of architecture is both a physical and a mental construction. Despite the complexity of the current technologies (and their associated economies, regulations and politics), we believe there is a fundamental need for an authentic and somehow “natural” projection of unbiased intentionality; for a kind of “autopoiesis”. Therefore, the scale of a building does not merely depend on its size. It is not the artificial condition what fascinates our limited human understanding, and by extension the indulgencies of the architectonic wonders, but the very human capacity to return, over and over again, to a critically demarcated and receding nature, to the romantic idea we have about it. Naïve Intention is a sequence of courses that explore the necessary spaces for nostalgia, meaning, uselessness and fiction within the contemporary world. The central aim of our exploration is not so much to focus on the specific phenomena and their causes but in their potential to be translated into a work of architecture, this is: a synthetic (even ascetic) object, a unitary and self-centered structure that ultimately refers to itself.

METHOD

Replacing the notion of native as indigenous by that of “innate”, projects are going to be developed as a self-referential research on spatial integrity. Thus, observations will be empirical by definition yet subjective by necessity. Despite the good will, architects cannot claim absolute authority over the architecture we do. Practicing architecture is equivalent to “obstacle course race”, a tough journey against negative vectors, against both natural and artificial forces. The same goes for gravity as for code, for ageing as for taste, for resistance as for economy. Indeed, reality is too complex for a “synthetic”, “categorical”, “conceptual” or “purely artistic” approach. We accept the “restrained freedom” as a form of relief (perhaps as an illusion of a voluntary jurisdiction) from an otherwise over-accommodating professional service. Therefore, we assume the production of architecture in our capacity to solve problems by means of self-referential architectonic compositions. The precise response to those problems (either real or invented) is as important as the questions themselves or, even more, as the impossibility of venturing a conclusive answer. As a consequence, we have developed a pedagogic method based on explicit obstructions (or formal constrains, shortcuts, traps) that allow us to accelerate creativity while delaying the understanding of our own production. In other words, as the intuitive projection of subjectivity into an object (which is not far from Leonardo’s well-known advice of looking at smeared walls as a method of “awakening the mind”). Since the studio is rigorously committed to the translation of intentions to architectonic means, the observations might refer to other disciplinary fields (biology, sociology, psychology, philosophy, literature, etc.) as long as they mirror back into specific architectural elements (spatial proportions, sequences, sizes, proximities, directions, etc.).

CONTEXT

Projects will be located in central Chile, spanning three administrative regions (O`higgins, Maule and Ñuble). The selected sites feature unique landscapes among a rich territory formed by gentle hills and winding rivers, geographically organized into three transversal valleys (Maipo, Colchahua and Maule). These valleys form a complex yet picturesque setting that overlaps a strong colonial heritage (in the form of brick and adobe “haciendas” under heavy clay tiles roofs) with an increasing rural tourism associated to wine production. As inspiration for Chilean poets such as Neruda or Teillier, this territory is both a “residence” (“hrough which to reach the blue of the land”, 1973: 169) and a “lar” (a Latin word that refers to an ancestral guardian spirit or household god, and by extension a home or hearth). In this romantic domain, as said by Teillier, “They (the poets) seek to ground themselves in a well-ordered world—above all, in the world of the immemorial order of villages and fields, where the same reliable cycle of sowing and harvesting, of burial and resurrection, always unfolds; processes so akin to the gestation of gods (think of Dionysus) and of poems”. On other words, an open field formed by fragments, by crops, wastelands and wilderness, a patchwork of culture and nature. The given geographical coordinates for each site (a pin mark on Google Earth) will determine the specificity of background, topography, access, solar orientation, proximity to river, vegetation, etc. For a more in-depth speculation on central Chile wine production, ecosystems and culture, please refer to:

Irarrazaval, Raúl, Arquitectura chilena: la búsqueda de un orden espacial. Santiago: Ediciones Nueva Universidad, 1978.

Neruda, Pablo, Residence on Earth, New York: E. W. W. Norton & Co, 1973.
Original: Residencia en la tierra, 1933.

Teillier, Jorge. “Los poetas de los lares. Nueva visión de la realidad de la poesía chilena”. Boletín de la Universidad de Chile, no 56, 1965.

Kunc, Martin H., “A Review of the Development of Wine Tourism in Chile”. Fourth International Conference of the Academy of Wine Business Research, Siena, 2008

Merenlender, Adina, et. al., “Chile and California: The Wine Is the Land”. Berkeley Review of Latin American Studies, Fall 2014

Montes, C., et. al., “Climatic potential for viticulture in Central Chile”, Journal of Grape and Wine Research 18, 2012, pp. 20-28

PROGRAM

In what might be read as a dialectic speculation on time, the project will articulate permanent and temporary inhabitation, accommodating a double program: dwelling and workshop for artists in a residency program. While the collective space (working, exhibiting, meeting, etc.) can be interpreted in various forms, the individual space should respond to the occupancy of at least three inhabitants (one permanent keeper and two temporary guests), each with their private bedroom and bathroom. Thus, the capacity of the building should resist changing functions and scale, from intimacy to monumentality. Given the arid rural environment, the patio house should be understood as a secluded, walled garden, filled with ornamental flowers, native plants, fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, etc., for sustainable living. The technical performance of this ecosystem should be considered in equal terms to its conceptual and perceptual qualities (such as mood, character, personality, balance, movement, etc.). Thus, the vast background will be articulated with a rather picturesque foreground. For more reflections on the notion of free plan, typical plan, open plan, please refer to the following essays:

Federico Soriano, “From the Deep Plan Towards the Anamorphic Plan”. Madrid: El Croquis no 81-82, 1996, pp. 4-13.

Beatriz Colomina, “Raumplan vs Free Plan”, in Max Risselada (eds), Raumplan versus Plan Libre. Adolf Loos and Le Corbusier, 1919-1930. New York: Rizzoli, 1988.

CONSTRUCTION

The proposed buildings will explore the traditional techniques of brick construction, as the still rudimentary evolution of adobe or stone masonry predominant in the region since ancient times. Through basic forms and a humble “aesthetic beyond style”, massive load bearing walls, the opaque ceramic mass, will be updated to the current technologies (with concrete or steel reinforcements). Brick production in rural Chile is a small scale, family business. According to Chilean construction code (NCH 1928 OF. 93: Albañilería armada - Requisitos para el diseño y cálculo), all ceramic or concrete masonry has to be confined by reinforced concrete. The standard clay brick measures 24 x 12 x 6 cm. In the thickness and gravitational quality of the raw brick walls not only lies an opportunity for continuity with the agricultural soil but a depth that can also be inhabited with shadows, niches, textures and decorative surfaces. Likewise, if gardens and orchards are meant to be integrated into the spatial atmosphere, they will also contribute to the passive performance of the interior rooms. For more information about brick construction, refer to PDFs:

Gunter Pfeifer, Rolf Ramcke, Joachim Achtziger, Konrad Zilch, Masonry Construction Manual. Translation by Gerd Soffker, Philip Thrift, Elizabeth Schwaiger. Basel; Boston; Berlin: Birkhauser. Munchen: Ed. Detail, 2001.

John A. Mulligan, Handbook of Brick Masonry Construction. New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1942.

Manual del Albañil de Ladrillos Cerámicos. Santiago: Instituto del Cemento y del Hormigón de Chile, 2010.

PROPOSITION

Through a careful articulation between program, context and construction (the building triad), students are expected to put forward an architectonic proposition. Buildings will be inscribed within a 50 x 50 m plan (or its equivalent surface of 2500 m2) and demarcated by a continuous perimeter wall. The studio-house, the patio-house or the gallery-house, should be conceived as a statement about the problem of “living in nature”, in other words, of what does it mean for someone to retreat far away from the urban context while being actively engaged on a cultural (social or productive) scene. Therefore, every house should be a reflection on the overlap between the natural conditions and the temporary occupation by a permanent resident and various temporary visitors. If the first paradigm we want to review (since we believe it is rather obsolete) is the separation between the natural and the artificial, the second paradigm we want to review is the separation between labor and leisure. Since the technological prophecies are already happening, one can work from almost anywhere in the world. The courtyard structure will be occupied with a double program: it will be both a house and a garden.