 Hi, everyone. If you want to grab a seat, you know, it's always a little early Friday mornings, but As someone said the advantage of a big conference is that there's a lot of speakers. So the auditorium feels feels full Immediately, but students will trickle in throughout the day and everyone is very excited. I'm Amal Ondraus I'm the Dean of the school and I just wanted to say a few words of welcome and an introduction to Juan Herreros who masterminded this with Enrique Walker and We started to talk about this symposium early on last year and you know wondering how I think Juan and Enrique especially Juan throughout his seminars have been looking at the question of practice and and How it's become in a way a project in itself but not in just this kind of say yes to everything but rather how to find ways to to engage to push the discipline to expand how we practice and to really kind of be continue to be creative and find agency and in the conversation we were kind of You know, I was also commenting on the fact that it had been ten years since Ordos Ordos 100 Which in fact was a kind of moment of launching at least my generation of architects and how there was a sense that this this you know This generation after was actually already operating in a completely different way and and that It was worthwhile digging into the these modes of operation and to look at these modes, you know across Different cities around the world and to kind of have this sort of cross section so that it wasn't so Narrowly kind of focused on the US or Europe or you know to kind of understand that some of the preoccupations that That we we have here are quite different And in particular, we thought it was a really good way to encourage our own students to think about You know how they want to launch into the world and and you know learn about how to you know What are the means that we have to develop for them here? and so On this note, I will give the floor to Juan who I'm really You should also know that those of you who are here are 20 amongst a hundred that were kind of shortlisted and one of the project that we're Thinking of is the life after this moment here together where I think there'll be a series of Podcasts and conversations, you know and ways to kind of create this this kind of landscape of practices around the world So, please welcome Juan her arrows Welcome everyone. Thank you. I'm out for the introduction and Support of constructing practice simple soon from the very very first steps I'm very especially for bringing to the school this question about the practice because It's really necessary to insist in the need of talk about The practice as a pedagogical issue as part of the education as part of the training of the architects because he's here in the schools of architecture where we can give a contemporary value and Significant redefinition to the to the topic thank you also to Enrique Walker for your complicity and All you know Enrique with his fine-tining formulating the To the point question all time We together create the transfer dialogues Serious and very especially the two-on-two sessions these two-on-two sessions Consisting the invitation to two offices to do a kind of presentations like we have asked you to do today And to open a conversation about the confronting Contexts were operate and discovering that the differences are the differences are not always where it were supposed those Conversations have been the laboratory of this event today for us the question of the symposium as Amal has pointed is that it's found in the idea that the establishing of their own office is a project in itself. It's an act of design and in consequence is an intellectual exercise that Bloors the borders between theory and practice Today We want to talk about this project with a bunch of young offices all around the globe established in the past 10 years This is the first selection we did this here you have 160 offices more or less and this is the map that shows something very Incredible if we think what has happened in the last 10 years no all these offices are founded after 2006 and is It's a discovery to know that you can find this kind of offices in every country around the world The merit to be in this map to be part of these 160 offices is To develop any kind of critical practice of architecture that contributes contributes to Redescribe the context where they operate. So that was our first Reason to select the names The practice is sorted today after transforming this 260 into the famous to 100 that This respond to after 10 years after orders are here because They saw a deep commitment with in the selection of the topics the influences and the selling Imposed constraints to work with so we are looking we have been looking for Practices that reveals desire or Show that the way of working and the method method of prediction architecture is really Something that is done as they want to do it and not as a consequence of circumstances That you don't think a lot about them. No and they compose Selection of the present and and I think a incredibly interesting photo of the next future of our discipline Watching to the materials of the different offices we are going to have today. We could see that in the last year we have Discover this collection of significant changes in the motivations and the concerns that have oriented the establishing of the New practices this generation is deeply aware about the need of a new Instruments to dialogue with the present from your political issues to environmental sensitivity from material culture to the definition of the everyday as architectural material From the impact of new technologies to the social equations that include all the political and global phenomena From immigration to natural disasters. We have asked them to present for 15 minutes. Sorry for this pressure about compression of your Ideological universe in 15 minutes But we want to know about your strategies and approaches to the discipline from the different regional contexts and the questions are how do you do what you do and How do you respond to the concern about what kind of architect I want to be? so If the traditional models are not the ones to follow We have to invent we have to design the new models and because we are in a school of architecture And because an ambition expression of global thinking strategies is behind many of the practices invited today We want also to know about the Especially we want to have a specific focus on the training of these Colleagues and understand how the education they receive it has informed it the decisions in the establishing of these Practices the section will be organizing five panels related to five kind of practices The classification of these five groups could be many others But thanks to these maps, we have understand we have understood that there are some Particularities that can't be interesting to think about them the first is From global education to local practice people who left their homes or cities to be educated Abroad and came back or changed the place where the practice is is done from The second is the idea of from local to Transnational how in the last decades we have discovered incredibly intense and active group of small offices all around the world working globally that are quite far from the model of the exports of Architectures that we could see in the decades before with the big architectural offices exporting architecture to the emerging economies The third group is related to the great definition of the idea of collaboration. So how the collaborative Transdisciplinary work is today a new edition of the former groups of Specialities basically an architect helped by engineers in tech with technically specialized in Very different fields, but all of them around the the production of the project how today We really deal and dialogue with many other disciplines and not necessarily close to the field of architecture the fourth is About the material culture as instrument to design. This is also Remedication of the Constructability of architecture the desire of be built. So How materiality is a new global way of thinking through the engagement with local technologies and the last fifth is norm core and this I think a interesting conclusion about how we can give new values to neutrality as a critical attitude and how perhaps a Preserve the discipline in terms of the practice from a neutral attitude can be really a very very Intellectual and deep position before inviting Enrique Worker to the to come to the front to introduce the first panel. I want to thank to all the staff of the fourth floor Who are over there? Who have working like crazy to make possible this intense journey? We hope all of you got this pamphlet which is good present for early birds because we Don't have so many But this is easy to open and you will be able of adding more pages and the pages Are will be in the in the web site of the of the school with the BIOS or other offices Who are not here today and that will be increasing the the the files of these emerging practices Research that today is Starting or really is being public But at the same time is Is only the first of the of the Congress is that we hope to do in the next future today together with these podcasts that have been also announced by Dean ambulance and thanks to the PhD candidates Esteban Salcedo who has Driven all the research and the production of these diagrams that may be civil many and Expected ingredients and the image of the emerging offices and help it ask to detect as I told you before The different kind of practices we were looking for if you are here. You have crossed the corridor of this ball We would we call the tunnel where some of these Diagrams and images of the work of the offices invited are there so it's part of the Materials that you will be able to find in in the in the web of the of the school. So I think that's it We have a whole day To to talk about architecture and establishing of the of the practice Thank you and enjoy the presentations and let me invite the worker to the front to present and to introduce the first Thank you very much Good morning. Welcome to Columbia g sap. My name is Enrique Walker. I direct the Advanced architectural design program at the school It is a pleasure for me to introduce the first panel of our symposium constructing practice The panel is entitled global local from education to practice and brings together three practices who decided to operate in and from their home city or country Following an architectural training experience abroad. We are delighted to have as guest speakers Max Nunez whose practice is based in Santiago, Chile via New York g sap indeed. Welcome back young shang he and yin jiang from all office based in Guangzhou China via lovin and Versailles and Salvador Macias and Maggie Peredo from Macias Peredo based in Guadalajara, Mexico via Barcelona take up and from g sap will act as Moderator, please join me welcome our first speaker Max Nunez Hello to everyone Thank you guys for the invitation to be back in Colombia. I Believe that I believe architecture is something you never stop learning acquired through our time in a very long term by constantly looking discussing and Designing buildings for me this education started at a very young age as I am son of an architect But going to architecture school is certainly a key moment of this learning process I studied architecture at Universidad Católica de Chile in Santiago at the end of the 90s beginnings of the 2000 The school at the time was still very isolated from the rest of the world But the scene was beginning to open and new ideas were emerging There were at least two important references which represented opposite ways of understanding the idea of context The early work of Matias Klotz to the left of the image With his pure static boxes suggested an abstract and distant relation with any notion of place He emphasized a strong figure background contrast through through simple structures Proposing a totally silent architecture on the other side to the to the right The early works of Smiljan Radic by means of an asfound sensibility Offered a connection with the landscape and its building traditions Through rough materials and basic means of construction. He established a very symbolic layered and rhetoric approach to context In total in total opposition in a way with Klotz strategy During my last year at architecture school in Santiago my classmate Bernardo Valdez And I received the commission to do this house At the time we had little notion of what we were doing But many of the decisions laid down on this small house are Ideas that still matter to me today For example how a specific topography can alter the established notions of a given program Also the neutralization of the free plan by means of the domestic life And the problematic relation between two or more structural systems working at the same time In any case with this house We were trying hard to do something different from the total abstraction of Klotz or the sensible materiality of Radic The success of that house of that first commissioned translated into more work I Establish a partnership with my friend Nicolás del Rio for almost six years and we worked non-stop designing a bunch of private houses some of those projects are shown in this image Most of these projects were located in distant regions of the country in very diverse geographies and climates This characteristic diversity of the Chilean landscape translated somehow into our work in Consequence we were always Trying to do something different experimenting with new materials structures and Developing various building types. This was the work of the rena architects the rena architects But in 2008 This happened to all of us I guess We all remember those those days and in Chile like everywhere else We were like this guy in the photo going home with not much to do But instead of staying in in Santiago, we decided me and my partner at the time we decided to leave and Study abroad we applied for grants of the Chilean government and we closed the office and later split the partnership I wanted to see in a way how the real crisis looks like so I came to New York City to Columbia To the master in advanced architectural design between 2009 and 2010 In retrospective, I feel that the atmosphere in Columbia those years was also in a turning point The economic crash had eclipsed the ideal of the star architect and the digital parametric moment was no longer in the center of the discussion here There was a strange atmosphere, but in a good way extremely challenging in which no one knew which direction to take This was great because there were no leading trends at the time Let's say that this was just before the axonometrics of San Rocco and everything that associated with it For me Columbia had a profound effect Especially the very critical approach to design of some of its key professors and studios Which offered a kind of psychoanalytical experience for someone who had been practicing for a while In particular and Riker Walker's studio which proposed the dismantling of architectural cliches made us really conscious of our design potentials, sticks and limitations Looking back this academic experience offered me awareness in very architectural terms of how I wanted to move forward Max Núñez Arquitectos was established in 2010 right after completing my master To be frank my practice can only be described through the buildings. We have done and ideas revolving around them These ideas have appeared in the process of designing and many times even in retrospective after finishing construction And these are quite Old ideas, I guess I suppose we're definitely not avant-garde for a place like Columbia. We're much more like rear guard Rather than declaring a conscious plan in relation to my practice as requested by Juan in his kind Invitation to this impulsion. I prefer to declare that I work with a Constellation of thoughts a very pretentious name that now that I see it so big But but these different terms Help to link in a way that what we've done in the office These are six or actually seven here. You can see six, but there are seven which is a better number These are seven priorities Which are not thought in strict academic terms I believe it's more about free interpretation Association and where possible misreading of these ideas is totally allowed in each project These themes can be found working together or separately. They can overlap or maybe you won't find them at all Don't worry. They do not offer in any way a final answer to my work I don't seek to give a formal totality or seamlessness Each project has its own complexities and in accepting those complexities lays the true potential from which To discover hopefully something new The first idea I'm gonna go really fast through these concepts Topographical patterns this strategy In relation to context aims to dismantle the very Chilean cliche of the autistic objects set in the landscape And also avoids any kind of subjective rhetoric The idea is that a closer negotiation between the building and the existing topography can redefine some preconceived internal organizations of domestic life and Establish a more dynamic relation with the ground a very simple and beautiful Example of this hypothesis is how asplund in his goonard house brings an exterior condition of the landscape It's sloping topography right in the middle The center the center of the domestic life Here he collapses the stair and the chimney while slightly rotating the direction of the of the floor planning in the living area A second concept One of my favorite favorite buildings is the love old house by rule of Schindler the south of LA as you may know it's a Relatively small house in a generic seaside location, but here the vertical structure is visibly exaggerated By means of their huge size the columns are somehow denaturalized Bringing excessive magnitude in a rather ordinary program The result of this oversized arrangement is a generous shaded Public space below the house where the sound of the beach originally touched its feet as you see in this in this old photo Giving a public condition to a totally private house The house and its robust structure appears to me as a domesticated Gigantic monster that allows human life to unfold Unfold between its legs Schindler's strategy redefines the domestic by radically changing the size of one of its architecture architectural parts Exaggerating one of its elements to monstrous proportions other possibility of questioning the domestic Questioning the domestic is given not by a change on scale, but by excessive quantities or repetitions of one of its elements Even though this project for a cathedral by bullet is not a domestic space It serves to make the point about quantity the extreme repetition of a single column to the infinity blurs the extension between wall and column Potentially dissolving the limit between inside and outside This excessive repetition gives the column an ornamental quality beyond its basic structural purpose This is obviously referencing Robert Venturi's definition of the double functioning element I'm really interested in the way this double functioning Cancers or dissolves the individual aspect of the combined elements resulting in unique architectural objects As you see in the photograph the simultaneous patio window skylight column At the center of the music room in Ritoche is an indivisible element Which don't even I mean you can even name it. It's it's an element without a name the redundant redundant structure or redundancy redundancy in a structure I See it as a way of escaping that the tyranny of the boring solution of the flexible floor plan could be By giving a closer attention to the friction between space and material structure As the only present element in a free plan is a structure It has a potential for spatial determination without imposing a particular use It can promote a definitive expression of something in its self-generic in this photo Chose them extreme misalignment between structure and space It is as if Shinohara was lifting the middle finger to the open free plan yet keeping it still and unspecific in its use Another beautiful example would be the Tama library by Toyo Ito Material and expression I'm interested in not obvious or easy tectonics like Michelucci's interior of the Chiesa de la Autostrada Where he plays with concrete as if it was a soft textile a stalactite or a stalagmite All at the same time and the the final concept is an idea about useless space Today, it seems that architecture discourse has been influenced by an urgent call for social relevance problem solving Down-to-earth solutions bottom-up approaches efficiency and immediate impact I Know that architecture must face the problems and conditions of its time and these are difficult times indeed But this declared fear towards excess and misalignment is a conservative tide that could endanger the existence of the useless in Architecture and actually for me the uselessness is the quality that I most enjoy of a building today The office we're doing different kinds of projects Private and public and doing an average of two two competitions every year I also teach at Universia Catolica and I am head of its master in architecture program Usually the studios that I teach revolve around the ideas that I just mentioned To finish I will go super fast over three projects hoping that the previous ideas somehow reflect on my work. I Won't go into much detail really The first project is is a house the God house which is located in a very steep terrain I just wanted to show these sections from Foreigners looking to South America the first is by Alexander von Humboldt where where you see that the whole continent is this massive Mountain the Chimborazo and the second drawing is is done by Le Corbusier where he depicts the city of Buenos Aires the Atlantic Ocean and then this huge massive mountain that dips into the Pacific must be Chile which is just a That thing Which I think it's it's nice because That's a very It's a nice way to see our Geography and that's something that has interest us in every project how the relation with between the built object and The topography and which relation they they establish So this is a recurrent idea The house maybe it's the most radical in this in this sense and replicates the the slope of the terrain bringing that Condition to the interior and somehow redefining the the domestic spaces inside of it On top of this roof slash Surface is a huge stair with somehow gigantic proportions also not so much linked to a domestic dimension and the idea was to to place this the idea of a of a of an open floor plan but in this sloping terrain and how this Topography could alter the idea of the of the open floor plan The space is supported by these 15 columns each There is that each column should be different in order that you don't really read that easily the grid so each point Each column is it's a point of reference of reference in itself And then some private areas will protrude these different surfaces The idea that the this surface also blocks the view to the horizon was something that we wanted to to do And the misalignment between the interior the steering the structure the enclosure So that there's not an easy This distinction between when you are in and out of the house the second project is a is a small Arts department building inside a school a private school This school is characterized by a neoclassical buildings from the beginnings of the 20th century And we wanted to bring to the interior of the school some kind of exterior space Where the kids could really interact in a very free way an unexpected way The idea was first of all to clear the first floor plan So the program was divided into a second floor and a minus one floor So through this huge Columns that you see here which act as a column as a patio as a skylight these three levels were connected And The building is just in the center of this school, which is like a big campus. So this covered Space acts as a as an open link to connect these different areas and buildings Obviously establishing Some kind of dialogue between these huge columns and the existing columns of the old buildings the trees, etc this Small skylights are like it's a building with five cores Which was also something that we hope tried to this dismantled the idea of an open free free plan that the moment you repeat many times one one element and The relations that are established through these voids are quite unexpected They they also work as windows because they have this opening So there are different relations that you can establish between these three level three levels by this one single Oversize column These are the interiors the idea of the classrooms is that they were not the normal relation between student and professor Having a room with with many corners It's not like a frontal room as this auditorium, but it's much more complex in its floor plan That's the column. These are the plans of the columns and I really like this photo like this gigantic monster yet tamed Somehow by the life of the school and the kids playing around it and the last project that I'm gonna go really fast It's a house in a sober been a really ugly Sober but as many sobbers are around the world in every big city But we wanted to work with two conditions a structural system that is not usually used in Chile, which is the tilt up System and the other idea was keeping all the trees that existed in the plot, which are normally Cut down and thrown away this these two decisions changed the layout of a sober house into a much more expanded floor plan and And a very like a house with no specific form In which all the rooms have at least one patio And the idea of giving some kind of unity to this whole mess Floor plan was by repeating one column 400 times a concrete column that you we would do in situ At the side and this column help us to generate this in-between spaces and Try to blur again the distinction between inside and outside Thank you very much. Thank you Our second presentation this morning is O office. So please join me welcoming Jiang Xiang He and Ying Jiang Good morning We have great pressure to be invited Here to share some of our practicing experience here Yours we are using the term Excuse me because we I would Represent all of this to speak because it's easier to keep in time We using we have the topic of the region Not because we are really deep into the understanding of the region. It's because In our young children's memory, we don't have any idea about region in our early Age, I think the only thing we have in memory is a small town We are living and then in school. We are talk about the whole nation the country So there is none Think about nothing about the region but throughout our education in Europe and also Our practicing in the past ten years, I think more and more we trying to Emphasize in the effort in regional Regeneration or kind of self-cultural recognition in our location in our region This is the image it's The Po River Delta area in 1970s So you see the Anthony rising up the self-made Anthony rising up from the local house and Tullic signals from Hong Kong probably receiving to this house and people start to Have the view of the image of the Modern city like Hong Kong or Manhattan At a moment, so it's kind of a hidden strength of the later urbanization of the whole region 40 years later the whole region becoming the world's largest Nacus micro polyton area so with the population more than 100 million in this region and The city growing Still continuously growing so nobody knows where it will go and This picture this Photographic work shows vividly the typical Scenario of the Po River Delta city the new city Miss on sin according to us the rising up from the original city and Everything I come into Kind of the urban development, but of course at the same time another side of foundation of all of this is Education background both me and yin in Europe. So this two sides of like a mirror system that funding the Philosophical foundation of all of this Um, this is yin and me is also a kind of mirror system to us We work closely every day and even we fight against each other every day for Decide discussion in the office and This is our studio in Guangzhou is on top of a silo building and old Industrial silo building near the old downtown Guangzhou We have a very young team and everybody worked closely into a team and Everybody is very flexible in moving in one project from the other so that we have a very Dynamic relationship to work in a whole team. This is the silo office in the downtown old downtown Guangzhou and This picture is showing At them some of the main project Realized by all of in this Pearl River Delta region Probably you can see the diversity of all this project the diversity of this project, I think it's from one hand, it's the Our response to each specific spot the Local condition and the local technical Issue social issue, but on the other hand We we are enjoying to text or to make a new environment in each specific location and point because We can see later the whole region actually is far more complex than only one mega city Again, we have this kind of population density map for the whole Pearl River Delta. So we have Hyper infrastructure linking all this cluster of city and townships together into a so-called macro metropolitan area and All of us a realized project a scattered in this area probably this picture shows and But considering the different geography A large amount of for immigration to this area and or Different language in this region because throughout the history actually this southern China area actually is In different period they have immigrant from different provinces So different languages different group of people and so it's full of diversity in this region So it's far more complex than what we can see here physically see in this map and Again, we back to the topic of Education so me I saw D and Work in Belgium I got my muscle program in Lervon. Of course, we both share very similar academic Background we both graduated University in Guangzhou local University and then I went to Ruben Belgian University of Ruben and Ying went to back side School architecture school in back side in France. So I think the most fundamental thing that those Education experience gave us that is the so-called Kind of independent way of thinking Critical in analyzing and the critical position and independent Independency in Profession and a practicing that's a fundamental thing we have but when we return to the pole river Delta region we It seems that We try to apply somehow the knowledge and what we have seen and what we have learned to this region We got a lot of problem because the whole The whole region actually you see from the picture you have this huge infrastructure highways and speed and the sky scrappers growing from the old generation of housing House at the city older generation of the city and that everything comes into Kind of economic and political flow so everything is growing like a gigantic ocean of organization and As one of our former leaders at the only The only existing thing is developing so development and developing is the only thing we have here So not other things exist so we try to draw this to different Practicing model in diagrammatic way so the the left one actually is kind of more Contemporary European Elite profession model so each architect office has his own self-disciplinary Organization to working within his region is network and local craftsmanship and In the left side in the right side We have the most efficient way of Chinese Architectural and engineer office. So every they just throw themselves directly into the Ocean of organization so they only care about Market demand. So what the money they produce They directly and as fast as possible to Produce the product to the housing and building product to the market and And now because we already seen the speed and the change man and the Disorder the Condition and also so many so much uncertainty to us. So it's step by step. We try to Have a kind of a dual system Of course, it's not and decide the system. It's a system that developed or evolved throughout of our Practicing experience for the past ten years. So the dual system actually have the kind of core Structure a physically probably is the silo office we have and then we have kind of a sub structure that Directly on each project. We are working on So, of course for most of project, it's not a physical one. It's kind of a virtual Strategy to work on so in each project actually we not only design the building concept or the spatial concept but also kind of Strategy working strategy way to design the thing because by this way at some that we we can catch the timing because also we can directly we act to the local condition the local Show show and kind of make a Situation in a way, so it's kind of from the core structure. We Kind of deliver the concept or deliver the Ideology and then from the local substructure actually lots of feedback so feedback. So it's kind of cycling structure that Help us to work continuous work in this region. So again, we have Geographic map on this region. So it's kind we considered it from the central urban area to the nature It's kind of a continuously Situation So now we are trying to use two of our project to describe a little bit more how we work in each Project and each location. So the first one actually is Located to the coast area. So it's an abandoned home wall Dying new actually is a significant industry Monument build up in the early 80 it's a first generation of collaboration of foreign investment and local cooperation way and It's abandoned since late 1990 so in that way because of the climate or the Short distance from the ocean. So even only 15 years of Abundancy it kind of Classical relic atmosphere showed up in in the side so the first idea for this one we we try to Remain the whole structure the building envelope intact and have kind of a new Implantation into the space. So at the same time on the one hand required to maintain the strut kind of scared scaredness of the Classical atmosphere and at the same time and leave a kind of open air some semi open-air Space between the new and old to leave a lot of space for a future Activity and future development. That's a basic idea to leave the project because Later we have a model and a drawing exercise in the office, but still When the project go directly onto the side because of contractor and workers are all local workers So we have to deal with all of this construction method and detailing again all the thing and then to try to even later because the First building second building step-by-step we run away the whole factory and in the second stage We even have a real on-site office in the factory and We on the side For this project quite a lot of decision directly made and A lot of detailing things are directly made on the spot on the side so we can see the result of this development for the Technique the how to pour the concrete and how to build up the steel structure or we work with the local contractor to try to Embed this concept into that land and That's the recent situation so step-by-step we one by one we run away to occupy the whole Abandoned factory become it it becoming kind of odd commune for the for in this Landscape valley in far from San Francisco. The second one is Photography Museum of Lanzhou. It's in another Geography location is a mountain area quite in the north of Guangdong province So this is the old down this picture showing the no old downtown Banzhou the the landscape and old downtown and in between is a new development rising up from the situation and All downtown actually is have been decaying and people are leaving the old downtown and since ten years ago Guangzhou curator curator very special photography festival in this town and Four years later four years She invited us to participate in the Photography Museum project and Concept concept three we try to have the Photography Museum within the old downtown having similar structure of surrounding City downtown city, of course, then we have a general Building envelope to cover the whole structure again Mordering and because a public project so we need to have the food itself Documentation but and before we really start the real construction We also tried already renovate small houses on the street and to help to create the future development in old downtown and But still when the construction starting lots of things change men happen small things like the mistake in survey and then later the shifting power the shifting of the government power and then material thinking so Almost the whole scheme are redesigned during the Construction period so but still we have kind of local Kind of substructure on the side have strong we try to use the original concept to control the whole thing and still maintaining tried flew out this is this operation on the side to keep these things going and That's the recent picture and that's the street wheel for the nearly completely project and Funny thing is it will open in two weeks, but The whole project is still under construction even the artist for the opening exhibition arrived yesterday They find everything is still under construction. It's of course It's not always like that, but it's also is not exception when we practice in China, especially in local condition So probably we need to have a dual maybe triple system to work in that I Would like to add one thing that actually in most of our project we could not have Completed design condition before our design and Design requirement has been always keeping changing and sometimes the budget is not clear at all for us so Normally, it is not a good moment for To study architecture design, but sometimes we see it as an opportunity for us because we could be involved in a very urge of design Decision and we can how to say We're together with the client and try to influence them and guide them to kind of a design approach and step-by-step to to Redefining kind of a long-term program. This is role. I think all of you always try to Thank you our last presentation of the first panel Salvador Macias and Maggie Paredo Hello, everyone Thanks to Juan and Ricky and Columbia. Yes app for inviting us today When when we saw together and started thinking about what kind of things have given shape to our practice We thought that we should talk about these ideas The things that move us what inspire us about architecture our academic studies our professors and researches We also thought on necessity and independent practice needs to self-employ The location of our practice have played a key role in this we wrote Failures in terms of training and lastly we thought of the few assignments that have pulled out clear answers to deep questions Challenges where engineers were not necessarily required but a profound intellectual work instead Let us start by showing this image made by us that represents the moment when for the first time Someone outside our country the architectural foundation of London and Liga Asked us what our office project was through a collage We put on the same level and same imaginary site the traditional Mayan hut and the Farnsworth house We like to think that these two architectures are not so distant Both establish a base that regulates the land both said vertical elements that support a cover and Both use an open floor plan at the inside For us beyond technique there are no significant differences between them We wanted to refer to both simple approaches to describe what our office was looking for We were born in our offices based in Guadalajara the second most populated city in Mexico Guadalajara is the dot on your left and on the right you see Mexico City Historically Mexico has been a centralized country The relevant aspects of the country happen in the capital city the great commissions are generated there Architects Luis Barragan for example was from Guadalajara and he eventually moved to Mexico City And that was the only way he could belong to the country's cultural and intellectual circles Therefore starting an independent practice outside the capital Inevitably led us to start a local practice. We have always returned to the city and from here We are interested in being able to continue doing our work The great boom and growth of the city came in the 20th century It came along with the importation of foreign architecture models mostly modern Corvusian models like you see here, but also there was the group of Mediterranean influence influences led by Barragan's vision on weather and local techniques in his emerging architecture The teachers who had an influence on us and first architects with whom we work Had a preference for the techniques and the language of the second one In any case as in all of Latin America. These architectures were made with the economy Economy and their resources that were available This type of architecture for us had been the most ordinary and familiar It wasn't until we decided to leave the city and move to Barcelona for our masters That we found a kind of mecca of Latin American students doing all kinds of researching about architecture in their context of origin and of course a great interest by many of the professors on Latin America Suddenly the familiar took another dimension. We gave it a brief a different reading and meaning When the time to choose our own research topics came our tutors in Barcelona like Joseph Kedlas and Jaume Rossell Encourage our intuition to study our territory from the eyes of two German artists Who had a great influence and interest in Mexico? on one side you see the analytic Bauhaus professor Joseph Albers and on the other Matias Keritz and extraordinary artists Artists who came to Mexico to introduce some of the principles of the Bauhaus into the schools of architecture Somehow by being at Barcelona, we rediscovered and had a deep look over our backgrounds through the both of them About eight years before Salvador and I met on a trip to see primitive architectures in Veracruz Several roots would come later throughout Mexico and those journeys together left a deep impression on us and marked the beginning of our history and a common Interest about the primitive and the vernacular that keeps captivating us until now This we shared with Geditz and Albers. In fact, these images are from one of many photographic studios of form and geometry made by Albers during his trips to Mexico We discovered through them a great capacity of analysis and synthesis of Abstraction of many of these kind of structures that we had also been interested in For example, this is the floor plan of Ciudadela Square a very important sunken plaza at the pre-Hispanic urban site of Teotihuacan That Albers studied The argument of the thesis was that Albers was painting abstractions of concave or convex spaces Squares or courtyards like the pre-Hispanic ones an exercise that he repeated for more than 30 years in the homage to the square as it is well-known And on the other hand the sculpture of Geditz always influenced by this primitive and so rooted Mexican monumentality We returned to Guadalajara from Barcelona at a time of global economic crisis And although we were eager to do things there wasn't much work to do We had the opportunity to get into our university to teach, but we needed to look for other ways to self-employ us So we designed a methodology that would imply living the city living in the country And that would keep us studying and analyzing fitting our practice from other contexts Each one of these images represents study trips or workshop trips that we arranged in our office as if they were any other project Which had a specific place and a specific subject and a group of architect students of all ages were involved This put to the test the methods the methods we had learned from Albers and Geditz About absorbing and abstracting the experiences of the world For example, this is a villa of vernacular houses. We visited in Japan and This is a common that's roof or Palapa roof at the Pacific coast in Mexico This kind of confrontations promoted that our ordinary and local challenges became a deposit of Possibilities and an opportunity for new synthesis Somehow we were looking to the same just differently And in this going back and forth we needed to be aware of how things are done in the place We do architecture what are the existing skills on those who build and how to keep a dialogue with them? This is a plane made of clay we acquire in a craft market in the city of Lima, Peru This object reminds us of significant ideas on one hand It represents the progress of technology the globality of the world. It speaks of our time However, it doesn't fly it only represents the idea of flying We see the transnational sign of our friends with Peruvians aboard and Peruvian flags For us it speaks of a global aspiration, but at the same time a strong relationship with a specific locality We used to think that we were these Peruvians returning home every time Understanding that that's where we wanted to place ourselves between the understanding of our geographical and sociocultural Situation and the needs and aspirations of our time which are inevitably global Let me talk a bit About how locality has played a key role on our practice Well, Alahara is today a city of artisans the artisanal workforce is still an important and current issue and Construction is not exempt from this Experimentation in the construction processes are still viable and at other reasonable cost This is a great opportunity All throughout Mexico actually but in the case of Alahara the need to get our first independent works Forced us to build our initial projects Culturally the idea of an architect is closely linked to construction there Hiring in hiring an architect to only develop design. It's a luxury for a few experienced offices We took advantage of that moment to build them together with these craftsmen Learning so much from their skills, but also about economy local resources, etc This made possible at work founded at the very practice the construction the performance of the building site To take over the logistics and administration as a general contractor demanded a lot of time It was taking away too much space for reflection So we decided to find our current office just bringing in the attitude The attitude of involving ourselves in the building process without the contractor ball It is common to hear are you the kind of architects who build or those who only design? We like to say that we are right in the middle back to the moment of our returning from Barcelona The opportunity to supervise the construction of these Carmen Pinosa's Tower in Guadalajara came As a local office the task was to translate her intentions to the most traditional way of doing in Guadalajara And this was a great challenge and learning that lasted four years To know which things are suitable and which are not in terms of of building in our city Actually get it's used to say that Mexico is a country where everything is possible Something that has interested us about him is to understand how a foreigner Becomes local and how he understand in a very deep and clear way the environment where he works This is the only piece of architecture that get it's ever made the experimental museum of a leco in Mexico City He was it was an architectural manifesto against the Mexican rationalist architecture of the 50s that he named Emotional architecture an annual contest of young architects is made to develop a temporary intervention to the patio That enables other ways to use the space a bit like the ps1 program here After our researches on the artist we couldn't have been more thrilled to be chosen to participate We had lost every contest we had done before which had Much more larger and ambitious programs and this however this one had such a special meaning for us So we put all of our energy on this contest and we were very lucky to win After our building exercises at Guadalajara We felt a great attraction for the only material who had no coating Showing its real age and its handmade process the clay floor of the courier We wonder if we could somehow make it evident and on the other hand get it's Manifest himself by arranging the walls of the museum at angles that will never be 90 degrees So we thought that we could establish a relationship with the building by lifting the floor of the patio building a new diagonal With this we could erase The short wall that divides the museum and the street Building a bridge a viewpoint towards the bark that is in front of it And at the interior at the interior and natural forum towards the gallery All these intentions made possible with one simple action We thought that we came out with something that seemed that always had been there or that could have been that way originally Of course, we enjoyed the positive reactions towards the proposal Especially because it was our first project as Macias Pareto studio for it was the statement behind it That had a profound impact on our practice to be able to say this is the kind of architecture we want to do simple discrete Fully integrated to the site Using its own resources, but powerful with clear intentions and that promotes Events that change the user's experience This became more of a question for the future which we truly intend to give answers to in every new challenge we meet As it happens in this image of one of our favorite photographers, Mariana Jampolsky But with a simple action of arranging elements that are already there Somehow can transform it into experience and environment in the subtlest way Both the ground on the walls are made up of the same stone as well as the huts at the inside that are made with the branches and Located underneath the shadow of those trees Like happened in this inside piece We wanted to take advance advantage of our first retrospective Exhibition and talk about this performance of the building site we mentioned before We thought of this tiny gallery as a site in itself We got 33 tones of the leftovers from the same volcanic stone over the floor The piece depended on the capacity of the hands that we're going to execute the piece We only designed the rules the naturalness of the masons enable the work We reviewed the space of the gallery on our way and since that day one of the questions in the office is how to do projects Where spontaneity and freedom have space and that not necessarily everything has a determined Closed and defined when way when undertaking projects At some point our office map of projects started to expand We are now working on an x-ray map of architecture tradition in different parts of the country To understand with a quick reading the typologies Systems climatic circumstances and resources that remain at hand of these sites This for the upcoming Venice Viennale Because in this expansion we have learned from some failed experiences This is one example a Montessori school in Mazatlán Which needed to be built and designed in only seven months We did not have the time to do a proper reading of the site and it became necessary to Important speed experience labor from other cities to be able to finish on time It was a difficult process although the image doesn't show that So all of these experiences are fundamental on what we do now and Although we keep defining ourselves We are focusing on producing an architecture that tries not to impose But that seeks to be part of a continuity with the specific place and environment Try to absorb from the local understand the place with the attitude of a foreigner Knife as a clear plane, but concise and synthetic as a German artist No matter the scale try to balance between the personal and the anonymous the plant and the spontaneous The mayhem hot and the first one house. Thank you. Hi everyone. Well, I just want to start by saying thank you for sharing such personal Reflections on your practice and giving us the the behind-the-scenes look of How how you're founding your practice and how you're maintaining it and thank you for the opportunity to see all these practices one place I know that at GSAP the question of practice and models of new practices Constantly something that we talked about here. So so thank you first And it seems to me that the the setup of the idea of global education to local practice Those terms are not so clear in in how we're talking about it with this panel. I think that You know one might imagine global is being fast ubiquitous slow as maybe being Or local is being maybe be more slow or isolated But it seems like the way in which you're dealing with that spectrum of global education to then local practice is much more of a different kind of engagement in which each of your practices seems to be filters of some in some sense of those of those two lenses and that each of you seemed to or each of the practices seemed to Kind of redefine a notion of a local or to kind of take to think through what extent does the word local actually What does that mean in your practice? And how do we expand the idea so it seemed you know with max I thought there's an idea about a destabilization of the local in terms of the topography or the sort of typical approaches to you know Chile and landscape And it seemed with you with your talk There's an idea about Sort of intensification like an intensification of local construction practices and craft And then with you too it's this I you know this you even talked about it in your your lecture this the conflict Of how do you balance? Identity or memory of a region or a place then with the rising urbanization of China And so I think that idea of a filter the sort of expansion of a notion of local to me seems really Interesting within the context of the of the panel And then I also want to go back to the question of the intellectual project of forming a practice which one set up at the beginning and You know maybe maybe to have a sense of in your talks It seems like there's practices within the practice that you there's a There's sort of a redefinition of practice at certain moments right And so maybe to begin with is just to think a little bit about the beginning and where you are now In your practice, and you know, how did you sustain your practice early on? When you when you first began and the the sort of economic equation of it, right? And then now how do you you know uniquely maintain and maybe nourish the practice as it grows? And so I'd love to hear from each of you Yeah, well in my case is I think that the Mine is a very small office We are normally between three two five maximum we've been six at the office so the and the structure is very simple and It has always been very variable and Maybe it's due to my I Yeah, going like going out of Chile for a while for studying or traveling and teaching at the same time so for me, it hasn't been like a goal to keep an office like like a production or to grow in a very Fast way. It has been more like a life cycle which sometimes it's more intense Other times it's much more calm and I get time to do other stuff So I guess that the the plan of the office is something very it's much more spontaneous like in its everyday functioning and regarding the the education and these experiences in Chile and abroad I think it's it's a way of Focusing on certain aspects. It's not about going out and learning something that you then bring to your country But more it's going out to test what you've been doing before Looking at it again. I may be like fine-tuning on some aspects that you really want to I Don't know be more radical or understand better But I think that it's it's it's about And I think that in that sense the local aspect of things is fundamental And in my case, yeah, this idea of Photography and how this could affect The built object has been a key line of research okay, just a moment before I'll go I was talking about how Get it's used to say that Mexico is a place where everything is possible I believe that In many ways it is true, I mean Mexico is a place Where there's much more freedom, you know regulations are not so restricted and This this for the bad and the good I mean, there are people that just simply jump over regulations, you know, which is bad, but When well-intended that I believe there is a huge opportunity to do architecture and So in our case We have found that You know this thing that we also talked about about how We are trying or we are on our search Trying not to impose architecture over a specific context we can translate that also in our Way of doing architecture in the process of doing architecture. I mean the In a place like this in Mexico just I was I was saying to the instructions of architecture that we can translate over a plan or our drawings Become more like rules to play with, you know, we like to think that our work Is it has evolved but in the way we do architecture, we try to think that the things that we specify are just more like Game rule sheet that that that is there for people to play with That people can interpret those Instructions of those rules into their own way of doing and that helps us to have an architecture that is trying to have a dialogue with all these different actors that Participate on that doing architecture right to try to We go go through a little bit Education and the practicing experience because we both educated in local University, but when we graduated actually the Fast that rapid organization to start it. So we are feel a little bit with both Maybe we are not that used to that rhythm. So we we found that we we are losing in a way So we choose to go abroad to continue to study and to up to absorb in different cultural and Of course when you go from the very local China to you question Europe, so it's a me fell I think directly a kind of cultural shock. So you don't be easy at that because completely different way of looking at city and architecture and even questioning and reasoning methodology so when we try to forget and to try to The Re-installed our Norris structure. That's a really I would say choice is a difficult but As a to me I felt refreshed it's a very difficult moment when we arrived in Europe, but after five years of Study and working and Western Europe view when we decided to return to that Rapid organization Yeah, that we fell another to cultural shock because Speed at the speed of life is so fast when we return China So I think there is almost cannot have Normal discussion about programming About what we're going to achieve in a with the local people It's very very fundamental and very very grounded question That's why we We think and we try to start from where of course we collaborate the other company to do to Decide and develop the very big project in the beginning when we return, but we chose to another way we chose to Establish our own studio in the beginning we have only four people in this office and we start from very tiny project According to Chinese so we try to because at the moment people are still thinking architecture kind of monumental thing so theater Museums and so we try to Edebrates in a really daily life way of architecture So we create our studio and create small projects so people visit it So from a very grandi and very a daily way, we try to convince people To think and to work in a different way Actually we from in China for the moment It's even difficult to keep a small office then become bigger become bigger It's even easier because you can easily get a lot of project without if you don't care about the quality and So normally now we have 15 to 20 people and we have because the project always change I mean the situation of the project always change sometimes it stopped sometimes suddenly it come back with even 10 times more so we have to really keep a very flat and flat and fresh flexible working systems and of course with this kind of Developing pressure it's you it's very easier to lose But we always believe that with tiny action With interesting design strategy, we can influence a little bit and step by step It could be kind of as something the daily life movement could become bigger and bigger and do something to as kind of a feedback of the Urbanization the huge urbanization to start a kind of real conversation with people with real space not kind of Images of cities and renderings of cities And maybe just to pick up on your point about the the pressures of an architecture of an architectural practice Within different contexts for each of you are there Let's say rules or guidelines That you use in your practice to maintain design values or design ambitions So for example, you know, are there certain kinds of work that you actively try to engage are there? You know are there certain kinds of strategies that you use you use in your office To go for certain kinds of work are there things that you resist you you just described something you resist is not to grow So I'm just curious about whether there's Ways that you you fight for the office that you want to have through a maintenance of rules or guidelines Well, I can talk about two the first one would be that we try to Keep ourselves having spaces for reflection because when you go to the everyday practice sometimes, you know the Developing of projects doesn't give you time or room or space for that So for example for us to be teaching at a university or even to come here, you know today to talk to Columbia and you know forces to sit down and have You know to make ourselves Making questions and to go over our backgrounds and digging into our practice, you know all of those kind of things Help us to do that to have that space of reflection that sometimes you don't have when you have to Do a project, you know in the specific time that is required So that would be one of like a strategy and another one. It's more like we were saying is a more intuitive and It's more I think that really inspire us and that we really connect with and is that We try to always Look for We try to see or when one for example, we are trying to approach for the first time To a place to a specific place we try to look for the vernacular, you know the most common Architecture the people architecture and it is a strategy that help us to understand a place you know the we like to say that That kind of architecture Doesn't fail. I mean in terms of it reflects it is a reflection of a place and it is also It has the wisdom of Specific place so if if it's important for us to have a good reading of a place and we go and look to that primitive vernacular Architecture and that's like a kind of a strategy that we use like very personal Think for this question I think when we just when we in the beginning when we just return from Broad from Europe, I think I have quite a very structural and systematic mind To do to do things to create small office and to have gold of target and then what we But later I think more and more with now, I think we developed in a more and natural way like because In a group like us in Guangzhou is quite exceptional. So You cannot set any Go that we need to recruit for instance We have new project and we need to recruit how many person person else at two or three But you cannot find the right person. I mean because you know, it's you know, the local education that completely Different is what we are going to achieve So if we don't so we just continue to work on small group But so I more and more if if you work in people Speaking in different languages. That's that's more that that would be a disaster. So To us it's becoming we don't have any specific goal for the future development how to develop office. It's it's more a natural and daily Natural flow in office So if we have the right person to talk with and we can collaborate with this project or not If not, we don't if we have to get the right person in the office We can have Because of the office whole office is like a family group. So we need to a kind of a Speak the same language and have the same value not a structural way. So I mean I know it's more and more When we develop like that office like that the group like that and and it's also can create Interesting conversation and client arrived and visit us. So they Gradually or sometimes certainly they understand what we should work together and what we should achieve in our future life Because when we look at the city the the organization That's that's I think more people more and more people will think about in living and working in another way. That's Well in my case the relation with my with my practice and teaching has been a key aspect to keep the Ideas of the practice somehow challenged by the works of the students especially and by the discussion that occurs inside the the space of the school of the school of architecture and that's a relation that I I I'm always trying to to keep and as a project in the future that is to keep working in that way Especially when you you when you're working in a in a small office, and you don't have that space of discussion with a larger group It's important to bring those ideas to To your students and and discuss in different terms maybe with more freedom and in different Context but but I think for me that that has been a very good Yeah, conversation And the other thing that I enjoy is is to be in the different phases of a project from its first stage until construction and all that's in between and all the problems and traveling and discussions and solving problems During construction, and I mean that's something that I really enjoy so My idea of a practice is to keep it in a size that I can be in a way involved in every in all those different stages Maybe we have time for one question one or two questions. Maybe I'll open up to the audience if there's a couple questions Thank you Well, it's been very exciting to me to discover a pattern among you your three practices you've You've mentioned something that I really find essential which is duality you've talked about mirrors and and mirrors that Reflects funds worth house against the traditional HUD so As if global and local where the two sides of the same thing and And it was funny to to imagine you as a kind of double agent as Architects that were focused on on created sophisticated links between things that looks completely different and I've well, I assume that that it implies to to live in a kind of permanent sensation of Estrangement and and as real strangers or foreigners as you said in your own birth places Which I was really interested in knowing about is which are the tools that you deploy to show your networks that That you are Your origin that or your origins are the same than than theirs and and how do you How do you achieve to To show you that what they really want is the units and expected the the the other side of the Of the well the reflect of the things that they think they want as a local It's you mean from the point of view of the client Yeah, maybe the yeah the client but but not also the clients your your teaching tasks or or Well, you're surrounding something you're the environment you move in your everyday life Sorry, I understood the first part, but the question I didn't understand I'm sorry. I know. Well, I mean which are your attitudes the the tools you use Well, I've seen graphic systems to to negotiation Technics to show them that what they really want is that they want they don't expect What can you offer different to the other architects that as local just because you've been global and you You look global or you have a global perspective It's a hard question. I don't know if I have an answer for that. I mean because that would Suppose that I have an opinion about the other architects that work in my same and I don't know even how they work so It's really hard to talk about How others would face the same Problem, I I mean I have my way of working and I have my way of dealing with clients and contractors And I I hope I showed some of these ideas in my presentation, but it's not a strict norm and It's always some somehow adapting to the Conditions of each commission and the discussions that appear from each architectural problem It's it's much more something that you are working on constantly rather than have a set of rules from which I design and It's it's I mean there are rules, but There are like a framework on which you you work in every case differently, I guess At least that's the way that I approach design And and in terms of this global or local issue, I think the distinction is very hard to draw today I mean maybe In the context of Chile, maybe 30 or 50 years ago There was a very clear line between what you could understand as local versus global, but today I think that's not anymore and At least South America and I guess Mexico to our continents countries that are changing a lot at the moment, well China it's the same so it's and I think it's a Super interesting Conversation, but it's very hard to draw the line between what's Global and local and how what we have learned outside can be somehow Thought in the process of doing locally I guess that's exactly what can make it new or different to others. I mean to to get out of Where you are and then come back. I mean to come to that That kind of confrontation. That's what make it different. You know, I don't know how different from others but that's basically the mixture of those things that makes something happen, you know, you take fragments of Texts Ways of inhabitant space typologies, I don't know Environments everything that enriches your work. That's exactly, you know, how local or how global It doesn't matter really. It's the mixture of both. That's what I would say Great. Well, we should probably move on to the next panel, but I suspect that the discussion will be ongoing throughout the day So thank you very much. Thank you