A relaxing place

WALL ART in public espace

‘Urban gardens’ are a plethora of socio-cultural, historical and environmental learning, that allows varied observant assert the sense of ‘the right to the city’ or reclaim an ‘urban commons’. One such urban garden uniquely hanging upon a historical water reservoir on Malabar Hill has been a source of solace and wonder for locals. Designed by Ulhas Ghapokar in 1881 and dedicated to Sir Pherozshah Mehta, it is narrated to have been built over one of Bombay’s main water reservoir to protect it from getting polluted, particularly by the nearby towers of silence. The photovoice method chosen here for representation would showcase how a diverse group of visitors or locals see their interests towards fostering ‘civic ecological sense’ and ‘social associations’ with the flora-fauna and history in the city. This could aim in conceptualizing future sustainable measures flexibly, placing ideas related to social associations, heritage and ecological concerns.

Het onzichtbare zichtbaar maken

In het heden is NU de ander kwetsbaar en fragiel. Samenkomen is heden tien dagen vergeten. Het belang van ontmoeting, het missen van creativiteit en het leren van elkaar. Het is een zoektocht naar het terug verbinden met de ander. Met een ruimte die van de oudheid al bestaat, die anders is, een heterotopie van zijn tijd. Een terugblik naar de oudheid. Zonder de aanwezigheid van een patio zou er geen bestaan ​​van een villa kunnen zijn, daarom was het meteen een gedeelde plek. In een patio waar de ander samenkwam, werd gezien als een ontmoetingsplek. De publieke ruimte bestaat niet meer. Het streven om de publieke ruimte te vormen, die vertrekt vanuit de innerlijke ruimte van de ander. Een poëtische marge waar de ziel van de andere zal raken.

De patio geeft een thuisgevoel, waarin architectuur vertrouwd zal geraken. Het streefpunt is om van de patio een zichtbare publieke plek te maken dat gedeeld wordt met de ander. De bewustwording van de ander is essentieel, maar deze wordt vandaag de dag vergeten.
Een metafoor van een patio. Een ruimte die gedeeld geraakt met de buitenwereld, waarbij het interieur openstaat en tegelijkertijd in verbinding is met de buitenwereld. Het start vanuit een omsloten patio waardoor de wand zich ontwikkelt door de naar binnen gerichte kleinere patio. Deze trekt de karakteristieke eigenschappen van de buitenwereld naar binnen. Door de omkering van een ruimte in een ruimte ontstaat er een patio in een patio. Deze omkeerbaarheid, vormt een drempelloze toegankelijkheid naar de innerlijke ruimte.
Zo wordt de onzichtbare wereld zichtbaar voor de buitenwereld, en wordt de onzichtbare onzichtbaar.

I present the photo of a real house and the model, it belongs to a series of different houses in the surroundings of Buenos Aires, the model usually associated with large architectural undertakings, is seen here in an inverse procedure to capture the diversity of styles, of that Buenos Aires without architects where each neighbor decorates his house to his liking, without the urban rules of the big cities and in which we can read the socio-cultural map of the development of the suburbs in the different decades in those houses of similar construction, personalized with golden lions, deer and religious murals

They are made of cardboard in 1:70 scale. The photo of the house was taken one year ago and the model was made in 1994 and is currently part of the Collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts, Argentina.

The temporary intervention was part of a practice lead research of the place of the Mapocho River in the Public Imaginary through its bridges, edges and the torrent. The Mapocho River was canalised in the late 19th C to mitigate the flooding, create public space and connect the north and south sides of Santiago de Chile via 9 meccano bridges. This was part of the Indendente Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna's modernisation of Santiago to make it "the Paris of South America". The canal was constructed posthumously 1888-1910 and the flooding torrent continues to be domesticated. Nature transitioning into culture via bridges. In the 1950s a particular bridge was constructed that crosses two flows, that of the river and that of the expressway constructed on its southern bank. The form of Racalamac bridge (a.k.a. Condell Bridge) is determined by these two periods of modernisation. It is a steep pedestrian bridge that is also an unlikely, popular and iconic public space of transition. The intervention traces the space created by this transition in a kinetic mapping of the inverted arc and the upstream wind that blows in the passage of the Mapcocho towards the Andes that is its source. A bronze builders plumbob was engraved with a quote of Benjamin Vicuña Mackenna "La Ciudad Enferma es Rescatable" (The sick city can be saved). 300 weighted casts were made and suspended by builders string from the bridge. The kinetic, temporary sculpture was installed for one day as part of 100 en 1 Día. From the edges of the river, the intervention appeared as a billowing, barely visible curtain ended by hovering plumbobs. From the bridge a vertigenous scene of parabolic curves are created over an invisible X,Y, Z grid and a horizontally surging torrent.    

“Stray plastic” offers people the chance to stay in unused "stray space", a space that is no longer used and therefore becomes empty. This can be churches, offices, sheds and many other places. By means of a temporarily formed and quickly movable residence, consisting of a plastic membrane into which air is blown, the previously unused space is given a temporary fill-in. The importance of this action comes from the fact that there is a considerable supply of unused space. It is to counteract this that I design "Stray plastic", a place to stay within " stray-space ". By dealing with space in a nomadic and temporary way, we will be able to deal with vacancy in a meaningful way. Concretely, the place will become a residence, thanks to the movable trolley that compactly contains all the elements needed for living. Like the airco that inflates the plastic membrane like a balloon. The cleaning brush that later becomes the table leg, the iron you can cook on and other elements that contribute to the place of residence. It will be a generous abode, because the unused space will be borrowed by those who need it. This, to me, is the key/formula/prescription to a generous homestay: to deal with space differently and to look at our place in the world in a humble way. An attitude that influences everything we do. Temporary building with air is a reaction to the world of design and architecture. The world where there is always more, more beautiful, bigger and more permanent design. In doing so, I question all these things and create an "anti-architecture" that goes against the rules and where temporariness and the nomadic are central. A place where we question the space/objects used. By staying in a movable interior, there is a possibility to change your attitude towards society.

Winner of the audience award of the A-Place Mapping contest "Share your artwork" 2021