This will be the first workshop under the direction of IFP's new collaborator Max Gerthel. Max is an architect with his own practice in Beijing as well as teaching in HUST (Wuhan) and Tsinghua architecture schools. He is mainly interested in the conditions for public space in China, the topic on which he also curates the lecture series, IFP Sessions, throughout 2012. Co-organizer of the workshop is architect Jordan Kanter, based in Beijing.
Outline:
The workshop aims to create new perspectives for activating and informing new meaning to the everyday spaces of the city. Working in the neighborhood around the IFP Studio in downtown Beijing, we will identify and define ongoing patterns of use and materializations through a process of "urban mining". This process will be concluded in a detailed catalog of the found objects, documenting their shape, materiality and origin.
Introducing the Processing coding language, we will develop techniques to reconfigure the materials into a series of architectural interventions in the public space. The design and construction of these interventions will be a continuous reiterative process which feeds back the collective traces of the city in a reconfigured, signified form.
Throughout the workshop we will also host a number of presentations by artists and architects based in Beijing. Those events will be public and announced on the workshop website and through this newsletter.
The workshop is open to architects, artists, planners, geographers, engineers, programmers and students of the above or other disciplines; anyone interested in exploring the intersection between design, computation and public space.
Date: January 30 to February 12, 2012
Cost: 2000 for students, 2500 for professionals
There are still a few places left. To apply, please send your application to hutongworkshop2012@gmail.com
Workshop blog: www.maxgerthel.com/hutongworkshop2012