Exhibition at Restauro 2014, Ferrara, Italy, March 26th-29th 2014 | Curator: Riccardo Rubini, Denise Araujo Azevedo, DIAPReM, Dipartimento di Architettura, Università di Ferrara

Scientific Committee: Marcello Balzani, Carlo Bughi

Paesaggio Urbano | Urban Design #2.2014. Viver em Concreto, by Riccardo Rubini, Denise Araújo Azevedo

From the documentary research of Marlene Milan Acayaba to an Italian didactical experience. This experience gives us an interpretative methodology, to discern and understand the paulista architecture and make a cultural comparison between different generations of architects and students of architecture

A project explained in the title Viver em Concreto is the title of the educational experience, that also becomes an exhibition presented for the first time during the Restoration Exhibition in Ferrara in 2010. The title was born inside the Integrated course of Survey and Techniques of Representation (of the second year of the Department of Architecture, University of Ferrara) held by Prof. Marcello Balzani and Prof. Carlo Alberto Maria Bughi.

They decided to set the final test on the morphological and interpretive study of housing of São Paulo, built between 1947-1975. This period of renovation and development of the constructive culture of São Paulo has been studied by Marlene Milan Acayaba in his book which is the trigger of this whole work. Reinforced concrete (concrete) becomes a new archetype of project and realization of these architects, forming a veritable intellectual and cultural vanguard.

However, concrete is a matter which represents the reality of life and therefore also the real experience of someone who has re-designed, re-interpreted and reflected on the volume works “Residencias em Sao Paulo: 1947-1975” by Marlene Milan Acayaba.

Cultural and intellectual stimulation

Actually, architecture school as an institution has been consolidated inside the paulista experience: the FAUUSP(Faculdade de Arquitetura e Urbanismo da Universidade de São Paulo), also known as “FAU”, becomes a famous discussion place, but also of important design realizations and political contestations during the dictatorship repression.

Through the works of architects such as Joaquim Guedes, Lina Bo Bardi, Paulo Mendes da Rocha, Carlos Milan, Cascaldi, Vilanova Artigas and Marcos Acayaba, you discover a history of architecture, which passes through the research a national identity till reach the local one. It’s an eclectic way to construct that is, hybrid, which creates a relationship between the living theme, with a language completely new and rich of symbols from the past. A real transparency pursued as a (revolutionary) way of freedom from the dictatorship and from the censorship that existed at that time in Brazil, in all artistic areas. The Integrated course of Survey and Techniques of Representation takes the cue from the knowledge of “Residências em São Paulo: 1947-1975” by Marlene Acayaba Milan, which contains, under a precise collecting methodology, lots of housing building and also a multiplicity of ideas for further research and interpretations. The course has used the methodology of the survey of the project to originate architectural 3D models from which to extracttwo-dimensional canonical representations. This idea was born after deciding that Marlene Acayaba’s volume would be the starting source for themes to be developed in the course. Probably some characteristics (type, dimensions, distribution, shape, context, function) of this architecture create a lot of discussion, that leads architects to experimental design. Another not indifferent booster to the choice of setting the course comes probably from the internationalization (research and teaching) of the Department of Architecture implemented in Brazil and India, for several years, inside the DIAPReM/TekneHub of the University of Ferrara.

From the project to the Representation

The Integrated course of Survey and Techniques of Representation takes the spark from the need to understand shapes (with compositions and materials of representation), analyzing a case by case based on a disassembly and reassembly through the use of softwares BIM (Building Information Modeling) to understand the conceptual geometric of Brazilian housing.

The learning experience is the result of interpretive and representative effort on each selected work from Marlene Milan Acayaba’s volume: the purpose is to obtain geometric patterns and consistent digital conceptual, starting from a cognitive structure, but supplementing discontinuities with interpretive process (using the criteria and survey tools as eidotipileveling, dimensional reports, in scale, morphology of detail, etc.).

Another main point of the whole research was to advance some considerations, respecting the conceptual representation, on the project and some physical/tactile involvement.

The Brazilian architecture of that period had a strong corporeal connotation (as physical and sensorial) and an articulation of full/empty,that often gets lost in the boundary between the inside and the outside dimension. It’s a very material architecture: it’s textured, consistent. The etymology of the term texture refers it to tactile sensation and not to the view.

The representation becomes from a term communication, a tool of thought and design. The course chooses to offer students a clearer identification of the level on which to compare canons of projective geometry, creating an interpretive path that moves on the sensitivity and the power of interpretation. If digital level must determine all correct consistency through a BIM model, on the physical level this can be shown by plastic models made inside the laboratory of the Department of architecture under the guidance of Prof. Francesco Viroli.