KAM summer workshops were initiated as a particular way to think again what "architecture in a local frame" could mean; how an architectonic investigation could be driven towards local phenomena? Aristide Αntonas, Filippos Oraiopoulos and Ζafos Χagoraris formed the first working team. A determination to approach architecture as a "site specific elaboration" brings us to the 2011's "Value of Garbage": it was always a question of propagating the local to an international level: an interest for a city’s “insignificant” places was the first manifested declaration of the team. The third workshop (proposed under the name “paradigmata”) represented Greece for the 9th architecture biennale of Venice. The biennial project, extended the investigation to insignificant places around Greece and in Cyprus. The “paradigmata” project formed the field of an intense experiment of defining sites through groups of invitees. After the “paradigmata” year, the term «κτιστό συμβάν» (built event) was used in order to describe a particular architectonic area between a procedure and the procedure’s traces: "built event" was also the name of a series of works undertaken by different teams, directed by Antonas and Oraiopoulos. A theatrical preparation of a built procedure, a work of tracing, and the procedure’s resultant traces were considered as equally important parts of the same constructive procedure: a problematic description was always at stake defining or "building" insignificant places. The deposited projects were proposed as alternative views of the places, as constructed definitions of the insignificant spots. Last year the workshop (curated by Antonas and Vergopoulos) included the elaboration of some first quick reactions that could drive the design of the following years.
In this year's "Value of Garbage" issue, the workshop will investigate architecture as a particular moment of a crisis of values. The particular Greek moment has already been read last year as an emblematic case: a positive, constructive look to the bankrupted planet that we keep building is needed. Some strong concepts need to be redefined, such the concept of “reuse". Some changes of the value systems have to be taken under consideration for the function of a workshop that always related art to architecture through theoretical investigation.
Aristide Antonas
— Techniques of Deevaluation
Yannis Stavrakakis
— Symptom, Garbage, Excrement:
Topologies of Value
— ΧΥΤΑ visit
Anita Hackethal
— Waste... There is no Away
1st week studio
Point Supreme (coordination)
Ekaterini Antonakaki
Apostolos Kalfopoulos
Evi Sougara
Eleni Spiridaki.
Elina Karanastasi
— An Architectural Reconciliation with
the Manmade Debris Drosscape
Panayotis Pangalos
— Decomposition
Vassiliki Petridou
— Decay
Point Supreme (Konstantinos Pantazis, Marianna Rentzou)
— The Garbage and the Context
Tassos Sakellaropoulos
— Political Waste
Apostolos Kalfopoulos
— Love in a Trash Can
of Garbage
Center of Mediterranean Architecture
Venetian port, Chania, Crete
mid-presentations & jury
Lois Papadopoulos (coordination)
Kostis Mavrakakis
Georgios Panetsos
Nikos Patsavos
Alcystis Rodi
Sofia Vizoviti
Panos Dragonas
— Post-empire: the Battle of the
Generations and its Garbage
KERNEL (Petros Moris, Pegy Zali)
— The Residual Character of Commons
in the Age of Digital Reproduction
2nd week studio
Divercity (coordination)
Orestis Argyropoulos
Elina Axioti
Aris Cohen
Angelos Floros
Platon Issaias
Apostolos Kalfopoulos
Katerina Koutsogianni
Ioannis Oikonomou
final presentations & jury
Stavros Vergopoulos (coordination)
Christina Achtypi
Bouki Babalou
Yannis Filis
Titi Papadopoulou
Philippos Oraiopoulos
Nikolas Travasaros
workshop transmissions
Lamb and Lamp (Elina Axioti,
Evi Sougara, Eleni Spiridaki,
Yannikos Vasiloulis) with
Petros Phokaides and Eva
Papamargariti
At this stage the notion of waste determines from one side what remains exterior to the current value system and on the other hand, identifies/conditions precisely the stability of the current value system’s interior and its adequacy. Everything is defined through a process in which waste, from the one side, shows the limit of the world economy (representing an area outside it), while, from the other -somehow - the waste identifies the internal space of this economy, organizing the financial systematic order by an idiosyncratic negation.
What may be an architecture of waste today? What can be a product of waste? This question will determine an architectonic investigation at this year's workshop. We encounter efforts to find a new place for waste in today's economy; waste has already become important and we are already surrounded by rhetorics of waste, recycling strategies, sustainability discourses: waste remains a constant reference gaining more ground and its performativity in contemporary culture is usually ascertained as based on "obvious facts". Any waste seems to be worthy of our attention, and also as defeating the self-evident character of the value of garbage, based too on idealizations. Architecture’s growing systematic approach to waste also seems to depend on idealizations of the concept of nature and unthoughtful political rhetoric.
With the emergence of waste as a thematic priority, the Center for Mediterranean Architecture’s 10th workshop for summer 2011 aims to re-examine or re-invent a role for architectural theories in the current crisis in order that they result from its controlled bankruptcy. The reconstruction of the theoretical conditions under which waste is shown asks for an explanation of its symbolic power. Architecture tends to appear more and more as evidence of the correct use of garbage. But it needs some confirmation of the value of non-waste to confirm the value of the conversion of waste into a valuable species. The question of the workshop will be: how, through an investigation about waste, strategies of valuation can be organized today? In this process of valuation, is it possible to talk about the product in a way that shows that even the value of waste turns into a fantasmatic waste of precious material? Through which architectures could we avoid an idealized “hidden narcissism of waste”? How could we reconsider new values for architectural production out of new waste strategies?
Supported by
AUTH, School of Architecture
UTH, Department of Architecture
University of Patras, Department of Architecture
NTUA, School of Architecture
MAiCh
Η έννοια του "απορρίμματος" εκφράζει από την μια μεριά την εξωτερικότητα του σημερινού αξιακού συστήματος και από την άλλη μεριά προσδιορίζει ακριβώς την ευστάθεια του συστήματος και την επάρκειά του. Στη σκηνή αυτή καθετί που ορίζεται ως απόρριμμα από την μια μεριά δείχνει το όριο του κόσμου της οικονομίας (παρουσιάζοντας την περιοχή εκτός αυτής) και από την άλλη προσδιορίζει με κάποιο τρόπο το εσωτερικό της καθώς συντάσσει τον οικονομικό ορίζοντα της.
Τι μπορεί να αποτελεί αρχιτεκτονική του απορρίμματος; Τι μπορεί να είναι προϊόν του απορρίμματος; Τα ερωτήματα αναζητούν, στο φετινό εργαστήριο αρχιτεκτονικής τού Κέντρου Αρχιτεκτονικής Μεσογείου, τον προσδιορισμό τους. Οι προσπάθειες να ενταχθεί το απόρριμμα μέσα σε κάποια νέα θέση της σημερινής οικονομίας αποτελεί μόνιμη σταθερά που φαίνεται να κερδίζει ολοένα έδαφος και να μετατρέπεται σε “αυτονόητο δεδομένο”. Κάθε τέτοιο δεδομένο αξίζει την προσοχή μας, αξίζει επίσης η κατάρριψη του αυτονόητου χαρακτήρα του που εδράζεται υποχρεωτικά σε ιδεοληψίες.
Με την ανάδειξη του απορρίμματος ως θεματικής προτεραιότητας, το εργαστήριο αρχιτεκτονικής του 2011 θέτει ως στόχο να εξετάσει εκ νέου την κατάσταση της αρχιτεκτονικής σε συνθήκη κρίσης και την σκέψη που προκύπτει μετά από την χρεοκοπία της. Ο επανακαθορισμός των θεωρητικών όρων με βάση τους οποίους παρουσιάζεται το απόρριμμα ζητά εξηγήσεις για τη συμβολική του δύναμη. Η αρχιτεκτονική τείνει να εμφανίζεται ολοένα και περισσότερο ως απόδειξη μεταποίησης του σκουπιδιού. Χρειάζεται όμως κάποια επιβεβαίωση της αξίας των μη-απορριμμάτων για να επιβεβαιώνεται η αξία της μετατροπής του απορρίμματος σε αξιόλογο είδος. Το ερώτημα του εργαστηρίου θα ήταν με ποιον τρόπο το απόρριμμα οργανώνει στρατηγικές αξιοδότησης σήμερα; Υπάρχει σε αυτή τη διαδικασία αξιοδότησης κάτι που να μιλά για το προϊόν με τρόπο που να φανερώνει ότι ήδη η αξία των απορριμμάτων μετατρέπει το απόρριμμα σε κάποια φανταστική πολύτιμη ύλη; Με ποιόν τρόπο θα μπορούσε να αποφύγουμε κάποιον ιδεολογημένο ναρκισσισμό του απορρίμματος;
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