For our 33rd stop, we’re going a bit all around the world with KOSMOS, an architecture practice whose tone is set  by Leonid Slonimskiy and Artem Kitaev.

KOSMOS don’t do architecture as one is supposed to do architecture. Yet, they claim they do nothing new…everything they do “already exists”.

Rather than abstract statements, they focus on the specific issues within surrounding conditions, aiming to create architecture that reflects and subtly shifts these realities.

For KOSMOS, less is more…in the sense that “the less we propose to do with our project, the happier we are with it.”

“To us, it is very important to see the project as something that is not possible now/today, but something that is possible in a year or two. It should be very real in these terms.”

Using their words, “Innovation [is] introduced by requirements, not by our subjective vision.”

To them “like life without humor,” architecture without life “doesn’t make sense”.

They are right, I guess.

Guest: Leonid Slonimskiy + Artem Kitaev  (www)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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In our 32nd episode, we travel to Hamburg (Germany) and Tokyo (Japan) to meet Kawahara Tatsuya and a Ellen Kristina Krause, the minds behind Kawahara Krause Architects.

Kawahara Krause Architects explores the subtle ways architecture can bring people together without rigid boundaries. “We are living together, and this togetherness should be architecturally staged.” “If things are separated from each other there is still a way to think about how they direct to each other.”

For Kawahara and Krause, each project is an invitation to endless “ways of reading.” Spaces should offer “stimuli without defining too strictly”. “We wanted to show people how enjoyable architecture can be”

"The more experience you have, the richer your intuition gets” and their rich intuition makes them wonder “what really needs to be defined”, after all?

Guest: Kawahara Tatsuya + Ellen Kristina Krause (Tokyo, Japan + Hamburg, Germany)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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On our 31st stop, we are travelling east, direction Brussels (BE)…or rather, to “ouest” to meet Stephan Damsin and Jans Harens, the duo behind “ouest architecture.”

ouest architecture thrives in the spaces left unfinished and unsolved, " there is a room for unsolved things and for a bit of ambiguity”. In their vision, not every problem has to be be fully solved. “We are interested in ways to repair stuff without hiding that it has been repaired,” they explain, a philosophy that calls for embracing the imperfections rather than smoothing them away.

Their approach invites a rethinking of architecture’s role in urban life.

How far can one question the brief? Can we question it so much that the kitchen ends up to be left out of the program?

“What are the opening hours, what is the price of the coffee? All these things are so important for how the building works in the city.” 

“How to make a building as a swiss knife?”, they ask. I do too.

What does adobe’s strategy on “progressive discloser” has to do with architecture? Maybe nothing.

“Color pencils and excel tables” are all you need to do architecture.

Guest: Stephan Damsin, Jan Harens  (Brussels, Belgium)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 30th stop is in Berlin (Germany), somewhere between a reconverted building and the next building to be reconverted. In fact, that is were we find B+. In fiction, we might also find them beyond the building, in station.plus. Olaf Grawert will take us through that.

To warm up, Olaf identifies 2 big groups of architects: both aim for “values” and “speculation” but their understanding of these terms is fundamentally opposite.

Should our honoraries be measured out of a percentage of construction costs? 

What if “there is more then just building as an answer”?

What if climate crisis are good news for the market? “In our current economic system, a natural disaster is a fantastic thing because the moment you have a natural disaster and things get destroyed, the market grows.”

Is there a correct answer? Are we just giving better wrong answers over and over? “We need to speculate. (…) “Everything that is new, unknown or experimental is not interesting to those who have to sell it”

Sometimes an observation can become a question, and then a movie, and then a publication, and the an exhibition and then a building, and then a law.

Or not.

If you are still thinking about the words “values” and “speculation”…you should listen to our conversation.

“Its pure fiction.”

Guest: Olaf Grawert, b+ (Berlin, Germany)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 29th stop is in Barcelona (Spain), Mexico City (Mexico) and Basel (Switzerland) alongside Pablo Garrido Arnaiz.

Parabase have a very keen eye for picking up things and putting them out of place. At least out of their initially proposed place...to be place in a new place though out by them. “Decontextualisation is something we can find: in almost all contemporary art piece, in most of he songs we listen to, in in writing but in architecture it is not that common.”

Decontextualisation adds layers of meaning to architecture.

Why can’t a sculpture be understood as a column?

Why can’t a roof rotate 90 degrees and play as a facade?

Maybe they can. “Architecture can be read in many ways, and it has a lot of meanings.”

Sometimes, decontextualised ideas come out of absolute casualty “or maybe there is a certain hidden reason of why we have made these decisions” and post-rationalised.

“The social economical system we live in…it is not circular, it is about generating and destroying, generating and destroying.” Meanwhile, they are designing a Housing project made out of, al least, 2 500 pieces dismantled out of a parking lot.

We observe the phenomenon of pavilions made under the aim of biennales/triennials/festivals. Is it the case that all these events are “creating a typology of architecture” as well as “creating a typology of architects”? We wonder.

Pablo says the following quote at the beginning of our conversation…but I feel like taking it of place and putting it as the final message of this episode’s brief:

“To do meaningful architecture and have fun (…) basically this is the ultimate motivation of our work.”

Guest: Pablo Garrido Arnaiz  (Barcelona, Spain + Zurich, Switzerland + Mexico City, Mexico)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 28th stop is in Mexico (Mexico), without forgetting Normandy (France) alongside Ludwig Godefroy.

What do pyramids from the pre-hispanic period and bunkers by the northern french sea have to do with each other? How can both of these come under the same architectural practice? “I have started to understand that pyramids and bunkers are kind of similar, to me.”

“Humanity has been doing pyramids for 4-5 thousand years and no pyramid is looking the same as the other one. If humanity was able to do pyramids for such a long time, I can spend the rest of my life doing pyramids…this is like an endless inspiration.”

“This is interesting to me because when you look at something you cannot even copy anymore, you have to reinterpret it. And then it becomes something very personal.”

We talk about modernist and about how NOT (only) modernism some modernist architects were. “Its is also about what part of those architects we are using. I am not using Le Corbusier in the same way that I am using Louis Kahn.”

Ludwig looks up to “the monumentality “out of Louis Kahn, “the detailing” out of Carlo Scarpa, and the “very strange magic” out of Le Corbusier “like he was inventing a new kind of space…beyond words”. 

He also looks up to the way of doing out of those who actually build architecture. “This is why my architecture looks a little bit rough. Because part of it is the accident.”

What des an Hotel in Puerto Escondido, a Water Reservoir in Istambul and Álvaro Siza’s Fundação Nadir Afonso have in common?

“In Mexico we don’t have rules, everything is possible. Which means the worst…but also the best.”

Guest: Ludwig Godefroy (Mexico, Mexico + Normandy, France )

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Our 27th stop is at Boltshauser Architekten (Munich, Germany) alongside Roger Boltshauser.

For Boltshauser, to have an order is a must have.

“I always look for order.”

But is order enough?

“If I have an order, I am happy but I am not happy enough, so I try to find ways out of this order.”

He even puts the words in the right order when he concludes: “Order maybe needs disorder”.

Maybe.

Maybe it’s not the case they are looking for a balance, but rather looking for a strong character “and strong characters are often not that balanced…but they are interesting”.

Every project is part of a bigger process. Which means that some issues from a particular project might find it’s answer in an project yet to come. Sometimes “we have already built the answer but we still can’t explain it in a racional way. The brain is not ready o understand but you still think it should be the way to go”.

The strange thing comes when you have to build it…you did something…and now you have to build it even tho you are aware that some questions remain unanswered.

“Sometimes the brain is not there yet”.

I think this is a nice way to put it.

Guest: Roger Boltshauser (Munich, Germany)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: Duo-Thermo

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Our 26th stop is at Enric Mirrales Benedetta Tagliabue - EMBT (Barcelona, SP) alongside Benedetta Tagliabue.

Sometimes, EMBT are attracted by something very simple. Therefore, they allow themselves to be a little bit like a child just to permite these ideas to emerge. “Maintaining the lightness of the first idea is a very very tough work”. And that is exactly what they work for “Projects, specially if they have a very long time or have many people involved, they have a tendency of getting diluted.”

“Enrique used to consider projects as alive beings, as a child. (…) So, in a way, projects need this attention as if they are people, they need to be looked after, they need to be helped in the difficult moments of their growing.”

Did you know that some projects are selfish, a good kind of selfish?

Did you know that some big roofs were supped to be even bigger then ended up being?

Did you know that some projects  are “nearly finished” and “have been nearly finished for 5 years”?

“You need a lot of strength to maintain things into its pureness and beauty.”

Guest: Benedetta Tagliabue - EMBT (Barcelona, Spain)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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On episode 25 we think architecture alongside SO-IL, in the voice of Summer Liu.

SO-IL are constantly pushing the boundaries...literally the physical boundaries...with them we learn boundaries are not just made by walls or windows. Just when you think they've reached the limit, their next project pushes it even further. They have the right amount of madness to pursue things outside of architecture until that one moment they surrender and become into architecture form. 

“Once you have an intuition, its about working with the real world knowledge and then learn from the people that will eventually make the thing.” When you do so, you can find a way to make metal mesh rings relevant for architecture, against all odds (for it’s weight, for it’s scale, for it’s production…). “It’s like Avatars, they just touch each other and then see what happens there. You have to find a bridge that equalizes the two pieces of information.”

“There is physicality to the abstract questions we ask.”…and it shows in every project.

Guest: Summer Liu - SO-IL  (New York, USA )

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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On episode 24th we’ll Learn from Denise, which means we’ll be learning from Las Vegas…and South Africa…and Italy…and England…and Philadelphia…and every single street and person she has passed by. “Do you know the word “serendipity”? It means something that happens unexpectedly and that could be a great thing.”

We talk about how the almost demolished “Fisher Fine Arts Library” has brought together the super duo of architecture: Venturi & Scott Brown. “I would say we’ve have a big influence but Le Corbusier had an even bigger influence”

Did you know there are 2 ways to think the city? Denise says the first is made by donkeys, the second is made by grids. After all, both are molded by "form, forces, and functions”. She even adds “in the end, the donkey is the functionalist.”.

Actually, there is much more to function than to have the bathroom next to the bedroom. “It’s wonderful to make something beautiful. And you hope you can make it both.”.

Oh Denise…what a mannerist <3.

“Sometimes I want to be as beautiful as princess Margaret. You take this pretty princess, you take her a photo (…) and she is wearing diamonds…only when you get near her you get that the diamonds are celofane paper.”

“Sometimes you have to break things.”

Oh Denise…what a mannerist <3.

I took notes of a little something:

“Remember your memories as a baby, they are valuable to you in your architecture. Don’t forget those, take them with you.”

I kept this advice in my pocket. I hope you do too. Learning from Denise.

Guest: Denise Scott Brown, Venturi+Scott Brown (Philadelphia, USA )

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

Sponsor: Vicaima

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