Let’s travel to Venice and Arzignano to meet Marcello Galiotto and Alessandra Rampasso, founding partners of AMAA, a “Collaborative Architecture Office For Research and Development” as they call it.

They have recently stated working form New York, as they thought that would be a good pretext to be closer to Donald Judd’s aura.

“Instagram fully fills our mind, so it’s not easy to select”. Therefore, they’ve developed their own toolbox, the "AMAA box” - which they progressively disclosure on throughout the episode. “To have a proper selection is important, so we do our selection of a lot of things”.

At the end, “all these influences create a language.”

There are 3 main pieces: a site, an architect and a client. 

“All these 3 things need to work together”.

“To be trustable with a client you need to be a storyteller, thats the first thing. But you also need to be humble and practical. (…) The client needs to be with us for the research, for the process, for the after”. The process is good, but the after is the best part, they claim.

Let’s not for get about the site, as that is the place where they best express their way of thinking. “We really love to dirty up the situation”.

On one hand, “we need to be thinkers but at the same time we need to be builders”.

On the other hand, “from a functional problem you can find a way to be also aesthetic”.

What goes around comes back around.

“The reference is giving to you the power of detail, the power of keeping up your way of thinking and your intuition.”

Guest: Marcello Galiotto + Alessandra Rampazzo  (Venice + Arzignano, Italy)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Santiago, Chile, to meet Iván Bravo whom back in 2002 has founded Iván Bravo Arquitectos, now alongside his associate architect Martin Rojas.

Once upon a time Iván noticed he was really interested in the process of the work…even more than its outcome. Polemic.

Isn’t it curious that “in art, ”obra” is the final work” (obra de arte /masterpiece) meanwhile, “in architecture, “obra” is the process” (construction site).

“It was really interesting to understand that one final work, which we call “obra”, is all the process, including the end”, he says.

But can an “obra” (as a construction site) even become an “obra” (masterpiece)?

After all, their clients “are not clients that want architecture, they just want a house.”

Maybe this is all about getting “lebre por gato”.

In other words, “to get something better than you expect to”.

Maybe its about cousins who spot Toblerone’s in architecture projects.

“We are constantly mixing rationality with intuition, of course.”

“The publication of an architecture, the final photos, are a fetichism of the whole process.”

Guest: Iván Bravo (Santiago, Chile)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to Dublin, Ireland, where Ryan W Kennihan - originally from Chicago - has established his practice in 2007. 

Ryan is much more interested in an architecture of resonance then in one that is completely self-involved. “Whatever “non-referencial architecture” means, it is the complete opposite of this”. An architecture of resonance is a certain sense that arises from using forms that exist all over the world.

Their practice is about a constant meaning giving. “We want as many as possible, a proliferation of references”.

At a certain point we might find ourselves questioning if we are taking part in the evolution or just continuously extending a mistake. One cannot be sorry, “its very much about looking forward and looking back, trying to be old and be new; to be refined and be awkward.”

“What’s interesting to me is not the framework itself but actually the variations within the framework.

Guest: Ryan W Kennihan, Ryan W. Kennihan Architects (IE)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to London, United Kingdom, to meet Adam Khan, founder of Adam Khan Architects since 2006. 

Adam aims to take architecture where it doesn’t normally go. “We have a lot to toggle, as architects, without having to leave our discipline”.

But how can architecture extend elsewhere solely through architectural means? It's about doing it through the discipline of architecture, “not using architecture as a way to illustrate some other thing.”

But then… how do you incorporate the program, context, and situation without compromising its autonomy as a discipline? “There is much not under your control, you are kind of riding a runaway horse.” Architecture is such an imaginary guess, sometimes.

The most amazing thing is noticing that “someone actually bothered doing that.”

Guest: Adam Khan, Adam Khan Architects (UK)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Let’s travel to germany to meet the architectural practice Heide von Beckerath, today represented by Verena von Beckerath.  

Housing has been a never-ending topic in their practice. “When we started working with collective housing projects it was something new. (…) lately,I found out, collective housing is something that everyone is talking about”.

They are not claiming to be the pioneers of the attention now being given to the housing issue. However, they have long been aware that certain aspects have either never been applied to housing or have been forgotten in the discussion. Using their words:  “Its not something that we have invented, its something that is there but maybe has never been applied to housing in that way.”

Sometimes “a single word can change the acceptance of an architecture approach.”

Sometimes, its not very clear who has to water the plants.

Every time, “as architects, we always have to be a little ahead of things.”

“Housing…I mean…this is probably what we have to do in the next years.

But this does not mean that there is change in what we see that is built.

That is the next step.”

Guest: Verena von Beckerath + Tim Heide, Heide von Beckerath (DE)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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CREDITS

Two Houses

2019, 38 min

Director: Verena von Beckerath

Assistant directors: Niklas Fanelsa, Momoko Yasaka, Maximilian von Zepelin

Camera, Sound, Editing: Jens Franke

Produced by: Bauhaus-Universität Weimar

Verena von Beckerath (ed.), A Room with a View, Monroe Books, Berlin 2023

with contributions by Andrew Alberts, Ludovico Centis, Lawrence Hoque, Albrecht Kastein, Oda Pälmke and Yvonne Matijas Seguso

In this episode we travel to both Greece (EL) and London (UK), where we can Neiheiser Argyros, this time under the voice of Ryan Neiheiser.

Repetition and diference is a long-time interest of theirs.

They don't bother looking at things over and over again, “there is something about repetition that might lead to something unexpected”. However, in other to find the unexpected “you have to completely invest yourself in an idea and totally believe that it can exist in the world”.

“A big part of finding new ideas is about copying interesting ideas”.

Interesting, I might copy this idea myself.

Once we explore the idea of “reuse”, Ryan brings a new, and more precise, word to the table: spolia. “We have been trying to make use of the word “spolia” to nuance the idea of “reuse”.” And they will keep on doing it over and over again.

Guest: Ryan Neiheiser + Xristina Argyros, Neiheiser Argyros (EL + UK)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Next stop: Portugal, to meet Maria Rebelo and João Paupério, whom together in 2019, have founded Atelier Local.

Have you ever though about gosht writing applied to architecture? Maybe its more common than we think.

What is style?

Maybe, “style is what allows you to go further (…) if you repeat a same way of addressing an issue, your mind gets liberated to address other issues.

“Your own limitations travel with you wherever you go. Maybe that is what style is. (…) that’s the only way you know how to solve a problem.”

“Style is a limitation”.

Maybe.

“Once you start to reflect upon that, you start to use it more properly.”

For sure.

“We know a little bit about Palladio but we also know a little bit about ugly kitchens from our grandmothers.”

The real question here is: how local is Leroy Merlin?

Guest: Maria Rebelo + João Paupério , Atelier Local (Valongo, PT)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Next stop, Massachusetts (USA) were we met Willian O’Brien Jr, who has been developing his architectonic vision under the name WOJR since 2013.

They understand their work more as an intellectual project that has a kind of business by-product. “We think of architecture first and foremost as an act of cultural production”, they say.

“To rehearse” is probably one of their favourite activities. They rehearse ideas over and over, as they are “hoping to find an aspect of that project that helps [them] do something that [they] wouldn’t do otherwise”.

“What is unique about a thing becomes the lens which all decisions get made.”

Metaphorically speaking, something very similar to pealing an onion and finding a new layer every time. “We hope those ideas find their way into other projects.”

But is there space for “rehearsing” during construction? 

”I don’t think there is a 1-to-1 correspondence between the visualisation and the built work. One is aspirational and projective and other is, let’s say, much more opportunistic and discoverable.

“That’s something I have been thinking about a lot. What is the status of the visualisation once the work is built.”

Nevertheless, keep in mind that “it can be iterated, it can be rehearsed.”

Guest: William O’Brien Jr. , WOJR (Massachusetts, USA)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Next stop, Zurich (CH) alongside Piet Eckert, whom together with Wim Eckert founded E2A. 

Can a building ever be abstract? Can an idea ever be concrete? What about a model, how abstract can a model be? “The abstraction of a thought leads to an architectural strategy, we can produce a model that keeps this abstraction.”

With such a wide range of thoughts…how to keep our focus? Piet says he as “found  a way to deal with many conditions and not have the obligation to always think everything through.” He explains it further: “for example, a plan, is more abou how a space is organised; a model is about how a structure is creating synthesis; an image, for example, can accentuate our attention a space.”

It’s about method and about methodically taking the best out of it.

Nevertheless, for E2A, it’s important to emphasise that "the built work is always the synthesis, otherwise we have done something really wrong”.

“Its about definition and tolerance.

It’s about defining the world but making it free to be discovered.”

“I am not trying to limit things. I am trying to enable.”

“Liberty itself is not a quality.”

Guest: Piet Eckert, E2A (CH)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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Today we travel to Ghent (Belgium) to meet with Jasper Stevens and Karel Verstraenten whom, together have founded FELT architecture & design, back in 2014.

FELT favors the 'in between', creating objects and projects that oscillate between between architecture and design, scale and scaleless, between function the fiction. They “see scenography as an architectural commission”, what about vice-versa?

Sometimes they re-scale buildings to stool-size, other times, they skate stools to building-size. “This exercise of re-scale is something we do with almost everything we make.”

They believe in the importance of not ending up “with a grey, basic architecture”. Are you a believer as well?

“We are liars. We like to lie. We lie to tell a different story”. As it should.

Sometimes it is about adding sprinkles on top of frozen yogurt. (Yes, you need to listen to the episode to understand this reference.)

“There is a reference for those who wan to see it."

Guest: Jasper Stevens + Karel Verstraeten (Ghent, BE)

Host: Ana Catarina Silva (Porto, Portugal)

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