Best of the Week

This week, we spend an entire afternoon at the Oficina, the fantastic space for experimental theatre in São Paulo, Brazil, designed by Lina Bo Bardi, we meet José Celso Martinez Corrêa, one of the founders of the company that revolutionized Brazilian theatre. In San Francisco, we report back from an exhibition at the SFMOMA, which looks for traces of Buckmister Fuller in the world as we see it today, and points to credible signs that his fingerprints are all over the dynamic concepts and multi-functional aesthetics that drive modern architecture and design.

Visiting the KNSM island in the North of Amsterdam, we find a house inside a generous loft, where Dutch studio Marc Koehler Architects has created a series of independent volumes which allow for a contrast between intimate, closed spaces and open, shared passages. Also in Amsterdam, the What Design Can Do! conference opens space for a healthy discussion on the social issues that can be tackled by design. In our weekly Op-Ed, Johan van Lengen offers his take on building proper housing for poor populations, defending that technology can be found all around us, if only we know where to look. Often architects seem to have the answers, but that does not mean we have asked the right questions.

A House like a Village
A news report from Amsterdam
The building's vast space is divided in a settlement-like manner, emulating a group of small houses inside the main dwelling. Thus, small "streets" emerge as multifunctional living spaces for activities such as playing, partying, washing and working. In contrast, a series of "house-like" volumes contain less mobile spaces, such as bedrooms, bathroom, and storage. Compressing spaces such as the bedroom, the architects achieve a series of open spaces that expand. The "streets" carry daylight right into the heart of the house, and allow for views outwards. According to the architects, the open spaces can be "colonized" in the future, constructing extra volumes, when the family expands.
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The street is a theatre
An architecture report from São Paulo by Roberto Zancan
An entire afternoon at the Oficina, the fantastic space for experimental theatre in São Paulo, Brazil, designed by Lina Bo Bardi. The heavy wooden seats are gradually arranged in a circle at centre stage. We sit down. Photographer Pedro Kok is roaming around the theatre with his equipment when José Celso Martinez Corrêa appears dressed in a turquoise suit and white T-shirt.
In the 1950s, he was one of the founders of the company that revolutionised Brazilian theatre, and is probably the person who best embodies the meanings of, and the various controversies surrounding, Tropicalism. He is also arguably the most complete cannibal among all those who have been inspired by Oswald de Andrade. Known as Zé Celso, he is the centre of activity for more than a dozen employees: young directors, actors, actresses, artists, engineers, designers, journalists and architects, including his brother João Batista Martinez Corrêa and his granddaughter Beatriz Pimenta Corrêa, who together were responsible for the recent project to expand the theatre. We came here in the company of curator and writer Daniela Castro and José Lira, an architect and university professor who also worked as editor on the interview.
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The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area
An architecture report from San Francisco by Katya Tylevich
Utopian Impulse examines Fuller's (sometimes literal) presence in many seminal movements and experiments from the 1970s, including those of the avant-garde architecture collective, Ant Farm. Ant Farm's proposal for a domed city, called "Convention City 1976," is one particularly striking example on display, among others: in the form of models, videos, and photographs we see a media-centric public arena in a city built for 20,000 inhabitants (most of them "actors" clued into the roles demanded of their turned-on and on-view center of activity). A clever and even eerie foreshadowing of the way we live now, the domed city is as relevant to say, Times Square, as to the more general "small town", in which every inhabitant watches the same nightly newscast and simultaneously casts a vote for his favorite contestant on Dancing With The Stars or Eurovision. Given the show's context, Convention City is an excellent demonstration of a work that cooks in the same juices as Fuller's, but comes out of the skillet free of any derivation, an independent and original product of its time and dialog.
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How I lost my shoes
An op-ed from Rio de Janeiro by Johan van Lengen
Unwilling to compromise, I withdrew from this game in which I could no longer believe. Technology, including alternative ones, can be found all around us if only we know where to look. Often we seem to have the answers, but that does not mean we have asked the right questions. I feel it will be necessary to provide ways of stimulating people to question their situation and learn to look for those who might have the answers.
While working in Mexico on human settlement design, I was asked to make building instruction posters and games. I also worked with local populations to teach about earthquake-resistant structures. Noticing that far too much cement was used, we set about making very thin curved floor panels, which worked very well. Furthermore, to improve sanitary conditions we introduced self-built prefabricated water filters and dry composting toilets. Everything was made from ferrocement, except that instead of using metal reinforcing we recycled open woven plastic food bags from markets.
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What design can do
A design report from Amsterdam by Inês Revés
"Design can bring unconventional solutions to prevailing problems", said Eberhard Van der Laan, kicking off his inaugural speech. Van den Laan is the mayor of Amsterdam, the city that welcomed the second edition of the What Design Can Do! conference, on 10 and 11 May 2012. His speech set the tone for what the two days ahead would bring – inspiring talks, workshops and even music performances – all for the sake of opening a healthy discussion on "The Connecting Forces of Design" – this year's theme. Speakers from all over the world took stage at the beautiful Stadsschouwburg theatre, which was dressed in a yellow and red setting, the bold colours that characterize the conference's graphic communication. The conference brought together professionals from crossover disciplines, in order show the impact of their work, and bringing to a European stage a discussion on social issues that can be tackled by design.
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