LUCAS DAMIANI
Architecture
The free section as a contemporary design strategy: Rem Koolhaas (1978-1999)
From the articulation of the theoretical and practical production of Rem Koolhaas in a delimited period from 1978 to 1999, this dissertation seeks to point out the defining concepts of the free section, a recurrent strategy in his production. The work starts from comments referring to architectural design, its processes and strategies related to the importance of graphic representation in design practice. Then it deals with the development of the Corbusian concept of the free plan to the free section of Koolhaas, which registers and establishes a new paradigm to deal with not only the vertical relationships inherent to the building but extends to the relationships of the building with the landscape and the built environment. For this purpose, project analysis was developed through the compilation of graphic pieces, redesign and computational modelling, when necessary, which crossed with works developed by authors such as Rafael Moneo and Peter Eisenman, enabled new readings that point to the free section as a protagonist instrument for invention in architecture. In its final part, it presents the analysis of eight projects developed by the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, demonstrating through graphic pieces, how the section can abandon its status as a simple representational graphic tool to be considered a design strategy, enabling new forms of interaction between the building and the contemporary metropolis.
Jussieu two libraries: Rem Koolhaas and the free section
This article presents an analysis of the design for two libraries in Jussieu (Paris, 1992) developed by Rem Koolhaas and the “Office for Metropolitan Architecture” seeking to extract the defining concepts of the free section, a recurring theme in his theoretical and design production. For that, new graphic pieces were developed from redrawing and computational modelling, which, when crossed with works developed by other authors such as Rafael Moneo and Peter Eisenman, allowed new readings that point to the section as the place of invention in contemporary architecture, as considered by Koolhaas. The article begins with comments referring to design processes and the importance of graphic representation in architecture. Then it deals with the development of the idea of the Corbusian free plan for Koolhaas’s free section, which proposes a new paradigm to think not only about the vertical relationships inside the building but extends itself to the relationship between the building and the landscape or the built environment. In its final part, it presents the analysis of the project for two libraries in Jussieu, demonstrating with the graphic pieces developed through the redesign, how the free section, as a design tool can enable new forms of interaction between the building and the contemporary metropolis.
Design strategies: The city-water relation in Florianópolis.
This work is the result of a reflection on the development of the city of Florianopolis and its relationships, uses and occupations that it develops along its seafront, having as a geographic cut to the intervention area the south bay in Estreito, between the mainland and the island. Through a historical research and mapping of the city based on parameters and indicators, and using a methodology of projective strategies, it is possible to carry out the following test: the projection of the development of the southern bay of Florianopolis Island, resulting in the creation of a possible future scenario aiming at a better occupation of its seafront.
Finally, a project exercise is presented, encompassing these issues dealt within this work, resulting in an architectural speculation that aims to articulate urban fabric, population, culture and sea, without undoing the inherent characteristics of the place
Design procedures: The diagram in dutch contemporary architecture
The present research discusses the concept of diagrammatic architecture, as a methodology, that is, a way of approaching the activity of design in architecture and urbanism. This methodology, based on abstract diagrams, strongly related to the contemporary production that aims to respond to the complexity faced in the globalized world. The research starts with the characterization and conceptualization of the term diagram, based on other subjects than architecture such as linguistics, semiotics according to Charles Sanders Peirce and philosophy as the abstract machine of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, based on Michel Foucault's analysis of the Panopticon. Followed by a discussion on the applicability of diagrammatic methodologies in architecture and urbanism, with a special focus on Dutch architectural production that usually is related with the use of diagrams. Three projects are analysed, from three representative offices in the global contemporary architectural panorama: OMA, MVRDV and UNStudio. Trying to understand why the Netherlands stands out in the global scenario of the diagrammatic production, and trying to answer questions raised by the Spanish architect and historian Josep Maria Montaner on the diagrammatic methodology in architecture, in the book that influenced this research: Del diagrama a las experiencias, hacia una arquitectura de la acción.
This research was funded with a scholarship by Mackenzie University from July/2017 to July/2018 and was presented at Mackenzie's XIV Jornada de Iniciação Científica e VIII Mostra de Iniciação Tecnológica - 2018