Technical University of Munich - Bianca Woisetschläger, Anna Maly

The Technical University of Munich (in the south of Germany) is one of the best architectural Universities in Germany, because of this special and really important "technique" they are teaching us since we started to study there.

Our home university is famous for his drawing classes and his drawing style.
Every student has to start drawing in the first semester, where you have to learn the basics. In the second semester you go outside and learn to draw the beautiful buildings of Munich by sitting in the city and watching them. The course is not just taught by one professor furthermore it is divided in little groups which are lead by assistants and tutors (who are major students).
The highlight of every drawing class is a one week journey to a beautiful city in Italy (when it was our turn we were going to Venice; there are some impressions in the video below) where you intensify your techniques by drawing 8 hours or even more every day.
There you use the different techniques, like perspectives (bird view, one point perspective, two point perspective, 3 point perspective, frog perspective, shadow construction, stair construction, dome construction, sections, fish eye ect.) you have learned the whole year.
Because of the strict process you have to follow, even the persons who could not draw in the first lectures, are now able to produce beautiful drawings. After the second semester you are able to join further courses like nude drawing and aquarelling.
Everyone developed his own style of drawing and used it in every project we had since that.
For our University it is especially important that every student could express himself through his drawings and that they use it as often as computer drawing. You are even not allowed to draw with the computer the first year, all the drawings and floor plans, etc had to be made by hand.

We couldn´t decide which one we prefer, so we are uploading two pictures of two different students.

We also have a own blog to upload our drawings from our year abroad (which is obligatory in our university) So feel free to check out the sketches of countries from all over the world.

http://logbookmunich.com

And if you are interested in the video of Venice:

Bianca and Anna

Architecture School of Alicante_EvaCandela

                                   Technique: "Bionic origami"

Dressing architecture

1st Place 2013 Graduate Architecture Award Dressing Architecture

Architect: Irina del Olmo

In this project the strong technical point is the use of different techniques and fields used in the whole process. Models that start from origami and evolve to structures which, by means of technology, both register the human movement and shelter the body, with the aim of dissolving the limits between the different layers and scales that surround us.

The models seem to be the result of the experimentation with materials, beginning with paper and improving to other materials as, light wood, plastic and nets that remain allowing the movement as paper, so that the main concept doesn't disappear but it is reinforced by the whole net of content relations.

The final model, made with pieces of light wood cut with a laser service and joint to allow a flexible movement are connected to a pc program and controlled by a sensors suit that takes real information from the body.

It is worthy to see the video: Dressing architecture

Technique: Tempera over photographic imprint

Saline Joniche

First price Concorso per la Riqualificazione del Waterfront di Saline Joniche e la realizzazione di un Parco Naturale e Antropico, Provincia di Reggio Calabria, 2012

Architects: Francisco Leiva Ivorra (Grupo Aranea), Marco Scarpinato (AutonomeForme)

The chosen technique consist on painting with tempera over an inkjet printer's photo imprint. This manual short of photo edition has a quite magic result, as the colors starts mixing by water's action, transparent effects can be revealing  more or less the truth of the image or the author's intention over it. In fact, the image is just a formwork for the author's imagination, a mould to be broken, improved, hidden, sunk...  Focus of light can be added by different layers of light colors over the first paint once dried.

It is really important the quality of the imprint as well as the paper support (current paper), as has been said it needs to be inkjet imprint with water tempera to allow colors mix, laser imprints are waterproof and they won't allow the technique to be well developed.

Advantages over the digital photo editor. Of course image editors are more than enough developed but the strong point of this technique is the expressivity it offers of the concepts behind it, according with the speed of it and the intuition. A good technique not only for final drawings but also to reinforce preliminary intuition.

But the relevance of this projects does not only remain on the drawing technique (as well as on Leiva's hand and drawing ability), but of course on the management on the project itself that is quite identifying of Aranea's group, based on the emotions and the natural geometry.

Saline Joniche consists on the recovery of an industrial area in a sustainable context, letting the environment grow freely controled restoring the natural balance while keeping the printouts of previous human mistakes, to keep the consciousness aware. The project does not only focus on the industrial area itself but also on the relation of the main area with other near spots generated by accidental events.

On the photo, the industrial area sunk as final propose and its natural flourish all made with the mentioned technique.

T3 - interview

Hogeschool van Amsterdam, Danny Janse

Because i study Urban Design the project itself isn't such a good example for Architecture-students, but i'm sure the technique itself could be helpful for showing changes over a time.

What i've done is basically draw a basic 3D-model (can be an advanced one as well, but in this case that was't needed) and than making small changes to the project to show it's development over time.

The task for this project was to create an strategy and vision for a neighborhood in Antwerp, Belgium. And because the strategy should show the growth of the neighborhood within a certain amount of time, i've chosen to do it in this way.

The things i've used to make this are Google Earth, Adobe Illustrator and a whole lot of hours.

In Google Earth they give you the option to show a grey 3D-model of volumes of the city in the map.

By changing the view of the map you can create a bird-view over the area.

After you've done this you basically draw over the lines of the existing buildings in Adobe Illustrator to give the pictures a better resolution (which actually can't really be seen in this video). Redrawing the area took a lot of time, and this technique can only be used then you have the time to do it. Don't expect to get this done within a day. When i was finally finished i added the landscape, the highway and marked the green areas by placing trees. 

After this you can start adapting the original model to the first fase of your strategy, or just show the next step in your design. And after this one the second one.. etc..etc.

For the final touch i added the original map to the background and made some small adjustments using photoshop.

Judo as therapy

Searching for our disease I have found these video where judo can help with autism disease.

The autism part is in the minute 10´57´´ , the video is in Spanish but you have to try Erasmus.

T6 - Story

Alzheimer disease
We remember days, moments.
We remember a million feelings, a thousand thoughts ,a hundred faces.
We remember behaviors, fine motor skills.
Memories...defines our personality.

What happens, if you can´t remember?

Alzheimer is a neurodegenerative illness and the most common form of dementia.
It causes problems with thinking, memory and behavior. The majority of the affected people are
65 years old, but it can appear earlier or later. Each person is unique that´s why everyone make their own experiences in alzheimer. The disease is splitted in 7 stages. It´s difficult to know in which step the affected person is because the steps can overlap.
Stage 1: No cognitive disturbances.The illness damages already the brain without showing any symptoms.
Stage 2: Very mild cognitive disturbances. The Affected person forgets words and has difficulty recalling events that happened recently.
Stage 3: Mild cognitive disturbances. Family, Friends and employers note the first difficulties. Recognizable difficulties by the implementation of duties in working-life and social life

Stage 4: Moderate cognitive disturbances No orientation, they are losing track of the day or date, they becoming confused about the surrounding area. Forgetfulness with own, personal past.
Stage 5: Moderate strong cognitive disturbances.There appear Remarkable blackouts.

Some affected persons start to need assistance at everyday activities.
Stage 6: Strong cognitive disturbances. The memory is getting worse. Furthermore a personality change can appear and people need extensive help at everyday activities.
Stage 7: Very strong cognitive disturbances. In this last step the person loses the ability to confide in his or her surrounding area, to take part of a conversation and to control movements.

Story: Will you remember me ?

My Name is Isabel I´m 19 Years old and will I tell you the story of my grandfather’s disease.
He lives in Ibiza, in Never never land house and we always visit him. He loves nature, that´s why he chose to live in this house.

A few years ago my mother and me went to visit him during our holidays. Everything was fine but than the symptoms appeared step by step. First my Grandfather forgot the keys, but we thought it was normal because that also happens to everybody. But then he began forgetting lots of simple things as locking the door, closing the windows but someday he started to forget to take off the hotplate. When he told me his old stories which I had already heard a thousand times, he forgot many parts and always broke up in the middle because he couldn´t remember.
It was conspicuous.
My mum took him to the doctor who couldn´t see anything .
After a while we got a call: he had get lost in the city and couldn´t find the way home. After that happened we took him again to the doctor, Now he had an assumption: Alzheimer.
That changed everything. As he lived alone my mum has now to take care of him, she is always there to control everything. At the beggining, I didn´t see my mum very often and our family was splitted in two parts. When I visited him again he was in a very bad mood and isolated himself from us. He didn´t act normal like I had always known him. He always called for my grandmother and asked me where she was but she had died five years before. Everything happened so fast that the doctor said that he could take medicine but that only delays the illness. My mother was very stressed, therefore my whole family moved to his home. We had to change lot of things at the house because it was very dangerous for him. Now, he cannot live alone anymore. He needs his family and a safety home. Sometimes, he behaves normal but then like a foreign person. He is not himself anymore. He makes so many mistakes and always forgets everything very fast. We can´t stop the illness but we will be there and we will take care of him. 

T6 - Interview