Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

#031 OUEST: "How to make a building as a swiss knife?"

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Arquitetura Entre Vistas ABROAD

#031 OUEST: "How to make a building as a swiss knife?"

Year: 2024

Location: Porto, Portugal

The Arquitetura Entre Vistas podcast began in 2020 with the curiosity of an architecture student who wanted to learn more about the ideas behind architecture—behind the built project, behind chosen designs, selected photographs, and published books.

 

It was amidst so many questions that Catarina realised:

“Why not to ask directly to those in the know?”

 

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)

 

Released 

Listen here