STORIES OF INHABITED SPACES
What happens after spaces and buildings are created? Why do some buildings get better over time and others worse or even demolished? What kind of architecture allows for a sustainable evolution from the drawing board to the built product? How to create spaces adapted and adaptable time and again where users meet their changing needs over time? What do these spaces and buildings 'look like' and 'feel like'? How can the current, changed and changing use of these buildings be made visible in drawings and models?
Studio3 students explore aspects of architecture's evolving nature by studying four buildings in Havana, Cuba, which are documented in Mira Kongstein's Editing Havana book. In assigned groups, the exploration entails the abstraction of the building/space in a 1:50 section model. The model has two parts; one section describing as it is now, after the accumulation of different layers over time; the other part as it was supposed to be 'originally'.
In addition, each student works on an A1 drawing depicting aspects of interest, not seen in the model. They are related to the traces of ordinary lives, making visible how people transformed the building and its spaces. The drawing is not intended to be an abstraction like the model but a representation of the users' and building's 'life', showing elements of usage and changes over time.
