30 Oct 2009, 16:00 - 18:00
Centro de las Artes de San Agust??n, Etla.
Calle Independencia, Vista Hermosa
Oaxaca, Mexico
The Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts Vienna organizes the International conference SUSTAINABILITY VS AESTHETICS? THE MEXICAN ROOF REVISITED in Mexico
(Vienna, October 13, 2009)
SUSTAINABILITY VS AESTHETICS? THE MEXICAN ROOF REVISITED is an international conference in Oaxaca, Mexico (Centro de las Artes de San Agust??n, Etla) and a revisit of the project TECHO EN MEXICO. The two-day event is hosted by the Institute of Architecture of the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
Starting on October 30th 4pm the aim is to reconsider the topic of sustainability and aesthetics in architectural design and education, five years after the successful realization of the student project TECHO EN MEXICO.
Besides revisiting and reflecting the project in use, the Institute of Architecture invites to an international conference with leading architects Raimund Abraham, Rozana Montiel,
Wolf D. Prix, Carl Pruscha, Michael Rotondi, Mauricio Rocha from Austria, Mexico and the US, on the question of how environmental performance should relate to building form and function. A school such as the “Angewandte” bears a special responsibility in this connection, as here architecture is created with an exceptional aesthetic power to convince. To discuss the commitment to the art of spatial surprise and material virtuosity in relation to the topic of resources, sustainability and energy design is meant to provoke steps towards innovative, challenging and tangible sustainable future projects in the field of architecture.
On TECHO EN MEXICO
From 2003 to 2004 a group of seven students from the studio of Prof. Wolf D. Prix had been working on the design and realization of a community space in the Province of Oaxaca, Mexico. It was the aim to create an architectural signal and landmark for the Instituto Tonantzin Tlalli – an organization promoting land stewardship and sustainability -, marking an impulse for future developments as well as researching and applying new building technologies. Over six intensive months on site the project group undertook the building process, with the help of local labour. 6.5 kilometers of bamboo were woven into a two layered grid, which serves as primary structure of a free formed roof. This roof sets up a dialog with the surrounding landscape, shelters the community from the sun and collects rainwater for the watering of the plantations of the terrain. The project is a successful example of student realizations and a contribution in the discourse on sustainable and formally sophisticated architecture in the context of non-Western cultures. The building itself is vividly used every since.
More details at SUSTAINABILITY VS AESTHETICS?
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