Digital Constructivism, a two-week workshop by the Architectural Association Visiting School (AAVS) taking place at the Torcuato Di Tella University School of Architecture and Urban Studies this coming July, explores the generation of material environments from conceptualization to production. Structured as a series and based on an intensive version of the creative process developed by Diploma Unit 17 of the Architectural Association in London, "Spaces for Knowledge Exchange: New Worlds of Leisure," each instance of the workshop informs the next, advancing its conceptual construction cumulatively. The series is based on the conviction that radical architecture does not require appealing to parallel or fictional worlds, but rather operating through technically precise and spatially creative decisions based on connections with a world that, while increasingly homogeneous, is replete with exceptions, specific conditions, and extraordinary situations. From these, the workshop encourages the production of speculations that transgress established cultural identities in order to define new forms of beauty.
The production of architecture and, to a large extent, our creativity are increasingly conditioned by standards, the industrialization of architectural elements, and the design tools we use. While design software packages tend to value variation less and less, the results of their use appear increasingly predetermined. Rejecting the sterility of this trend, the workshop proposes to reconsider the politics of construction with the goal of developing sophisticated yet affordable productive strategies capable of countering the dominant homogenization of architectural space. We will experiment with the integration of multiple objectives through iterative processes of digital design techniques and form-making, including prototyping experiments and material testing aimed at negotiating ideas with the determinations of reality. The goal is the realization of a 1:1 installation, reviewing its various social and economic implications.
Theo Sarantoglou Lalis is an architect and Diploma Unit Master at the Architectural Association, alongside Dora Sweijd. He has taught postgraduate courses at the Harvard Graduate School of Design and Columbia University. He has served as a Visiting Professor at Chalmers and Lund University in Sweden and has led workshops in Brazil, China, Iran, Belgium, Sweden, Australia, and the United States. He is a co-founder of LASSA Architects, based in London and Brussels, an office that operates at the intersection of the fields of art, technology, and social science. He is currently developing projects for the private and public sectors in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. LASSA has been awarded the REA European Research Grant in Partnership (2010) and was a finalist for numerous awards, such as the 2012 Chernikov Award and the Lisbon Biennale Award (2013).
