Felipe Mesa & Catherine Spellman
Orange 1
A Design-Build Experience in Arizona
In the teaching and practice of architecture, when we agree to work with available materials and situations to build, we are interacting with three types of constraints: intrinsic (for example, the inherent qualities of a material), imposed (generated by external agents: budgets, communities, materials, construction techniques, possible geometries, etc.) and self-imposed (preferences or inclinations of the authors).
In architecture, opportunities for improvisation emerge in the face of the constraints at stake, and we find them in the fissures they leave. In our Design-Build Studio / Spring 2021, we understood improvisation as the erratic and collaborative process that a group of two professors, thirty-three students, and a diverse team of consultants carried out to make the “Orange 1” project a reality.
This small-format building, located on the University campus, will function as an outdoor classroom for educational and leisure activities during Covid-19 and beyond. It is an excellent example to understand improvisation as an activity always linked and in tension with the constraints: the client, the budget, and some technical limitations imposed various relevant aspects of the project. These include such aspects as the methods of construction, participation of students and faculty, general shape, size, material, color, and primary program. With these constraints in mind, our team made decisions about the design of the building including the variation of the façades, the spacing of screen members, and the geometry of the roofs and columns.
The resulting project is a permeable building, resistant and adapted to the climatic conditions of the desert, and open to multiple uses. Additionally, the student consolidation and interest in community engagement has led to this innovative and unexpected design proposal and the construction of this building. This project raises questions about what is relevant today in architectural education. We firmly believe in a model of education that challenges the student with constraints and collective improvisation.
BIOGRAPHIES
FELIPE MESA
Is a Founder member and Principal in PLAN: B Architects, a design practice based in Medellin, Colombia. Mesais an Assistant Professor in The Design School (Architecture Program) at Arizona State University. Mesa understands the architectural project as a provisional pact, a permeable configuration, and a positive expression of the eco-social constraints surrounding us. His projects and research topics related to the practice and teaching of architecture have been published in 4 books by Mesaestandar Editors: Partial Agreements (2005), Awaiting Architecture (2007), Permeability(2013), Architecture in Reverse (2017); and one book by AR+D Publishing: 12 Projects in 120 Constraints (2021).
CATHERINE SPELLMAN
Is a professor and registered architect. She has served The Design School in several administrative roles including: graduate coordinator, interim director, associate director for academic affairs and coordinator of architecture. She is currently TDS associate director for faculty. Her research and creative activities include numerous community-engage and public place-making projects for local municipalities. She has authored and edited three books: Re-Envisioning Landscape/Architecture, A Space for Our Generation, Peter Smithson (co-edited with Karl Unglaub) and Conversations and Allusions, Enric Miralles. With assistant professor Felipe Mesa she is currently establishing a design build program at ASU. She is the recipient of several teaching awards including the AIA Arizona Educator Award.