Oscar Andrade & Isadora Aubel
Calculation and uncertainty: the Travesías of the School of Architecture and Design PUCV.
ABSTRACT
Since 1984, professors and students of the PUCV school of architecture and design have carried out annual Travesias, poetic trips through the American continent.During the Journey, the participants collectively conceive and build works of architecture, design and art that are donated to the continent and its people. This presentation focuses on the relationship between the calculation and the uncertainty implicit in the entire Journey. The central argument of this presentation is that the calculation-uncertainty relationship that marks the creative action of a Voyage has poetic bases formulated in two fundamental precedents: the Phalène and the Amereida.
The first part of the presentation examines these precedents, collecting notions and approaches that characterize these experiences from the constant mediation of their peripeteia and adventure. Among the notions examined are those of “poetic calculation” and “calculation of the Travesía”. Furthermore, the article advances that these experiences determine a particular way of understanding improvisation. Far from understanding improvisation as a spontaneous and random action, in the Travesía, improvisation involves a calculation that seeks to voluntarily arouse the irruption of the unknown. The participants of the Travesía comprehend this irruption as an opening that reveals a new meaning or singularity of the place. This opening gives a destination to the place and provides a horizon to the work of architects, designers and artists.
Finally, the presentation presents as case studies two Travesías made by the authors in 2015 and 2016. These two Travesías show how the calculation-uncertainty relationship manifests itself both in the experience of the trip as well as in the construction work, both understood as projects that have a verification when meeting the reality of the place. As a result, the development of a Travesía work questions planning understood as predetermined steps to achieve a known result. Travesía’s work is built by approaching thinking and doing from an attentive reading of the circumstances of the present and the particularities of the place.
BIOGRAPHIES
ÓSCAR ANDRADE
Is an architect from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (2009), a Master in Nautical and Maritime design PUCV (2011), and a PhD candidate in Architecture at the Technische Universiteit Delft, the Netherlands. He is a professor at the School of Architecture and Design PUCV since 2013; he has participated in 9 Travesías through the American continent and projects in Ciudad Abierta. Since 2020 his teaching activity focuses on the initial cycle of the architecture career, which he intersects with his research interests on collectiveworking formats, architectural education, and interdisciplin ary encounters between architecture and arts.
ISADORA AUBEL
Is an architect from the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Valparaíso (2019), student in the Master Program in Architecture and Design PUCV and part of the “Extension, City and Habitability” research line. As a student she participated in 4 Travesías through the American continent and was a DAAD exchange scholarship holder (2017-2018). Her current research focuses on the formal adaptation, resilience capacity of informal settlements, and the relationship between dwellers and self-built edification. She is assistant professor in the initial cycle of the architecture career at the School of Architecture and Design PUCV since 2020.