Concrete Approximations - In Pursuit of Absolute Space - Couverture souple

Ottevaere, Olivier

Couverture souple

ISBN 10 : 1957183535 ISBN 13 : 9781957183534

Editeur : Oro Editions, 2023

Synopsis

• The central project described in this book is a concrete house built in Portugal, revealed through nine design pursuits; the concepts came from a series of material experiments that arose from a prototyping effort centred on concrete casting
• The book focuses on concrete and serves as a resource for architects, designers, and academics
• Through drawings and photographs, it showcases a design and construction process aimed at creating a new architectural language inspired by concrete's primary attribute: liquid pressure, which is still largely untapped
• From the author of ORO Editions’ 2022 publication, Uncertainty: Experiments in Making from the Chinese Countryside by John Lin and Olivier Ottevaere

Concrete is ubiquitous but contentious: culturally, environmentally, and often politically. Yet, the architecture it produces across fields of practices remains pertinent to the architectural discipline and its history. Having been incessantly normalised, misused and abused by different stakeholders and agendas, some of its material attributes still remain very much untapped until now.

Liquid Pressure, one of concrete’s most vigorous properties, is always short-lived and can hardly be contained. Only its counterpart, known as the formwork or false-work in the building industry, is best at influencing and redirecting the course of its active forces.

Concrete and formwork are both the live catalyst and dichotomy explored in this book, through which new forms of spatial organisations are once more made possible. To experiment with concrete is to actively engage with its live properties, in an irreversible dance in which the concrete reacts to the formwork’s materials. In this book, two key projects are laid bare, manifesting a shift in the work from an early preoccupation with material responsiveness, to one that additionally addresses concepts of spatiality and its relation to the proposed idea of augmented materiality.

A propos du livre

À propos de l'auteur

Olivier Ottevaere is an Associate Professor of Practice at the University of Hong Kong. He is the director of Double (o) studio, an architecture practice focusing on the design integration of active structural principles, properties of materials and procedures of construction.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Oro Editions
• Date d'édition: 2023
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 1957183535
• ISBN 13: 9781957183534
• Reliure: Broché
• Nombre de pages: 168
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible