NEWSFLASH from the Faculty of Architecture at the TU Delft (Netherlands): Winy Maas will start a very ambitious studio/research project at the Faculty. In collaboration with the Delft School of Design (PHd studio of the Faculty), the Berlage Institute (Rotterdam) and MVRDV.
So first what is this Why Factory, their mission statement:
The Why Factory (T?F) is a exploratory body that analyzes, theorizes and constructs future cities. T?F is an independent entity of a network, operating from the purity and beauty of sicence and fiction.
Besides the proposed circus of lectures, exhibitions, multimedia and a quarterly publication the first concrete projects is the launch of two Master 2 studio’s (second semester, 1st year Master of Architecture). Titles are The Green Dream and World Wonders.
The Green Dream (some excerpts ):
The New Green project intends to be both constructive and imaginative. Whether we will be comparing environmental standards, designing a city, or building a car, we will use environmental aspects to project new qualities, and, maybe further new urban cultures. In the end we want to see our environment as a source of inspiration rather than a necessary burden.
(…)
Green is becoming more and more omnipresent within our discipline. Today we are required to provide designs, that save energy and do not pollute the air … It turns out that the environmental knowledge in architecture is very technical and there is little place for aesthetics and imagination. Does the ecological building have its proper representation, going beyond the straw roof? Or beyond technocratic images produced by corporate architectural offices?
World Wonders (some excerpts):
World Wonders is a design studio, which proposes new man-made monuments by questioning what constitutes the ‘wonder’. Understanding and (re)defining the parameters of wonder is the fundamental aspect of this project.
all the excerpts are from the introductory flyer of T?F (pdf) from T?F website
I have to say, the ambitions and the questions asked are compelling. Idea machine Winy Maas is on a roll, now we’ll just have to wait and see what happens and if it can live up to the expectations. But with getting Maas into the Architecture faculty of Delft, the new Faculty dean Wytze Patijn continues to build up the prestige of the Faculty. Hans Beunderman (former dean) brought in Kas Oosterhuis and has put the research and theory department on the academic map with founding the DSD, which even has it’s own studio space in NYC (which has been hardly used yet since it’s inauguration (early summer 2007)). A more uplifting note is that the DSD launched their own academic journal Footprint (pdf versions for free!), which looks quite promising, I scanned the articles, of which I’ll certainly read a few.