UMEÅ UNIVERSITY
UMEÅ SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE
STUDIO 12
THE SCIENCE
AND CRAFT OF BUILDING:
TECTONIC LANDSCAPES
Man-made Geographies (2022-2023)
Regenerative Eco.Infrastructures & New Cultural Grounds (2021-2022)
Tectonic Performance (2020-2021)
Performative Landscapes (2019-2020)
Tectonic Landscapes (2018-2019)
Social Landscapes (2017-2018)



Studio12: Tectonic Landscapes 2018-2019
MA Programme, Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University.
Studio Responsible: Alejandro Haiek
Tutors: Marie Kraft, Rocío Pina

Technical assistance: Håkan Hansson, Kent Brodin, Sven- Erik Hilberer

UMA4: Carolina Carsjö, Cédric Timmermans, Robbe Cornelis, Martin Henneberg, Johannes Henriksson, Oscar Landing, Anna Lindström, Rebecka Littbrand, Johanna Lundström, Sam Nemati, Rima Ohanyan, Minna Portinson, Jeanette Skinnars, Elliot Sundlin, Tommy Vince, Emma Wretman, AK Aswin, Aina García I Manau, Rovina George, Marie Roels
UMA5: Elisabeth Sara Emilsdottir, Marie Eriksson, Maxine Lundström, Olov Lövström, Ehsan Mussa, Angelica Nilsson


Building - Performances: Architectural relation with Time
Temporality and Permanency
The architecture is a built body: a skeleton (structure), a skin (enclosures), and organs (technical devices) establish a delicate and complex system assembles by parts that responds to gravity, environment, use, and time.

Tectonics in architecture relates to the science of construction. Yet the notion of tectonics raises construction to an art form, through the symbiosis of technical requirements and creative design. Contemporary architectural production shows a certain ability to apply sustainable artistic and architectural methods, introducing new hybrid conditions to the built environment. Geometry, patterns, modular structures, construction and fabrication systems, material explorations, and sustainability, constitutes an innovative field of research to identify the physical limits of architecture as an advanced creative discipline.

The studio agenda developed new languages, morphologies, and atmospheres, using tectonic expression and its relation with time, through temporary and permanent design tasks. Combining building science and artistic processes, the studio became a platform to explore methods that allow us to learn by making, design by testing, and explore by research.



Studio Agenda
Geopolitical, social, and environmental concerns was the context of our exploration during the year, where we tested infrastructures for engagement able to host life of humans and non-human species. The studio operated as a support for advocacy projects focusing on social and environmental reengineering. The studio started by analysing pattern geographies: territories, ecologies, industries and regional inhabitation, addressing how they can be affected by architecture and spatial design from the molecular to the planetary scale. Students generated architectural and territorial design proposals, developing supportive infrastructures and regional visions. Studio 12 stands on a strong technical agenda. The project in the Fall term concentrated on temporal devices of engagement, exploring flexible components, fast assembly logics and the underlying mechanics of materiality. In the Spring term these explorations developed into complex living systems, leading to new socio-ecological models of inhabitation. The complementary agendas provided a wider understanding of available human and environmental resources and technological possibilities.


Studio Methodology
The studio implemented a methodology of learning by making, thereby integrating new knowledge into a practicable design proposal. The studio developed preparatory technical and professional research and studies through experimentation and testing. The Studio operated as a research platform combining digital and analogical design methods, using open-source technologies and traditional building techniques.
The studio unfolded a comprehensive number of physical models, mock-ups, and prototypes, building a library of experiments able to lead the research progressively to a fully resolved design.
Through a continuous dialogue between artistic production and technical expertise the projects expanded in a holistic comprehension of the science and craft of building.
TECTONIC EXPLORATION
MATERIAL EXPLORATION
In Studio 12, the whole life of a building is discussed. The students investigate how buildings age, pass away and degrade, proposing methods for dismantling and transforming its components for new uses. The fascination for structures of fast assemblage is as potent as for infrastructures of legacy.
The building systems produced in Studio 12 compile an atlas of tools and handcraftsmanship, creating a valuable collective document of cultural heritage preservation, environmental impact and socially sustainable principles.
Studio 12 | Tectonic Performance is not a parametric Studio. The Studio democratize design tools by demystifying digital fabrication and parametricism. It provide a field for innovation to review the physical and operational limits of Architecture: manually produced or technologically assisted.
Operating in-between, traditions and science merge to preserve artisanal technics and an ethical perspective of the Industry. The studio recognize technological implementations as parameters of a complex understanding of the built.
The exercises have been producing alternative methods that cross fluidly between the physical and digital world providing a wide range of variables and technological approaches.
The studio opens up an honest discussion about the time of building: from fast assembling fascination to infrastructures of legacy. The research projects get deep into how buildings age, dismantle or disappear, mindfully reflecting about cultural heritage preservation and environmental impact.
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tutors
  • Alejandro Haiek
    founder & studio leader
  • Marie Kraft
    co-tutor
  • Rocío Pina
    co-tutor
contact
  • Alejandro Haiek Coll
    MSc Architect // PhD. Candidate at Universitá di Genova.
    Affiliate researcher at RISE - Research institute of Sweden.
    Lecturer at Umeå School of Architecture, Umeå University
    SE-90187 Umeå, Sweden
    +46 73 380 39 26
    alejandro.haiek@umu.se

    www.labprofab.org
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