Ludic Architecture - the book

In 2017 I organized the Ludic Architecture congress at FAUP. Now I would like to share the whole book to spread it's contents. Sorry about the several languages, indeed I did not translated the entire book yet. It's one of the next steps... enjoy!

Thanks to Colexio Oficial de Arquitectos Galicia for hosting the PDF file.

Architectural Toys Course at FAUP 2017/18

One more teaching experience at FAUP in the Architectural Toys Course during the academic year 2017/18. And some more very interesting results made by the students that attended the course.

The first work is based on Aldo Rossi architecture and was developed by the student Silvia Scandola. It is a construction set made by simple and colored shapes, very close to the famous Italian architect's language. Even the box was designed as a part of the toy with nine separated spaces to pack the pieces after the use.   

The pieces

The box cover

The box interior

The second work I would like to present is by the student Lucie Adoud and is a very simple idea using the Velcro technology (few peoples know that Velcro is a patented product https://www.velcro.com/). Several sticks made by foam and wraped by Velcro can be easily jointed creating several different geometries, structures and shapes.

The toy

An example of structure

Another example

The third toy is designed by Kathrin Benstem and it is inspired in the traditional tiled of the city of Porto. Kathrin created a toy through which it is possible to create the patterns that are used in the facades of Porto using stamps and ink. Is is very simple and easy to use and the results are always different. You can combine different stamps for different patterns. Beside that, all the toy has a vintage style that can really combine with the tiles tradition.

The toy

The stamps

Some results

The kit

The last work is by Mariana da Silva Ribeiro & Mariana Pereira Campos that created the "MagnetHouse - to build and color". The toy is based on magnetic joints between some simple volumes, made by steel sheet, and magnetic elements that simulate different materials.

The box made by the steel sheet volumes and the magnetic pieces

The volumes can create a building

The final result with the materials

"The Cube" exercise at 2016/17 Architectural Toys course

One more year, one more "the cube" exercise...

Also this year my students faced this exercise with several interesting results. It's amazing how different can be the cube shape and how many materials can be used in order to create it. Every year it is a surprise! Here some examples:

Brice Petitdidier

Cesar Kimenez

Fabiana Contessoto

Fraçois Perre

Heike Raab​e

João Cunha

Júlio Dinis

Camille Klein

 Mónica Castellanos

 Salomé Torossian

Ana Pazos

Clàudia Usón Delso

Coralie Bertrand

Csongor Egyed

Hugo Gómez

Javier Blasco

Joana Tomaz

Lucie Červená

Margarita Konorova

Maria Constanza Trespalacios Vilches

Marta Manca

Marta Pimenta

Mathieu Laporte

Márton Kőműves

Michael Hafner

Miguel Alves​​

Patricia Parra

Renan Antiqueira

Rodrigo Alves

Victória Baggio de Freitas

Zeeshan Elahi Aziz

Zoé Duvauchel

"The Cube" exercise at 2015/16 Architectural Toys course

Also this year I challenged my student in order to face the cube exercise and the results were amazing. I believe, more and more, that this kind of works are fundamental for students that are still far from the real production of the objects. Indeed they very rarely touch and feel the real material and the connection with wood, steel or concrete is limited to a certain patter in Autocad or a texture in some other 3D software.
Also this time the the main rule was that the solid produced should be inscribed or circumscribed in a cube, in other words the cube must be "readable" into the solid. The unique change that I introduced this year is reducing the cube size. Last year was 20 cm and this year was 15, this because the space the all cubes occupy in my office...