Architectural toys - first semester 2023-2024

This year I condensed even more the theoretical part of the course. It's true, over time and with so many repetitions, the result is to be increasingly synthetic and focus the course on the most important and pertinent things.

Sometimes fewer things in more time is more effective than a barrage of information that is of little use to students.

The result was more careful, more complex and more interesting work. The students themselves felt the difference and, once again, enjoyed the course.

Architectural toys at FAUP 2022/2023

One of the things I like about teaching is that even if I repeat the course every year, the results always change. Because students are always different, with different profiles, backgrounds and interests.

Despite that, this year I decided to change some things in the course, starting with the name. Now it is called "The ludic construction of architecture", paraphrasing the well-known book by Giorgio Grassi "The logical construction of architecture".

In addition, I reorganized the classes, synthesizing the subject and leaving more time to follow the work.

The result was many more candidates and works with a very high quality level.

Here some examples:

Pietro Alfano and Gábor Houchard work is inspired by the game Cadavre exquis (exquisite corpse), a collaborative drawing approach first used by surrealist artists to create bizarre and intuitive drawings. With a careful selection of images, the user can create several configurations that combine basements, facades and roofs.

Architectural toys at FAUP - 2020/2021

Another edition of my course at FAUP is over. This year I decided to change the course name for Architectural toys - A construção lúdica da Arquitectura (the ludic construction of architecture). The new name can cover more manifestations of what I call "educational project in architecture". I also reinforced and extended the field of contents because I found a deeper connection with arts, especially with the vanguards in the beginning of XX century. The new syllabus caused a little change in the student's works, now more abstract, that you can see below. Because the pandemic condition I canceled the cube exercise and we focused on the main practical or theoretical works. 

Ana Luis Fernandes Alago 

 

Ana Rita Santos Couto

 

Andrè Daniel Mendes Ferreira

 

 

Anna Lisa Senius 

Bruno Alves Guimarães

 

Carla Andreina Garcia Vera

 

Carolina da Silva Pereira

 

Chiara Cali'

Erika Nurmberger e Lucas Keller

 

Francisco Alberto Magalhães Peneda Ferreira

 Giulia Di Perna

Gustavo Kinjiro Murena

 

Maria Luis Coelho Nogueira

 

Mariana Costa Abreu

 

 

Mariana Rafaela Ramalho Araújo 

 

Mónica Cristina Jardim Dias

Parzival Pedro Schneider

Stéphanie Dijck Amorim da Silveira

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