LUCR Projects – Veritas University

The projects presented below show the final results of a one-year-long studio agenda developed at the Unidad de Titulación 5 (our own kind of diploma unit 5) at Veritas University School of Architecture in San Jose, Costa Rica.

During the past year, students engaged with infrastructure and its relevance for the production of space, and developed projects with a various range of programs, scales and locations, from port terminals and coastal management to airport cities. But most significantly, all students were deeply committed with critical social and environmental agendas, utilizing architecture as a political means towards raising  public awareness of specific issues of social and environmental justice.

Since we started this Unit in 2011, we took a risk of introducing a new discipline to the traditional academic curriculum, a discipline that presented a challenge for old fashion urban design courses and brought a completely new approach to the relevance of landscape design for better city making in our context.  The redefinition of research methods, graphic and modeling techniques were part of the tactics needed for changing the status quo.

Many thanks to Msc Wendy Molina, course tutor, who brought a very interesting balance to the course from the urban sociology perspective, a key input for the amazing results we proudly present.

Many thanks to our students Alejandro Ramirez, Natalia Castro, Priscilla Ruiz, Pamela Hector, Andrés Lara, Diego Sanchez, Maricruz Campos, Jeanine Atencio, Daniela Quesada, Cristina Guell, Silvia Gallegos and Marcus Brown, for their exceptional commitment and professional attitude.

 

Silvia Gallegos – Marcus Brown

Alejandro Ramirez

 

Priscilla Ruiz

Natalia Castro

 

 

Pamela Hector

 

Diego Sanchez

Cristina Guell

Maricruz Campos

Jeanine Atencio

Daniela Quesada

2013 Graduation Projects Public Presentations

We proudly invite you to be part of our students´ graduation projects public presentations to be celebrated during this week at the Veritas University School of Architecture.

Students, tutors and an invited panel of juries will join in a presentation/exhibition of exemplary projects, models and drawings exploring possible scenarios for regional city making along Highway 27, from the city center in the country´s capital San José to the Pacific Coast.

The presentations will show projects questioning -and resisting- traditional models of practice, bridging landscape, architecture and infrastructure as basic elements to fabricate spatiality.

All invited!

Feb 11

Andrés Lara – Estrategia de crecimiento urbano – Guacima Alajuela

1:00 PM – Aula 414

Pamela Hector – Intervención Regional en el CABO

4:00 PM – Aula 414

Feb 13

Alejandro Ramirez – Ciudad Aeropuerto Orotina

 Priscilla Ruiz – Caldera. Renovación Urbano – Portuaria

Natalia Castro – Ciudad Tic. Ciruelas – El Coyol

7:00 PM – Auditorio Roberto Sasso Sasso

Tutors

Wendy Molina

Carlos Umaña Gambassi

OPEN DAY – PROJECTS EXHIBITION

We invite you to come and participate in the annual Projects Exhibition to be celebrated as part of the Veritas Festival of Architecture 2012.

During August 16th-17th, the Veritas University School of Architecture will be holding two full days of lectures and units presentations to an invited panel of guests and juries, exhibiting  work developed by students in each of the units throughout the school.

We gladly invite you to take a look at our exhibition space, and listen to our students present their work.

LU CR at the XI Costa Rica Architecture International Biennale

We proudly announce that in the recently celebrated XI Architecture International Biennale in San José, Costa Rica, LUCR tutor Carlos Umaña won the Honorary Mention in the Research Category with the project Tactical Morphologies, developed for his final project at the MA in Landscape Urbanism programme at the Architectural Association School of Architecture, London UK.

In addition to that, LUCR former students Sergio Frugone and Ricardo Sevilla were honoured two honorary mentions each in the categories of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism, at the Architecture International Student Biennale, with their graduation projects – both developed in the LUCR unit at Véritas University School of Architecture.

The award is given by the Colegio Federado de Ingenieros y Arquitectos de Costa Rica – CFIA, and evaluated by a jury composed of renowned national and international architects from academic and professional backgrounds. It honors exceptional projects in the categories of architecture, landscape and research and it is given every two years as the highest achievement for a project in architecture nationally.

This five honorary mentions received are good indicators that our intentions and attitudes towards reshaping the territory are in focus, and will keep going stronger.

You can see images of the boards presented below

10 001 HITS

Our blog just reached today 10 001 visitors since we opened it just months ago.

A huge thank you to all our visitors and subscribers!

We opened this blog as an effort to contribute to the discussion of subjects relevant to the landscape urbanism discipline and as a communication tool to exhibit the progress and outcomes of our academic Unit at Veritas University in Costa Rica.

Stay tuned for the next year´s agenda, as we will shift our praxis but will remain constant to our  intention to redefine traditional models of practice to bridge the gap between landscape, urbanism and architecture in order to positively reshape the territory.

Stay tuned!

 

TACTICAL MORPHOLOGIES – Tallinn Architecture Biennale – Estonia

LU CR tutor Carlos Umaña will be participating along with other selected projects of the AALU masters program in the Tallinn Architecture Biennale to be realized in Estonia this Sep 8 – 11, 2011.

More info of the event here

http://www.tab.ee

http://www.arhitektuurikeskus.ee

PROJECT: TACTICAL MORPHOLOGIES. Resisting the Uncertainty of Strategic Planning

RUGAO CITY MASTERPLAN – 2020

THE CITY OF RUGAO, LOCATED NORTH IN THE YANGTSE RIVER DELTA, IS EXPERIENCING IMPORTANT TRANSFORMATIONS WITHIN ITS LANDSCAPE.

RAPID INDUSTRIALIZATION PROCESSES AND MARKET ORIENTED URBAN DEVELOPMENTS ARE TRANSFORMING COMPLETY THE URBAN SCENARIO, WITHOUT ANY CONSIDERATION OF THE SOCIAL STRUCTURES OF  VERY TRADITIONAL AGRICULTURAL-BASED SOCIETY, OR THE NATURAL HABITATS AND ENVIRONMENTAL SYSTEMS ON SITE, ENDANGERING ONE OF THE MOST VALUABLE CULTURAL LEGACIES IN EAST CHINA.

BECAUSE OF THE LACK OF PLANNING, UNCONTROLLED INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT HAS FRAGMENTED THE FABRIC INTO SEPARATE AREAS OF PRODUCTION AND PATCHES OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT WITH HIGHLY CONTAMINATED SOILS VERY CLOSE TO THE CITY CENTER.

TACTICAL MORPHOLOGIES, TAKES ADVANTAGE OF POTENTIAL VOIDS THAT INDUSTRY WILL BE LEAVING INSIDE THE CITY – AS NEW DEVELOPMENTS OF INDUSTRIAL PARKS ARE BEING BUILT ON THE PERIPHERY-  AND USES THEM TO REGENERATE THE ONCE TOXIC URBAN LAND INTO A NEW NETWORK OF GREEN-PRODUCTIVE PUBLIC SPACES. BY USING GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE, THE PROJECT CHANGES THE TRADITIONAL ROLE OF NATURE IN THE CITY, FROM AN OPTIONAL FACILITY TO THE DETERMINANT FACTOR FOR THE FUTURE FUNCTIONING AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE CITY, WITH THE OBJECTIVE TO CREATE THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT, LINKING THE INNER URBAN FABRIC  WITH THE AGRICULTURAL LAND.

BY USING SOIL REMEDIATION -BIOREMEDIATION- CONSISTING IN BIOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES THAT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF PROCESSES DEVELOPED BY PLANTS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES FROM POLLUTANTS, ARTIFICIAL TOPOGRAPHIES ARE GENERATED TO ACHIEVE NON-LINEAR URBAN ATMOSPHERES WHERE PRODUCTIVE LANDSCAPES, PUBLIC SPACES AND MIXED LAND USES AND CAN COMBINE.

THE PROJECT WILL TAKE ACTION IN THE LOW SCALE OF “DOING”, RETHINKING THE VOIDS AND SPACES LEFT BEHIND IN THE CITY BY THE UNCERTAINTY OF STRATEGIC APPROACHES, COMBINING THEM SYSTEMATICALLY IN ORDER FOR THEM TO ADAPT WHERE ANY SITUATION DEMANDS.

TACTICALLLY RESIST THE TOP DOWN ACTIONS AND MARKET-ORIENTED URBAN PLANNING BY  REDEFINING METHODOLOGIES AND REESTABLISHING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN NATURE AND THE BUILT ENVIRONMENT

QUESTIONING THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SPACE, AND PRODUCTIVE AND URBAN LANDSCAPES

LUCR exhibition space – in progress – FAV

Some images of the LUCR exhibition space currently beeing developed for the VEritas Architecture Festival.

We will be showcasing the work produced by our students through out the year and presenting the best projects to an invited panel of international critics.

Stay tuned…

 

Veritas Architecture Festival – ECOLOGIC STUDIO

The Veritas University School of Architecture will be celebrating the annual projects review starting this August 17th.
The exhibition will show the results of the annual agendas developed by more than 450 students in 15 design units.

This year’s exhibition theme will be “Biodiversity, Technology and Design”, and the school is running a series of lectures and discussion platforms that will set Veritas and Costa Rica as a leading and emergent developer of such issues worldwide.

Renowned national and international architectural practices as Ay A Studio – Paris (www.ayarchitecture.com), Dear Architects – Mexico (www.deararchitects.com), Marcos Cruz – London (director of the Bartlett School), Benjamin Garcia – London(www.richardrogers.com), EcoLogic Studio – London, and many others  will be lecturing during the exhibition.

As one of the main events, Ecologic Studio will be directing a one-week workshop open to students and professionals called  “Urban Biodiversity. The San Jose Bio-Social Network Infrastructure.”

More info on the workshop and the festival after the break…

http://www.uveritas.ac.cr/fav/

LU/CR- FIRST TERM REVIEW

We are sincerely thankful  for the many long hours, patience and hard work put in by the hole group during this first term of experimentation. Above all, for the attitude and willingness towards learning something new, opening to new ideas and new ways of doing.

Thank you very much to everyone involved, students, invited critics, and specially to the direction of the School of Architecture for betting hard on our studio.

We will keep experimenting, as part of our strong initiative to push the limits of architecture and urbanism.  Stay tuned for the next term agenda!

Projects after the break…

Diana Cascante

Ricardo Sevilla

Pamela Hector

Alejandro Cruz

Cristina Guell

Daniel Palma

Paula Zumbado

Carol Wesson

TRAINING AS AN ARCHITECT, THINKING ABOUT ARCHITECTURE

During the first decade of the twenty-first century, nine architects from Costa Rica studied at the AA at undergraduate and postgraduate levels. The path that each of them chose for their training as an architect, as well as the particular relationship they established with architecture, has marked a new episode in Costa Rican architectural culture.

Throughout May and part of June, each of the AA graduates living in the country will be presenting their ideas, tools and the modalities through which they make, speak and think about architecture. The aim of the event is to draw on the diversity of relationships that each of the participants sets out with architecture in order to open new spheres of action for the discipline, and extend its potential and role in Costa Rica.

The event is organised by Valeria Guzman and will take place in the Auditorium of the School of Architecture at the University of Costa Rica, every Wednesday at 5.30.

4 May, Juan C. Sanabria, MSc
Atmospheres, Neighborhoods and Schools: The Intangible Education of an Architect

11 May, Jaime Sol, Arq.
Ornament and the Art of Exposure

18 May, María P. Saenz, MA
(Re) Discovering the Role of Architecture

25 May, Carlos Umaña, MA
Digitally Fabricated Cities

1 June, Valeria Guzmán, Dra.
Obstructions

8 June, Diego van der Laat, Arq
24 Architectures per Second
+
Conclusion

Valeria Guzmán Verri, MA PhD Histories & Theories of Architecture, AA
Universidad de Costa Rica Escuela de Arquitectura I
valeriaguzman@aaschool.ac.uk

http://www.aaschool.ac.uk//PUBLIC/NEWSNOTICES/schoolNews.php?item=429