Our Design Program consists of 7 different classes. All focusing on an aspect of the design spectrum. In one of these 4-week classes Carla Boomkens creates a laboratory in which the students get access to the visual language of shapes in large format/scale, through small-scale researches on the essentials of spaces and what they can express: spatial-/architectonic design. (links to: Allan Wexler, Eero Saarinen, Zaha Hadid, Paul Gehry, Rudi Riciotti
All projects have a start at the buildings of Gerrit Rietveld (1888 – 1964), the architect of the main-building of this academy. Sometimes the academy-building itself is taken as a research-location, in other cases a building is selected by the student out of his whole body of built works. In doing so, the student studies and gets acquainted with his approach to spaces and his choices to making them fit for particular needs and functions, in relation to it’s environment. (links to: Luis Barragán, Peter Callesen,
Departing from ‘the lessons we can learn from Gerrit’, which the student can easily use as a hand-grip in learning technique and working method, the student can freely develop her/his own expression of sculptural quality, choreography and a personal research for exciting spaces. As you can see, we work in scale-models. The student is asked to develop an authentic visual language in this field as well. (links to bookshops Architectura & Natura [dangerous grounds] or publisher Lars Muller
The assignments may appear similar to each group/project, but they never deal with the same subject – this guarantees a fresh start for each session with a new group. (link to: Gerrit Rietveld, Barbara Visser [Maison Grégoire or Transformation House])
posting prepared by Carla Boomkens