Project summary
The “Open City Research Platform” was founded as a collaboration between the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology-Lausanne (EPFL) and the Open City / School of Architecture and Design of the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso (ead-PUCV) in Chile. Since 2014, this collaboration has brought together students from Europe and Chile to work on the incremental building of El Pórtico de los Huéspedes (The Threshold of the Guests) for the Open City. Every August, around 20 students from Switzerland travel to Ritoque to join Chilean colleagues for the design and building of new elements of El Pórtico. Students are tasked with moving the project forward both through the design and construction; they work directly on the site of El Pórtico with limited tools, local materials and an attitude toward work characterized by collaboration and exchange. The goal of the summer school is to provide an innovative pedagogical context for students to develop a heightened awareness of how the fabrication of architecture can be in a cultural, social, ecological and poetic relation with place and community. The summer workshop sensitized Swiss students to multiple issues specific to the local context: structural requirements in a seismically active region; ways of building more efficiently with slender timber members; techniques for ephemeral foundations; siting decisions based on seasonal wind directions, etc. In their collaborative work, Swiss and Chilean participants exchange techniques for fabrication and design based on observation and testing. This creates conditions for knowledge exchange and broadens an understanding of how the built environment, sustainability and development are linked to a local context. Students work directly with wood, brick and concrete, testing material behavior and limits. Designing and building enter into a reciprocal relationship, such that construction becomes a projective activity revealing as key factors resilient construction, economies of material and a rooted relationship to place.
The workshop takes place during one week in Lausanne and three weeks in Chile, with 20 students from Swiss schools of architecture and engineering (bachelor and master) taking part along with 10 Chilean students from the ead-PUCV.
Project team
Dr. Patricia Guaita, architect, scientist and lecturer, ENAC IA EPFL
Raffael Baur, architect, scientist and lecturer, ENAC IA EPFL
Prof. Dr. David Jolly, Professor, Escuela de Arquitectura & Diseño PUCV y Corporación Cultural Amereida
Collaborations
Escuela de Arquitectura & Diseño PUCV y Corporación Cultural Amereida, Dr. David Jolly
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETHZ, School of Architecture, Prof. Annette Spiro
AAM-USI Mendrisio, Martino Pedrozzi, Director-WISH project
Hong Kong University HKU, Assistant Professor Sony Devabhaktuni
Experts and lecturers
Hanna Kronstrand, architecte Zurich
Fred Hatt, ENAC IA I_BOIS EPFL
Matthew Skjonsberg, doctoral assistant, ENAC IA IIC LAB_U EPFL
Patrick Valeri, doctoral assistant, ENAC IA IIC IBETON EPFL
Romain Dubuis, architect EPFL
Victoria Jolly, architect, Prof. Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, School of Architecture, Corporación Cultural Amereida, Chile
Sony Devabhaktuni, Assistant Professor, Hong Kong University HKU
Project Administrator
Béatrice Bouy, EPFL –ENAC – IA-GE
Project partners
Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology, ETH Board
School of Architecture, Civil and Environmental Engineering ENAC EPFL
School of Architecture, SAR, ENAC, EPFL and Institute of Architecture, IA, ENAC, EPFL Comision Nacional de Investigacion Cientifica y Tecnologica (CONICYT), Chile
AVINA Stiftung (2014-16)
IKEA Foundation (2019)
Grants
2019 / Scholarship Ikea Foundation Switzerland , for Open City Research Platform 2019, EPFL – ETHZ
2013-2019 / Summer school grant, Board EPF, for the Open City Research Platform, ENAC-ETHZ
2014 - 2019 / Summer school grant, Board EPF, for the Open City Research Platform, EPFL – ETHZ
2014 / Project development grant, Chilean National Commission for the Investigation of Science and Technology, CONICYT, for the Summer Chantier Grasping Space 2014
2014 - 2016 / Project development grant, AVINA Foundation, for Taller Ciudad Abierta 2013, co-organized w. Archizoom EPFL
STUDENTS
2019
EPFL_Clara Gualtieri / Clémentine Artu/ Lerna Bagdjian / Enzo De Moustier /Anouk Chastonay / Vincent Dorfmann/ Floriane Fol /Benjamin Irion / Gregoire Jamet / Pablo Grunig / My –Lihn Dinh / Louis Queloz / Philipinne Radat /Valentine Robin / Melanie Schneider/ Annabelle Thuring / Jean Vivian/ Medhi Wermuth
ETHZ_Dianer Ding / Anabell Fritsches
2018
EPFL_Rapit Basile Merlin / Rouge Sébastien Maurice / Tscheulin Jean-Loup / Krebs Mégane / Berthier Florentine Célestine / Gommier Mathias Pierre / Ender Dominic / Paragon Camille Marie Cecile Helene / Moukaddem Nasser / Wagner Leonie Charlotte / Bianchi Gianluca / Marchini Sarah / Hänni Mégane Anouchka / Julien Tacca / Valfells Karl Agust / Junod Yann / Noemie Vetterli / Courtaux Victoire Mathilde Marie
ETHZ_Bojana Papic / Cyriac Levet / Valentin Locher
2017
EPFL_Christina Cibiera / Louis Donnet / Jolan Haidinger / Scott Salmon / Anastasia Skorik / Mathias Weidmann / Manuel Zuloaga / Noémi Zurbriggen
ETHZ_Stéphane Chau / Gaetan Ianonne / Markus Pfauntsch
Ead PUCV _Constaza Aranciba / Lennin Gustainson / Francisco Moya / Mariam Stensaas / Renata Villaseñor
HKU_Jasmin Chen / Obed King Him Cheung / Siu Chang Wong / Ina Wu
2016
EPFL_Margareta Bali / Lucas Bastos / Marc Delez / Antoine Iweinsdeeckhoutte / Pierre Jean Theo / Mathis Pante / Javier Perez / Zhao Ruojun / Maryem Sadek / Jiang Yuesheng
ETHZ_Alain Glasson / Stephan Liniger / Romain Dubuis
AAM_USI_Sofia Boarino / Alessandra Demitri / Valeria Molinari
Ead PUCV_Sandra Alonso de Santocildes Sanchez / Gonzalo Gallo Gaete / Constanza Neira / Emilio Perez Lopez / Xiao Pujol-Soliano Regeiro / Giuseppe Rizza
2015
EPFL_Karimi Azadeh / Vincent Bianchi / Francesco Battaini / Céline Clivaz / Noe Cuendet / Heloise Doret / Olivier Monteil / Marion Moutal / Benoit Perrier
ETHZ_Theresa Behling / Laszlo Blaser / Felix Dick / David Horber / Simone Michel / Aurelia Petra Muggler / Lino Saam / Stefanie Stammer / Anna-Katharina Azahler
AAM_USI_Gabriele Gagliardi / Stefano Gariglio / Giordana Ghizani /Enrica Pastore
Ead PUCV_Hans Bremer Soto /Constanza Canuto / Mauro Colomo / Khalil Galai / Sebastian Gallardo / Edward Glazebrook / Florencia Henriquez Acuna / Pamela Juarez / Maximiliano Trigos / Constanza Neira Ortega
2014
EPFL_Noémie Allenbach / Quentin Andreotti / Anne Charlotte Astrup / Coralie Berchtold / Philipp Bosshart / Alice Chénais / Alexander Edmond / Braïs Emmenegger / Elsa Gauge / Melanie Rouge / Noelia Ruegger / Caroline Stitch /Laura Stoll / Sergio Torres / Mathias Weidmann.
ETHZ_Jann Erhard / Marc Jeitzner / Lino Saam / Elias Vollmeier
AAM_USI_Alessandra Aponi / Andrea Bernardelli / Orsola Carraro /Emine Halefoglu / Olivia Kossak / Andrea Panzeri
Ead PUCV_Eduardo Arratia / Matias Correa / Nicolas Escobar / Rosario Fuentes / David Garcia / Juan Hernandez / Jaime Francisco Lopez / Daniel Moris / Maximiliano Olea / Umberto Rucci / Anna Sicuro / Josefina Torres