DEMOLITIONWorkshop EASA2012

INTRODUCTION

This publication is the final result of a 14 days workshop held in July 2012 in Helsinki, Finland during EASA2012 (European Architecture Students As-sembly) and Helsinki World Design Capital 2012. 15 Architecture students from all over Europe participated in the workshop named Demolition. Organizers: Architects Frederik Beckett-Nilsson and Frida Vang Petersen.

DESIGN - CONSTRUCT - DEMOLISH - DOCUMENT

DEMOLITION

DESIGN - CONSTRUCT – DEMOLISH – DOCUMENT

How would you design and build a structure for the main purpose of demolishing it?

The aim of the EASA workshop DEMOLITION was to elaborate on the above question, through the undertaking of design, construction, demolition and final documentation.

The DEMOLITION workshop was conceived as a hands-on workshop, where we based the design of our structures on the demolition elements: fire, wind, water, gravity etc.

The documentation of the design and demolition process was represented through drawing, movies and photo-sequences, exhibited together with the demolished structures at the end of EASA2012.

The theme ‘Wastelands’ and the site for EASA became the testing ground for the demolitions. The Wastelands are interpreted as leftover-spaces between deterio-ration and new assemblies- a threshold in-between the built and the demolished.

The aim of the workshop was to build structures, and design their demolition, to stage and aesthetically portray architecture as a cycle of creation, living, decaying and dying.

Tutors:

Frida Vang Petersen, Cand. Arch & Frederik Beckett-Nilsson. Cand. Arch

P A R T I C I P A N T S

Alina Hramyka, Belarus

Anni Rasamaja, Sweden

Astrid Billev Petersen, Denmark

Bea Delannoy, Belgium

Christof Mathes, Austria

Dilsad Anil, Turkey

George Papamatthaiakis, Greece

Kristin Karlsson, Sweden

Martina Hatzenbichler, Austria

Marton Peto, Hungary

Matthias Klapper, Austria

Milda Kulviciuté, Lithuania

Rob Scott, Scotland

Roland Reemaa, Estonia

Yagiz Söylev, Turkey

EXERCISESWeek 1

Demolishing sugar, Marton Peto & Roland Reemaa

Demolishing sugar, Marton Peto & Roland Reemaa

Wind demolishing stick composition, Martina Hatzenbichler & Rob Scott

Water demolishing paper structures, Martina Hatzenbichler & Rob Scott

Fire demolishing paper, Frida Vang Petersen

Gravity demolishing ball composition, Yagiz Soylev & George Papamatthaiakis

Ink domolishing paper, Kristin Karlsson & Dilsad Anil

Fire domolishing soap, Kristin Karlsson & Dilsad Anil

PROJECTSWeek 2

SHELTERby George Papamatthaiakis

“During this two-week workshop I tried to define “demolition”. I started thinking about how demolition can become a useful procedure.

I realised how meaningful it could be for the mobility of a structure. Thus, I started working with the concept of a mobile unit that would be highly flex-ible in order to be carried and re-constructed easily. The structure would be intelligent enough to understand the environmental conditions and respond to them.

It is reasonable that future nomads will seek shelter in abandoned and desert-ed places. Probably in what we call Wastelands. As the environment around them becomes less friendly, they move away in search of safer places. If the shelter was intelligent enough to understand when the environment becomes unfriendly, the nomads would not have to worry about it. This can be achieved with a simple bottle-mechanism: Extreme conditions (heavy rain - snowfall - aridity etc.) will cause an unbalance in the mechanism, which will result in extreme tensions to the structure. When the tensions become unbearable, the structure will self demolish, in a preplanned way. The demolished piece is still a unit, controllable and mobile.

The nomad will be able to carry it elsewhere and rebuild his shelter in a safer place. And the structure will continue to self demolish intelligently when the environment becomes harsh.

So demolition does not necessarily mean destruction.”

George Papamatthaiakis, http://georgepapam.tumblr.com/

VINYL CATHEDRALby Christof Mathes & Bea Delannoy & Matthias Klapper

Vinyl is a material which can be re-shaped when using fire. During the in-vestigations completed throughout the week of experimentation, an under-standing of how to control the re-shaping was acquired. The aim was to melt the LP components into a vaulted space of vinyl.A sort of Vinyl Cathedral. By placing the LPs on top of an iron grid lifted from the ground, and then inflicting fire upon them, they will eventually melt down and land on the surface. When they cool off they will become as stiff as before. This method demanded precise amounts off heat. When fused together they form a complex world that the camera can feed from, creating beautiful imagery.

Fire domolishing vinyl

Vinyl sculpture made with fire

Vinyl sculpture made with fire

PATH OF FIREby Kristin Karlsson

The Installation is placed between two massive industrial gas plant silos. The non-processed, natural materials of the installation alienates it from its site. The thinness and subtlety of the materials becomes a strong opponent to the industrial concrete and steel site that it is situated in.

The power plant has lost its function. It is a ruin. It tells a story of the indus-trial revolution. Man rearranging the natural environment, capturing gas, making it produce energy for the city. Here man has come to a point where they have created an artificial natural environment.The “Path of Fire” infers itself upon that history. It touches upon architecture as a function and a symbol of overtaking and controlling nature for man’s benefit. The fire walk installation is made from pieces of wood gathered at the power plant. The nature, that once was tamed, is now finding it’s way back in again.

Fire walking through woodsculpture

Fire walking through woodsculpture

STEAM DEMOLITIONby Bea Delannoy & Anni Rasamaja & Martina Hatzenbichler

& Milda Kulviciuté

Water can take many shapes. Ice, steam, liquid. It can empower and it can destroy. In this project the steam destroys a spaghetti structure. The simplicity of the project is what makes it strong. The task was to stage a destruction. To be able to do that, you have to choose a material and a ele-ment of destruction that work together. The end result became only as interesting as the intermediate states of the destruction. To see snapshots of the destruction sequence gave an under-standing of how the structure weakened and collapsed in stages.

Steam demolishing pasta structure #1

Steam demolishing pasta structure #2

NYLONby Marton Peto & Astrid Billev Petersen & Roland Reemaa

& Alina Hramyka

The nylon can be stretched. It will become weaker and weaker with the more threads that snap. The duration of the ripping apart of the nylon is controlled in different ways in this project. Gravity, wooden frames and sand are some of the elements used to create and display a prolonged se-quence of the demolition of nylon. The sand slowly runs out of the container, releasing loads attached to the wooden frame that slowly stretches the nylon downwards by gravity.

The mutual coexistence of the construction, and the material the construc-tion is built to destroy, appears prominently in this project. Everything built around the nylon is heavy and solid. Opposite, the nylon appears fragile. But it resist the heaviness and take shapes that fight its own de-struction. It’s stitched and woven nature is displayed through the machines slow spilling of load (in this case sand), showing the limits of the nylon in built structures.

Furthermore, the transformed nylon is represented in different media. Drawing collage and stop-motion to make a representation of something very common in a new setting and condition. Making it into a piece of art.

Drawin of expanded nylon, Astrid Billev Petersen & Alina Hramyka

Expansion demolishing nylon

Pressure demolishing nylon

Expanding frame for demolishing nylon

Machines using gravidy for demolishing nylon #1

Demolished nylon texture

MELTING BRICKSby Frederik Beckett-Nilsson & Frida Vang Petersen

By replacing some of the bricks with frozen milk bricks instead in the structure of the tower and wall, we build in a pre-planned destruction. Ob-serving this slow decomposition we begin to understand the static nature of the structure in a new way.

The milk bricks gave evidence of how much load they were carrying by decreasing differently in size as to where they were located in the structure.They also gave information about how exposed they were to sunlight throughout approximately two hours of melting.

Whilst observing and learning about the different parameters causing the demolition we were inspired to try it on an even bigger scale, with a pos-sibility of controlling the change in form before the collapse.

BREAKING WITHINby Rob Scott

“Water expands when it freezes”. This method of demolishing lead to cast-ing small scale plaster models, with water cased inside within balloons.During the freezing they expand and penetrate through the models in ways that reminds one of natural vegetation cracking through pavement

The idea lead to some extraordinary drawings investigating the demolition in a very accurate way. Trying to understand how the ice within the water balloons have worked their way out of their imprisonment.

The drawings show the delicate process of observing. And the power of translating observations into other media.

The prospects of these investigations could make way for new casting pro-cesses, creating interesting spatial opportunities at all different scales.

Sometimes you can imagine creation in the imagery of the decomposing.

Extract of 1:! drawing “Registrating the destruction”

WATER CRUMBLING PAPER by Martina Hatzenbichler & Milda Kulviciuté

Simply by crumbling a piece of paper, throwing it in water, and watching it unfold, we made a series of artistically preplanned unfolding images and footage of paper.

The technique is simple: By cutting a certain way into the paper and fold-ing it, you soon discover that the paper will try to even itself out. There are certain stages the paper will undergo when it comes in contact with water. Expansion, gaining weight, and finally sinking to the bottom, like a ship taking in water.

With an iterative working spirit, and a stubborn rigour and belief, this project has its quality in the quantity of experiments. All the experiments documented together made a beautiful body of work and a fantastic image gallery. This project has provided evidence of how strong even the simplest idea can become if you handle it with respect.

Typologi studies and their reactments

Collages of the sequences of unfolding paper

CHEATING JOINTSby Yagiz Söylev & Dilsad Anil

The beauty of this project is derived from the associations that candles pro-vide. They are associated with cozy and romantic situations inside a house or an apartment. In this project they become an evil, disguised. Initially they look like a candelabra. Then they start to get weak, becoming liquid. The components binding them together are cheated over time. Demolition is inevitable. The thorough documentation of the demolition in this project has created beautiful sequential imagery.

Top view of stearin self destructive joints

Side view of stearin self destructive joints

Isometric view of sugar joint demolished by steam

Front view of sugar joints demolished by steam

FINAL EXHIBITION