"Plug-in 4 Rehab" | TerraViva WS n°1 | Milan | 3-20 October 2019
“Plug-in 4 Rehab” workshop will be a two-part course which will take place in Milan during the month of October. It concerns the ideology of the “Plug-in”, first made popular in the 1960s by the Japanese Metabolists and by Archigram. The Plug-in of 50 years ago proposed architecture for modern nomads, assuming futurist buildings prepared as technologically equipped scaffolds into which prefabricated units for dwelling or workers could be inserted or extracted at will. Plug-in predicated a future of joyful uprootedness.
The TerraViva reinterpretation of the Plug-in concept is for sure more modest and it assumes that the high-tech component is already present in our lives: due to the incremental spread of wi-fi and digital technologies, people are finally being freed from spatial rootedness. We thus propose a similar flexibility of making designs for living (sleeping, reading, writing, cooking) made from more comfortable and biodegradable materials (or in some cases recycled materials). The workshop will have direct contact with “AIDA Atelier” in Tokyo, which has specialized in Plug-in solutions made in wood for hostels set up in existing buildings. Ilgin Tunc, graduate of Politecnico di Milano and now part of the “AIDA Atelier”, will be our special consultant. The idea is to propose a return to the Plug-in concept as a practice more appropriate to the social and economic determinants of the 21st century.
Migration, mass tourism, share economy, and climate change are new factors that create an increased demand for nomadic devices, implying architectural solutions with the flexibility of cell phones. Rather than destroying and rebuilding the whole world, the new plug-in approach aspires to adapting to existing buildings and landscape. It also hopes to serve alternative social solutions based on the share economy, such as co-housing and co-working. The underlying reason for the “Plug-in 4 Rehab” workshop in Milan is to promote a more environmentally responsible mode of intervention, using biodegradable materials for new additions while preventing the waste of demolitions and the use of dubious construction materials.
TerraViva will work in the case with the "MaCao" Association, which has occupied a beautiful Liberty-style building (ex-SEGIMA headquarters) for over 10 years, offering cultural and artistic services. We will design according to the needs that are expressed by the members of MaCao and use their very well-appointed wood-working shop to build the components.
- Submissions at: workshop.terraviva@gmail.com
- Location: Politecnico di Milano (Campus Leonardo) + "MaCao"
- Credits: 4 (Extracurricular Credits ONLY | Published on the Diploma Supplement)
- Certificates of Attendance: will be given to the students after the Final Presentation of the workshop
- Official Application Link (PoliMi "Passion in Action" Portal):
https://www.polimi.it/en/programmes/innovative-teaching/course-detail/?corso=2099421
- Dates:
- from Thursday 03/10 to Sunday 06/10: 4 intensive days of teamwork on the projects (PoliMi)
- Tuesday 08/10: Compulsory Revision with TerraViva tutors on Tuesday (PoliMi)
- Thursday 10/10: Final Presentation to all the TerraViva professors (PoliMi)
- Saturday 12/10: Winners Announcement
- from Thursday 17/10 to Sunday 20/10: 4 intensive days of self-construction (MaCao)
- Program: The Official Schedule and Time-table will be released within Monday 09/09
- Facebook/Instagram Pages: Workshop.Terraviva
- Hosted by: MaCaO | www.macaomilano.org