Duas Casas e um labirinto. Modelos para a libertação de um projeto-de-arquitetura

Abstract

This dissertation concerns the learning and academic development of the architect, namely the role pertaining the so called "references" i.e. the use of stablished authors and works as modelos (models) in the construction of a professional practice. It stems from the comprehension that there are important specificities in the teaching and learning dynamics in contemporary education. For example, the experience of the student is influenced by an ever-growing availability of images and concepts without there being the necessary deepening of the central qualities that those elements stablish in a larger disciplinary field. As an alternative, this work proposes the use of the academic assignment as the space to provide the building of solid Modelos. The use of the word "model", in the case, is not tied to the search for an ideal condition or the search for a self-sufficient image to be reproduced. It refers to a dynamic cohesion of practices and concepts of a disciplinary nature, therefore, available to be interpreted and utilized towards the construction of an independent system. This appropriation requires an approach both to theses stablished authors as Case Studies and to the nature of Study itself. As a resource, it was important to use the ideas of mirada and distância as used by Luz Valderrama Aparício as to tackle the writing process (and the variety of resources it entails) as a process that fulfills a complementary role regarding the design (projeto). This exercise, once supported by this theoretical core, is developed by the adoption and subsequent study of two Modelos. The choice of these two architects is related to the individual academic course and the need to solidify the influence of these architects in the construction of a professional autonomy. For this purpose, it is not the interest of this study to tackle singular problems raised by the study of each author, but to apprehend a holistic quality concerning their design approach. The sought-after result is the synthesis of what is learned as the proposition of an autonomous system of practices and concepts, a self-standing Modelo that anchors the professional performance. The goal thus is to present the closing experience of an academic cycle and, in that way, replace the construction of a projecto-de-arquitectura as a central role in the educational constitution of an architect or, as put by Manuel Mendes in his lectures: to liberate the project within architecture's evolution as the controverse encounter between the artistic experience and disciplinary practice