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SUMMARY:Protostructure\, Archaeology and hypothesis of an architecture-sup
 port\, Agathe Mignon / Sophie Delhay
DTSTART:20221206T110000
DTEND:20221206T120000
DTSTAMP:20260917T073523Z
UID:97e73af64fa4e3106ebff203df934052bbfe1daed4a53ae4bb3a876c
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Agathe Mignon\nAgathe Mignon defended her Ph.D. thesis "Archae
 ology and hypothesis of an architecture-support" at EPFL in 2019.\n\n"How 
 do we pile up dwellings without sacrificing their independence?" 1\n\nNico
 laas John Habraken poses the question in these terms in the book he first 
 published in 1961 in Dutch and then in English in 1972\, Supports: An Alte
 rnative to Mass Housing\, as an introduction to the research work he subse
 quently carried out for much of his career. The theory of supports\, which
  formed the basis of the work of the SAR (Stichting Architecten Research\,
  a Dutch foundation for architectural research)\, which Habraken chaired f
 rom its inception in 1965\, was the basis for an architecture in which adv
 ances in industrial construction made it possible to achieve a high densit
 y at the urban level while at the same time offering the inhabitants an in
 dividual recognition of their needs and requirements at the housing scale.
  The work of the SAR advocates the return of an architecture adapted to th
 e uses of which it is the support by the integration of the inhabitants in
  the process of architectural design. If this questioning was formulated a
 t the time in reaction to the massive housing construction operations of t
 he 1950s and 1960s in Europe\, it remains without a real answer today. Thr
 ough the conceptualization of this support-architecture\, the research wor
 k Protostructure\, archaeology and hypothesis of a support-architecture th
 us tends to bring a contemporary glance on the problematic stated by Habra
 ken.\n\nThe term "support" has a double meaning in French: that of physica
 lly supporting someone or something\, but also of bringing a moral\, benev
 olent and tolerant support. The notion of support-architecture is thus bas
 ed on this double definition by designating both the object and the action
  of supporting the individuality of the users by adapting to their differe
 nt living practices. The transposition of this notion of support-architect
 ure to the question of density and urban mixing requires the implementatio
 n of hybrid objects\, capable of responding in a systematic way at the col
 lective level as well as adapting independently to the scale of the user a
 s an individual. It is this particular ambivalence that the concept of pro
 tostructure aims to capture. A neologism formed from the prefix proto-\, w
 hich means first\, and the noun structure\, derived from the Latin verb st
 ruere\, to build\, it designates a structure or a system in its primary st
 ate\, devoid of the artifacts that it supports. The concept of protostruct
 ure applied to the architectural project acts like a rule of the game: it 
 constitutes the collective basis for a process of individual appropriation
 . \n\nAgathe Mignon's thesis aims first of all to establish an archaeolog
 y\, a series of case studies of protostructural housing.  These housing 
 projects have the particularity of implementing a collective support\, ded
 icated to the active participation of individual inhabitants. The synthes
 is of this study questions the capacity of these different experiences to 
 formalize and implement a support of concerted design and communication be
 tween the various actors of the architectural project. The second part of 
 this research work then returns in the form of a Hypothesis on an experime
 ntation of collaborative construction\, carried out within the framework o
 f the teaching of the architectural project. The account of this experienc
 e\, which was exceptional in several respects\, allows us to take an enric
 hed look at the initial definition of the concept of protostructure.\nThro
 ugh this double investigation\, the thesis Protostructure\, archaeology an
 d hypothesis of a support-architecture tries to build a critical and opera
 tional analysis of the process of concerted architectural design between a
 rchitect and inhabitants\, with the aim of offering a new look at the prac
 tice of the project.\n\n(1) Habraken\, Nicolaas John. 1972. Supports: An 
 Alternative to Mass Housing. London: Architectural Press.\n\n 
LOCATION:AAC 1 14 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==AAC%201%2014 https://epfl.zo
 om.us/j/65532722359
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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