No. 10The matter

Idealism and materialism, those two antagonistic visions of philosophy, are constantly perceived in architecture. Juan Gris said that a nail was made with the idea of a nail, while Braque thought that a nail was made with an iron.

Thought and project action have been the same for us, the material of projects. We agree with the classic idea that poetic is

"what is done, what is built, what is built."

Praxis makes architecture the union between theory and practice, understanding it as praxis-process. Projecting would be the most significant act of architectural praxis, since it is the wise way to build that is self-referential with the very essence of the project. We consider that it would be an occasion for debate, for continuous reasoning, something more complex and dense in its intellectual and cultural formation than the mere accurate or sagacious resolution of a problem.

We understand construction as the art of building an idea, with appropriate materials and its own forms. The adaptation to new technologies must be naturally accompanied by versatile ideas that transform the object, beyond its constructive presence, into true architecture. Jean Prouvé warned that what worried him was what we did with the new materials, more precisely what we did not do with them. This old reflection continues its validity applied to the construction world because it relates technique to research. The technological aspect should involve an investigation, exploring possible transfers from other disciplines (biomaterials, complex polymers, textile membranes or aerogels) that produce important advances and where their incorporation causes innovative project developments.

When Lacaton and Vassal incorporated the greenhouse into their first work, they were transferring a technology typical of the plant growing industry to the domestic setting. But it was not a simple technical anecdote, rather the use of this element intuitively caused the appearance of that double space, a tempered area that ended up becoming a focus of interest and articulation of deprogrammed areas of the home.

Another essential field of matter would be the one involved in the unavoidable energetic aspect. Halfway between the artistic and the tectonic, we find some works such as those of François Roche who, taking advantage of the virtues of electromagnetism, conceives active facades capable of generating an interface between the excess energy of the urban environment and the subject protected with the standard climate conditioning processes. Through passive architecture or active architecture through gadgets, we think about low-tech subtractive processes, austerity of means and reuse. Or, of material economy like those proposed by Shigeru Ban.

On the other hand, it is true that architectural matter is no longer just a question of solidity, but an environmental issue as Philippe Rahm has well explored, which converts atmospheric quality into the main defining material of construction.

Processing a progressive suppression of the limits between architecture, landscape and environmental technology, to produce receptive constructions from an energetic point of view, that promote new types, lexicons and instruments that demonstrate the disciplinary convergence between the aesthetic, critical and technical spheres, we It will allow us to overcome the tectonic matter to access the thermodynamic matter as an outcome.

Thus, we encourage you to reflect, both from a theoretical point of view and through specific case studies, on the concept of matter, from diverse visions, not only from the best known ones linked to a tectonic spatial reality perceptible by senses, but also those who question what would be the subject of projects in our days, when classical and modern paradigms are in total crisis. Texts that help us rethink whether the historical relationship between matter and form is still valid, and what matter we are talking about.