SURRENDER RESISTANCE 2022-23
Control
Tutor(s): Thierry Berlemont and Guests
Semester: 1
Engagement: Mediating Tactics & The Brussels Way
Open for students of Interior Architecture
Language: English
Campus: Brussels
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SurrenderResistance is a design studio centred on experiment and speculation. It proposes an extended moment of re-orientation or re-set at a critical hinge-moment in a learning process and aims at a reflection on critical points of architectural interest. The core of the studio’s approach is the relation of the student with a phenomenon, problem or experience, and its associated critical point or singularity, where known laws no longer apply, become extreme, or even contradictory.
This is expressed by the twin-concept SurrenderResistance that signifies an apprehension of issues from the perspective of ambivalence and paradox. It is joined by a partner-concept that provides topical support and an additional means for orientation. This year’s edition departs from a concept pair ‘CONTROL – ERROR’.
They constitute the reference for the calibration of one’s own position. This position is dynamic, but not pre-defined or pre-supposed. The studio provides the space to let it take shape, grow, transform and mature within a process of questioning by means of design and making. How can we, from an architectural perspective, give shape to something that we do not yet know or understand, but that is nonetheless critical and highly space-time oriented? How does this affect our perception of existing relationships, and how does it lead to new ones? How can we, by means of this process, reveal something crucial, necessary, helpful or relevant about and for architecture and architectural practice? Do we, as architects, have a responsibility regarding the issues under scrutiny, and if so, how can we contribute to them? Do we enthusiastically join a given movement or tendency, or do we interrupt it, build an opposition and join the resistance? It is also an opportunity for finding new sources, and r(e-)orient personal fields of interest or commitment towards architecture and society more in general. The end of the process will be organised as a week-long residency in January at l’Escaut (https://escaut.org/hosting) and will close as an exhibition that opens the studio to an exterior world, and goes into conversation with it. This event will take place at the site of residency on Friday evening.
Students:
Malik Al-Bosta
Jānis Aufmanis
Clelia Barberá Ramallo
Vinul Vasuka Gunawardena
Philipp Kleihues
Tom Niklas Kohrs
Angela Mahouli
Maria Michelaki
Max Sandred
Eva Somers
Christian Sternhagen
Sien Van Kerkhoven