Workshop OpenStructures / Open Architecture

About

Designer Thomas Lommée’s project OpenStructures is currently on show at Art Centre Z33. The OpenStructures project explores the possibilities of an open design system. It is based on a common geometric grid that is freely available for everyone to download and use. Designs created within the grid, ranging from simple household appliances to complete houses, are flexible and diverse yet always compatible. OpenStructures initiates a kind of collaborative Meccano where objects become dynamic patchwork puzzles that can be easily adapted to current needs, creating a new standard for sustainable and democratic design.
www.openstructures.net

The OpenStructures exhibition is not a finished product, but part of a wider research project. The different themes addressed in the OpenStructures project will be further explored in a workshop on Open Architecture on December 9 2009. The workshop will explore the possibilities of an open design process in architecture and more specifically the opportunities it offers for humanitarian projects.

Open Architecture

The workshop will be dealing with one of the research areas of OpenStructures, namely architecture.  Three architects of the Brussels Cooperation Collective have worked on the subject, with ‘Case study n°1’ de region of Katanga, Congo. The results of this case study are on show in the exhibition. The ‘open source’ principal is reinterpreted as to involve local social, economical and ecological dimensions. 

The themes addressed in OpenStructures – ‘open source’, democratic design, open economy of materials and designs, collaborative projects- will be further scrutinised in this workshop. Key questions are: What role can ‘open source urbanism’ play in developing countries? Is it possible to link a local economy of materials and goods to architectural design? What role can modular architecture play in this? And what is the role of the architect?
How temporary or sustainable is this ‘Open Architecture’? How to define the concept of a ‘house’ in terms of Open Architecture: village or encampment?

For this workshop a distinct team has been brought together:
Luigi Ferrara, director of the Institute Without Boundaries, Toronto, will give a lecture and will moderate the presentations of the invited architects and collectives working on similar topics: The Swiss architect and designer Thomas Jomini, the Brussels collective Rotor, and the Open Source House Project, based in Rotterdam.

In the afternoon, a round table conversation will be held about ‘Case Study n°1: Congo’. The following people are invited:
- Léonce Bekemans holds the Jean Monnet Chair "Globalisation & Intercultural dialogue" at the university of Padua, Italy and is academic coordinator of the JM Centre of Excellence "Intercultural dialogue, Human Right & Multi-level Goverance"; and guest professor at diverse European universities and EU expert in education, formation and intercultural dialogue.
- Representatives of the ‘Universiteit van Algemeen Belang’, Antwerp, a research group dealing with contemporary social development.
- Jean-Marie Christiaens, Rector of the abbey school of Zevenkerken, Bruges, and coordinator of the missions of the Benedictine order in Congo.
- Marc Godts, teacher Explorative Architecture at the Sint-Lucas Architecture, Brussels.
- Vincent van der Meulen en  Vincent van Sabben of the Open Source House project, Rotterdam (NL).
- Caroline Henrotay,  Ir. Architect, doctorandus of the VUB with a Phd on modular tents for refugees that can develop into full-fledged houses.

Programme

09u00 Arrival with coffee
09u30 Luigi Ferrara (Insitute without Boundaries, Toronto, Canada)
10u15 Thomas Jomini (Thomas Jomini & Associates Architecture Workshop, ReHouse.ch, Bern, Switzerland)
11u00 Break 
11u15 Maarten Gielen (Rotor Brussel)
12u00 Vincent van der Meulen (Open Source House, TU Delft) 
12u45 Lunch Break
13u45 Visit exhibition OpenStructures + introduction OS  by Thomas Lommée
14u15 Brussels Cooperation (Case Study n°1: Congo)
14u45 Round table conversation
16u30 The end

SPEAKERS BIOGRAPHIES

Thomas Lommée | Initiator OpenStructures
After his studies at The Design Academy Eindhoven, Les Ateliers in Paris and The Institute without Boundaries in Toronto, Thomas Lommée (1979) participated in several research projects in Europe as well as in China where he designed for amongst others: Samsung, Siemens Mobile, Dynamic City Foundation en Design21C. In 2007 he founded Intrastructures, a design studio that focuses on designing products, services, as well as spatial interventions for a more sustainable society. He lives and works in Brussels and combines his studio work with teaching assignments.
www.openstructures.net

Luigi Ferrara | directeur Institute without Boundaries, Toronto, Canada
The Institute without Boundaries is an interdisciplinary, post graduate design programme that was founded in 2002 by Bruce Mau Design studio in cooperation with the George Brown - Toronto City College. Each time during a period of one year, a small team works on a design research project dealing with an ambitious public undertaking. The institute produced the exhibition and the book Massive Change. A Manifesto for the Future of Global Design and at the moment works on World House, a multidisciplinary project that focuses on research and further development of sustainable forms of living.
www.worldchanging.com/archives/004173.html

Thomas Jomini | architect/ontwerper
Thomas Jomini (Bern, Zwitserland) is the founder reHOUSE, a research platform for sustainable and ethical design
Owner bureau TJAW, Thomas Jomini and Associates Architecture Workshop

Architecture & Design brings sustainable stories to life
Thomas Jomini’s architecture and design philosophy is rooted in the idea that intelligent and consistent stories can be developed for clients and their buildings or products. Sustainable and holistic thinking is the beginning of those stories. His aim is the creation of organisms and systems that are human and friendly. TJAW's architecture is driven by the pursuit of quality - a belief that our surroundings directly influence the quality of our lives, whether in the work place, at home or the public spaces in between.
www.thomasjomini.ch

ROTOR
Rotor, founded in 2005, is a collective of six persons with a shared belief in the re-use of materials as a defendable ecologic strategy, applicable also on a large scale (industry, architecture, ...). Their work situates itself on the field of research (industrial processes, new economic models,…) and the field of design (temporary solutions, prototypes,…). Rotor’s projects have been published in different international design and architecture magazines.
www.rotordb.org

Open Source House
Open Source House has the aim to provide affordable housing through sustainable design for low income countries. This will improve the quality of houses, reduce the costs of housing and improve the overall quality of life. The ambition of OShouse is to have more than 100,000 people living in sustainable houses before 2020.

Open Source House is a revolutionary new idea where sustainable, modular, prefab housing is introduced in developing countries. The designs are developed and shared through an Open Source platform. This will promote the affordability of houses.

Brussels Cooperation
Brussels Cooperation is a young, dynamic and eclectic platform for projects on the edge of architecture, design and art, developed out of Sint-Lucas architecture Brussels. Former projects are, amongst others, an urban-utopian vision on Kuregem, Brussels, an installation with music and architecture based on John Cage’s thoughts (Shanghai Zendai MoMA, STUK Leuven, De Garage Mechelen), cyclic useless desert architecture in Egypt (SecondRoom Brussel, deMarkten Brussel), and a zero-energy building on the  platforms of Brussels Noord Station (IDA design award Los Angeles). Since 2009 Brussels Cooperation works in close relation with Intrastructures to realise OpenStructures in the field of architecture.
http://www.brusselscooperation.be