SALIVATIONS
Fluid Architecture #wethebacteria
145 · SALIVATIONS Installation for the exhibition “We the Bacteria”. 24th International Exhibition of Triennale Milano “Inequalities” ABSTRACTWe, the microorganisms traveling in the mouths of humans and their canine companions, carry stories older than our hosts themselves. Our journeys, traced through saliva, span continents and generations… Saliva is among our oldest meeting places—a site of exchange, a fluidic architecture where we all blur into each other. At a given time, there are typically twenty billion bacteria in my dog’s mouth. They are from me, my lover, your neighborhood, Milan, and countless other beings who we have crossed paths with. Some of us are stories of displacement. We come from diverse places, ecologies, climates and dwell into new relationships, new homes. Our recent dogs carry traces of microorganisms from our past dogs. As we travel in the mouths of our fellow companions, they also carry us along with traces of dust, food, and distant geographies, as we pass on from species to species. Salivations explores our intertwined microbial histories of displacement and belonging through the interspecies landscape of saliva. The installation consists of a series of structures made of chewing gum who spent time in the mouths of Çaça, Bailey, […]
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NEKO
house #bioclimatic
137 · neko Bioclimatic housing, Valdetorres de Jarama, Madrid ABSTRACTLocated on the edge of town in Valdetorres de Jarama, Neko is conceived of as a place of domestic and ecological enjoyment and the start of a new life. Its design is rooted in a low environmental impact strategy mindful of the ecological performativity of its construction process. Its corner placement on this 754m2 lot opens the dwelling up to the lot and consolidates its relationship with the street, leaving a strip of front yards as a succession of intimate spaces accessible from each room. The design is organised around two main strategies. On one hand, in plan view, the project is laid out in modules, following a flexible functional arrangement that can accommodate both domestic spaces and remote work. On the other hand, in section view, it is configured from two overlaying bodies that offer different ways of engaging with the surroundings and the environment. The lower strip addresses needs for basic natural lighting, views, entryways, and ventilation. Through a system of openings and solid-surface panels, this strip provides a direct relationship with the indoor and outdoor spaces to interact with the inhabitants’ bodies. The upper strip focuses on capturing […]
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INFINITO DELICIAS BD
refurbishment #biomaterials
133 · INFINITO DELICIAS bd Composition of knowledges ABSTRACT* Golden Prize Europe. Holcim Awards 2023 (2023). * First Prize Restricted Competition, Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, Madrid (2018). Composition of knowledge Integral refurbishment of an industrial building for Infinito Delicias, a new citizen cultural space promoted by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation” More info soon!PROJECT* Golden Prize Europe. Holcim Awards 2023 (2023). * First Prize Restricted Competition, Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, Madrid (2018). Composition of knowledge Integral refurbishment of an industrial building for Infinito Delicias, a new citizen cultural space promoted by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation” More info soon!CREDITS * Golden Prize Europe. Holcim Awards 2023 (2023). * First Prize Restricted Competition, Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation, Madrid (2018). Integral refurbishment of an industrial building for Infinito Delicias, a new citizen cultural space promoted by the Daniel and Nina Carasso Foundation”. Architectural design and spatial development: Husos arquitecturas (Camilo García, Diego Barajas) + elii [architecture office] (Uriel Fogué, Eva Gil, and Carlos Palacios). Development of the economic, management, and social innovation model: Julia López Varela + Zuloark. Project coordination (Husos + elii): Teresa Martínez Site supervision assistance (Husos + elii): Teresa Martínez and […]
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SITLL REMAINS
installation #microbialtimes
142 · STILL REMAINS Architectures for microorganisms, MNCARS, Madrid ABSTRACTProject and research for "Notes for a Time Apart", MNCARS, Madrid. The microbiome of our guts, mouths, armpits, or genitals are among the most private landscapes. There lie our interspecies identities made of bacteria, fungi, viruses who live parallel lives adapting, resisting, and labouring our 24/7 lives. They endure the hormones and chemicals secreted by our anxious selves who sweat before deadlines. They cope with the stimulants, amphetamines, and cognitive enhancers consumed to deal with the stress of non-stop tasks and to-do lists. They strive to adapt to our pharmacologic bodies cast by our professions that are tuned to work more and more efficiently, all the time. This installation conceived by elii [architecture office] and Orkan Telhan for the program Notes for a Time Apart intends to provide a glimpse of this invisible community through a series of leftovers. We invite a series of professionals to the museum to share food during their work breaks. The participants eat, chat, and ask each other: “What do you usually do at this time?”, “How do you deal with your stress?”, “How much coffee do you drink?”, “What do you do when you […]
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MICROBIAL FRUITS of ISTANBUL
Biennial #empathyrevisited
129 · MICROBIAL FRUITS of istanbul New rituals in civics to revisit empathy ABSTRACT5th Istanbul Design Biennial, Istanbul Microbial Fruits of Istanbul is a platform that narrates the complex histories of Istanbul’s community gardens (called bostans) from the microbes’ point of view. This is a garden of gardens, a cross between a soil microbiology laboratory and a fruit tree showcasing microbial cultures collected in this historic gardens for more than 1500 years. Drawing its inspiration from the kiosks scattered around the streets of Istanbul, the MFoI platform stands in the middle of Özgürlük Park like a strange figure piquing the curiosity of passers-by, inviting them to meet these other “neighbors” in the city. MFoI is a meeting-place for humans and microbes, a nexus between History and bio-geo-histories; between the Istanbul molded by generations of its human inhabitants and the other, parallel Istanbuls that exist under our feet, in the soil, and that (as Isabelle Stengers put it) are the “product of a history of co-evolution whose first craftsmen and true authors throughout were the innumerable populations of microorganisms.” When the kiosk opens, unfolding its roof, a chatty robotic parrot tells stories in the form of fables written for […]
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AWOMAWO
ephemeral architecture #awomawo
126 · Awomawo A Wolrd of Many Worlds Design of the Simon Space ar Casa Decor 2020, Madrid ABSTRACT"In the Anthropocene, Humans are now at war not with Nature, but with [...] the Terrestrials. [...] To put it in the style of a geohistorical fiction. Humans living in the Holocene epoch are in conflict with the Terrestrials of the Anthropocene. Bruno Latour, Face to Face with the Planet The 2020 edition of Casa Decor was held this year in an emblematic building designed by the architect José Espelíus Anduaga, located in the Madrid’s upscale Salamanca neighborhood. From this early 20th century building, the Simon space will give Casa Decor visitors pause to reflect on the world to come in the 21st century. AWOMAWO (A World Of MAny WOrlds) is a meeting place for different worlds. The project is set up as a space within another space, a place to experience a world of many worlds, a cosmos that can be transformed through light... Upon arrival at AWOMAWO, the visitor is welcomed by the first zone, an orderly passage of well-defined geometries: this is the space where humans live. Enveloping this first space are a number of diverse, living and […]
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WIRES, BLACK BOXES, URBAN FETISHES
123 · WIREs, BLACK BOXES AND URBAN fetiShes 'The palace as seen by elii', Centro Centro, Madrid ABSTRACTCuratorship and display design for the exhibition ‘Wires, black boxes and urban fetishes’, CentroCentro, Madrid Since its foundation as a Communications Palace a hundred years ago, Cibeles Palace has served as the setting for many different lives and has often been the focus of gazes. This series of exhibitions, El Palacio visto por... (The Palace as Seen by...) arises from that idea of gazing, of reading from different points of view. Every year, we invite different artists and architects to create an exhibition that includes an informative tour through the archives and history of the building, and to propose a personal reading of the palace. The architecture office elii has participated in this edition of El Palacio visto por... After studying the tender and construction documents for the Palace of Communications, elii has been able to confirm the disappearance, during the building process, of a fundamental element: the wires that were drawn on the plans that architects Antonio Palacios and Joaquín Otamendi submitted for the tender in 1904; a network of cables that started from the central tower of the Palace and […]
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MAD x MAD
urban strategy #veranosdelavilla2019
117 · mad X mad Distributed festival Urban strategy for Veranos de la Villa 2019 ABSTRACT* The Urban Strategy for Veranos de la Villa, Madrid was recognized with the FAD Award, category - Ephemeral Interventions (2020) and the COAM Award 2018, Colegio Oficial de Arquitectos de Madrid (2018). Mad x Mad is a strategic project to turn the Veranos de la Villa into a distributed festival. As in the last three editions, VdV activities spread out over the 21 districts of the Villa of Madrid to bring it closer to the people. On one hand, the festival travels around the city. On the other hand, the people of Madrid are invited to explore different public spaces around town. The project starts off by mapping out the districts for different kinds of public spaces that will be conditioned with temporary interventions to develop the different events at this dynamic festival. The main goal of Mad x Mad is to activate and benefit from Madrid's heterogeneous heritage, opening it up to a multiple, contemporary view. The project develops in accordance with the following methodology: 1. Research. The first step is to get an up-close look at Madrid by analyzing the local historical context of each […]
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THE GHOSTS OF SUSIE SIERRA
exhibition #susiesierra
103 · the ghosts of SUSIE SIERRA The architectures of ‘a good world in common’ ABSTRACTProposal for the ‘The voices of the GPS’ exhibition, in CentroCentro, Madrid This project, developed by elii and choreographer Jonathan Martineu, studies the architectures of car crash test centres as locations where civility is designed. Crash test centres are the setting where accidents are staged. In other words, they are spaces for performances, somewhere between a laboratory, a theatre and a film stage. These architectures are outfitted to represent everyday life: our bodies and their pathologies; our lives and their dangers; day-to-day life and the accidents that threaten it; the cost of anticipation and the price of mishaps; social roles and dissidences; the tolerable and intolerable aspects of our conducts; the discipline and lack thereof of our bodies. In short, they are spaces to portray a ‘good, common and pacified world’ and minimise its hazards. The history of the evolution of crash tests is a history of the evolution of normativity, that is, of the ways in which it is considered that rules (driving codes, but also rules for cohabitation, security, civility, etc) need to be articulated. It would thus be possible […]
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CYBORG GARDEN / IMNA
exhibition #cyborggarden
119 · jardín cyborg / imna Strategies for adapting to climate change ABSTRACTCuratorship and display design for the exhibition ‘Cyborg Garden – Mutant Institute of Environmental Narratives’, Matadero Madrid “Your attention please. You are now entering the Mutant Institute of Environmental Narratives. A platform for generating knowledge and artworks as a means to address the challenges presented by the climate crisis in the 21st century. A place for communicating with other species, for learning from ants and many-headed slime mould and for talking with humans who have not as yet been born. We invite you, firstly, to a preview of the prototypes of the future Cyborg Garden now being developed by a team of artists, designers, architects, scientists and specialists in various fields and which will soon be planted in Matadero Madrid. After that, you will be able to visit the exhibition Eco-visionaries. Art for a Planet in a State of Emergency, in which over 40 creators tackle climate change through art. We also encourage you to take part in the various activities that will be held in this mutant space over the coming four months. Welcome.” - The exhibition ‘Cyborg Garden – Mutant Institute of Environmental Narratives’ shows […]
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