Designing at a Distance: A Panel Discussion on Architecture, March 3
Designing at a Distance: A Panel Discussion on Architecture, March 3
The panel discussion “Designing at a Distance” that took place at swissnex Boston on March 3 concluded a collaborative project between the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) which swissnex Boston, through the program ThinkSwiss, supported last fall. The studio “Designing at a Distance” which was led by Lynette Widder, included bringing a Swiss professor, Matthias Bräm, to RISD and then taking the students to Switzerland over Thanksgiving to work at the EPFL in Lausanne.
The panel, which included Kurt Forster (Yale University), Sylvain Malfroy (Zurich University of Applied Sciences), Roberto de Oliveira Castro (over,under, Boston) and moderator Lynnette Widder (Rhode Island School of Design), discussed the following questions: What does it mean for an architect to work at a distance, in a culture which she/he cannot know first-hand? What are the mechanisms of verification and prediction with which architecture works? Who is the authority on a project? How do the Swiss and American approaches to architectural education compare?
The presentation of the students’ work (on screen and in a documentation which can be downloaded here) and a networking reception concluded a wonderful evening at swissnex Boston that was organized in partnership with the Rhode Island School of Design.
