AA – NAi Design Workshop São Paulo

AA – NAi Design Workshop São Paulo 16 – 24 July 2010 at espaço de cultura contemporânea escola são paulo The goal of the joint Architectural Association and Netherlands Institute of Architects (AA - NAi) Design Workshop in São Paulo is to explore the rehabilitation of otherwise obsolete, residual and overlooked urban environments, communities and physical materials, through critical urban analysis seminars, as well as through the use of innovative computational design and digital fabrication processes. With the impetus provided by the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympic Games, the organisers, sponsors and local micro-agencies seek ways in which sports culture can transform troubled urban environments. In response, so to encourage grassroots sports participation, this Workshop will design and produce prototypes for outdoor sports facilities under the viaducts in the impoverished and multi-ethnic Gliçério neighbourhood of São Paulo. Specifically, the Workshop will collaborate with the Garrido Boxing Academy in São Paulo, which is an informal, free sports venue under the viaducts, founded by Nilson Garrido, a former boxing champion, in order to give poor local inhabitants new opportunities, discipline, and self esteem. Actually attracting a cross-section of social-economic groups, the Academy, which has an improvised boxing ring, old punching bags and donated, yet dilapidated gym equipment, and even donated library books and classroom chairs, has been a media sensation, featured in numerous documentaries and international exhibitions. Because of its successful social impact, the city of São Paulo has donated three more under-viaduct spaces for Garrido to create new centres, while the Secretary of Sports of São Paulo is seeking to improve the conditions of Garrido’s existing sport centres. The Design Workshop will intervene in these spaces by using digital fabrication techniques to produce strategic small installations like canopies, platforms, seating and wall systems, to complement the provision of new, more rugged, outdoor gym equipment. The intense, studio-based Workshop, which will be open to designers from all over the world, will include extensive digital parametric modelling design tutorials using Rhino Grasshopper and Rhino Scripting, computer-numerically controlled (C.N.C.) fabrication, including rapid-prototype, laser cutting and C.N.C. routing and milling. Evening seminars and a full-day Forum will include lectures and contributions from both Brazilian and international architects, designers, urban planners, street artists, photographers and other specialists. The ten-day design workshop will culminate in presentations of design proposals as well as 1:1 prototypes in events under the viaduct. Accommodation & Costs Accommodation is not provided, but advice on affordable hotel can be given. The AA Global School requires a fee of £500 per participant (+- 1500 reais) which includes a £50 Visiting Student Membership, made payable to the AA School of Architecture. Fees do not include flights or accommodation. Students need to bring their own laptops, digital equipments and model-making tools. Contact: Anne Save de Beaurecueil + Franklin Lee T +44 20 7887 4014 F +44 20 7414 0782 [email protected] [email protected] Links: AA - Architectural Association School of Architecture www.aaschool.ac.uk/STUDY/VISITING/saopaulo.php NAi - Netherlands Architecture Institute www.nai.nl Workshop venue at: espaço de cultura contemporânea escola são paulo www.escolasaopaulo.org Garrido Boxing Academy: The Garrido Boxing Academy has received extensive media attention, as well as recognition and awards from international institutions. The Garrido Boxing Academy was chosen as a finalist for the Deutsche Bank Urban Age Award at the London School of Economics Urban Age São Paulo Conference. http://www.alfred-herrhausen-society.org/en/870.html and been exhibited and featured on the cover of the Catalogue of the Post-It City Exhibit in Barcelona. . Garrido has been the subject of numerous documentaries, including one by director Eliane Caffé shown on the BBC entitled O Louco dos Viadutos (The Madman of the Viaducts) (www.tvcultura.com.br/direcoes/o-louco-dos-viadutos), as well as other publications, including a photograph of the Academy winning the World Express competition.