ENCOUNTERS WITH HELIO

Background

"Twenty-five years ago I left the profession to dedicate myself to architecture": with this phrase I usually refer to the change of course that my activity made in 1997. The progressive bureaucratization of the profession of architect, the drift of their work towards work of mere administrative management and the reduced scope of their fields of action, prevented the m enrichment of the experience necessary for those who are dedicated to teaching Architectural Projects.

The generalization of 3D digital modelers and the progress of rendering programs made it possible to continue approaching the project without a commission, which detracted from its realism, but allowed it to insist on universality and reasonableness. From that moment on, I focused my activity on what from the beginning llam didactic projects. Projects developed from archetypal buildings, whose universality can serve as a reference for other uses, compatible with their spatial structure, approached with formal consistency and historical sense.

The website (helio-pinon.org) has since become an extensive collection of projects and reflections, which can be accessed by anyone interested in mis works: that is precisely where their condition as teachers lies.

It is a website with a large number of visits, which almost always recur, which indicates that it is not solo curiosity, but professional interest, that moves most of its users. 

 The library of Didactic Projects soon became a natural sequel to my activity as a professor of Architectural Projects, which I developed during m forty years (1972-2013).

*            *            *

With algo of delay compared to the advanced m, but at a suitable time for my itinerary, during the year of the pandemic I joined Instagram, where I generated a network of followers interested in mis projects.

From that moment on, I publish three or four images a week of the projects – didactic – that occupy me at that moment, which gives freshness to the material, immediacy to communication and facilitates the verification of the interest it arouses.

The new Instagram archive does not mean the abandonment of the website, even if its update does not follow the pace that ser desirable, which I hope to correct as soon as possible.

*            *            *

The Café con Helio has been an inevitable consequence of the new medium, given that the commitment initiated with educational projects has not suffered a scratch: on the contrary, the very dynamics of its development, tilted by the increase in on online communication that the pandemic has fostered, has generated, almost without realizing it, the new mode of didactics of the Architecture Project that I propose to present.

As I say in the first installment of the Cafés, solo are intended to ser an introduction to mis ideas and mis projects, so that they constitute a theoretical framework - perhaps schematic, but sufficient - for those interested in my architecture

Didactic projects

The t term didactic projects is not a presumptuous way of referring to projects that, because they are not based on a commission, can bypass las constraints imposed by reality. No, because mis projects are not that either: not obeying a demand does not free them one iota from las real conditions, m on the contrary, it allows them to be approached in conditions of rigor and las sense that real commissions often lack.

However, the presumed rigor and wisdom of some projects, by si alone, does not authorize them to be qualified as didactic. So, what is the condition that would make such a qualifier plausible?

Mis didactic projects arise from the encounter between mis theoretical convictions and my experience, with the tools to prefigure offered by las digital technologies.

It is enough to have representations with a sufficient degree of verisimilitude, capable of arousing judgments similar to those that would be produced by the built work.

The true condition of the project is related, on the one hand, to the choice of las references and the identification of the archetype from which it is started and, on the other hand, to the elaboration of that basic, universal structure, in a process that will give rise to the concrete project – specific fico– that is addressed.  

Mis didactic projects are, therefore, didactic instruments in themselves, since they show the basic aspects of my way of designing.

Since I use 3D modeling programs to design, I accompany the approach of the subject that is addressed with a specific proposal that I have previously elaborated, precisely, to take the project out of the field of divination to lead it to that of skill or competence: in fact, experience tells me that there is nothing better than showing as a project to help project the dem aces.

Limiting the discourse to the m mind favors returning to the path of visuality, eclipsed half a century ago by some "conceptual discourses" with which they tried to disguise the lack of criteria, both of project and of judgment.

Encounters with Helio

The Encounters with Helio arises as a direct consequence, almost as a corollary, of the Didactic Projects of my website: the possibility of online communication, the proximity on of the screen and the personal nature of listening, facilitates concentration, but requires a time limit to maintain it.

The Encounters with Helio are an attempt to transmit las convictions that I have reached after fifty years of experience in teaching projects and twenty-five years of project practice, from the perspective offered by my theoretical and teaching activity.

Title Encounters and not Course, to ser honest: the amount of theoretical material published in the form of books or articles, as well as that contained on my website (helio-pinon.org), and the set of mis Didactic Projects, published on my website and -since 2020- on my Instagram  account (@helio.pinon), make it unnecessary to abound in information about my work.

Las possibilities of online on communication allow forms of interaction that complement conventional didactics: the online on meeting allows for a dialogue that is difficult cil to achieve, even in face-to-face models.

The number of attendees at the meetings and the "privacy" in which they are held, are factors that favor, in my opinion, real communication, m beyond the pl to tica with questions.

The Encounters with Helio are aimed at a specific audience: those who are teaching in Architecture Projects or are preparing for it.

Naturally, I have those architects who have followed mis Doctorate and Master's courses at the ETSAB, many of them professors, with m highest rank in the university teaching scale. They ser, for obvious reasons, my Premium audience.

The meetings are structured in ten sessions of 100 minutes cada one, arranged at the rate of two weekly sessions, in the period between the months of October and March, both inclusive

To ser consistent with the approach I have just outlined, the 100 minutes scheduled for cada session are divided into two periods of 45 minutes, with an intermediate break of 10 minutes. It is a question of taking advantage on of the proximity that online communication fosters, without incurring the fatigue caused by that same medium.

The Encounters with Helio are based on ten themes, in which I address a series of basic questions of architecture and the teaching of the Project. An explanation that will have visual support, when appropriate, and that seeks to help configure the theoretical and operational framework of the current Project teacher.

The first period (A), of 45 minutes, will be occupied by an exposition  by me of the corresponding question and a comment on my own projects, chosen for this purpose. The second period (B), of 45 minutes, will be dedicated to a dialogue with the attendees, about doubts about what has been presented or issues of interest in which mis reflections and projects may be useful.

Program

17 Octubre_Estado of the question

21 Aesthetic Octubre_Sistema, Gaze and Judgment

24 Octubre_Que is Architecture (and Modern Architecture)

28 Octubre_La modern architecture and the city

31 Octubre_Proyecto: Consistency and Meaning

4 Noviembre_Proyectar is not solving, nor ideating

7 Noviembre_La form does not follow the function: it contains it

11 Project Noviembre_Materiales: not solutions, but criteria

14  Noviembre_El archetype: the inevitable reference

18 of Noviembre_Nota on the instrument

The course will take place for 5 consecutive weeks at the rate of 2 sessions
per week.

LAS sessions ser from 12.30 pm to 2.30 pm American time
(18.30 to 20.30 European time).

Total price $600 or €604 ($500/€503 si you register before 09/30/2022)

Request the background to the Meetings and the detailed program of sessions
to encuentrosconhelio@lacapell.com