The Mind Productive Garden
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Location: Milan - Italy
Year 2011 Curator: Federico Zanfi Tutor: Observatorium (Andre Dekker ) Rotterdam/NL |
At the Politecnico in Milano buildings are for humans, gardens for trees. Gardens are places to look at and to avoid walking in. How can a garden and its trees become a classroom or a place for studying? How do humans and trees live together in a garden? How can a garden become a more attractive and pleasurable space students are allowed to use, as if it were a big room? How much can we take from a garden without amputating it? What can we add to a garden, without destroying its existing qualities? To find equilibrium in the old dichotomy of nature/culture will be the task of the students this design workshop. How to make a garden productive for the mind?
The students lack space for studying and relaxing, although there are some sites on the ground of the Politecnico where this could be realized. In fact the lawns and streets are already in use, but there is a need for shelter and places to sit. During this workshop it is our aim to create architecture without walls. How can we create comfortable seating in the gardens by installing wooden decks? Can we create a sense of place by just making a floor? How can the simplest of architectural forms enhance the qualities of the garden?
The task of the students is to design and construct wooden deck for the trees in a garden that invite the students to study and congegrate outside.
Andre Dekker
