MAGAZINE ARQ 55 Playing

Readings | Works and Project | Essays and Documents | Recent Architecture

The dimensions of playing / Pablo Allard
The stuff of play / Rodrigo Pérez de Arce
Pigeon coops: editing notes / Francisca Benítez
We usually think of spontaneity and convention as set at opposite poles, exclusive and mutually incompatible. Play in its many and even conflicting forms offers a paradox our discipline should value: agreeing rules, using skills, the notion of interchange, precise, insistent requirements for space, all these conditions of different forms of play point to a constant swing between inventiveness and obedience to the norm, between paideia and ludus. We architects face the same crossroads; the decisions that shape a project and its construction are charged with the ambiguous, fruitful relationship between rules and freedom, in a field where we are never alone.

Aventura Center, Santiago, Chile / Mathias Klotz
Home theater versus cinema, Nintendo versus fair ground, wine-tasting versus bar, private road versus public highway: When private space infiltrates areas seen till then as public (characterized by encounter, surprise, even a sense of “out of control”), and the mall’s parameters become the prevailing standard of urban life, then the private-to-public process could reverse. The boundaries of the private, guarded and supervised, gradually fade, as parking lots and cinemas, universities and medical centers, luxury boutiques and fast food outlets melt together. Look at the roller coaster next to the bowling alley, in the heart of a shopping center in one of Santiago’s new neighborhoods.

Children playground, Rosario, Argentina / Marcelo Perazzo
As Houellebecq talks of “broadening the battleground”, others might speak of “broadening the playground”. It’s not just football pitches or yards; urban parks offer scope to extend play space in the city space. Situationist efforts to use streets and public places as the setting for new experiences speak to the children’s pavilion that forms part of a plan to recover an old park in the heart of the city of Rosario, Argentina.

Chilean Connection / Barcelona Studio, U. de Chile - FAU
In the second half of the 20th century the French group Oulipo defended the profession with great lucidity. They rejected the idea of genius as the engine of creativity, and put their faith in the factory (or the worker): we can all learn to make art. A workshop, a space for exploration, sets out with similar assumptions: one learns by doing, learns in the group, and everyone, always, produces results. This exhibition, celebration of cultural relations between Cataluña and Chile, was produced in a workshop, and thus is also a choral and participative record.

3 projects in a favela / Jorge Jáuregui
Micro-town-planning? Faith in the healing (or saving?) power of architecture? These three interventions form part of the Favela Bairro project, an initiative to encourage families to settle in the favelas of Rio de Janeiro by offering better living conditions in their neighborhoods. The program proposals mainly relate to recreation and use of leisure time; the world of work and productivity is not the only answer, apparently, to the problems of marginality and urban poverty.

M7 prototype, Tunquén, Chile / Coperative URO1.ORG
Concerned that architecture should be a more accessible product to more people, we look again at mass production and low cost materials. Dissatisfied with the current state of “mass architecture” in Chile we gamble on less common - and riskier - paths. This building on the seashore may be closer to the spirit of the explorer than the passerby, more a hypothesis than an answer.

Kite, Chile / Gonzalo Puga
Kite - flying, like many games, has borrowed logic and structures from war. Duel, combat and technique: the kite makes the sky its battlefield, incidentally adding another layer to the landscape of our cities. Catching September’s winds, these ancient toys of sticks and paper affirm the strength of lightness as they hover skillfully over our roofs.

Proposal for Barakaldo, Bilbao, Spain / Jorge Lobos
When the rules of the game cease to be the solution and become the problem, it’s time for a far-sighted review. This project made an astute, unexpected counter-proposal to Europan 2001: the architects rejected the terms of reference that required them to build three housing blocks on the riverbank. Instead they proposed a horizontal project that hung over the water, using models of occupation drawn from vernacular strategies from distant and different places.

Body and hopscotch traces / Fernando Pérez Oyarzun
For Rem Koolhaas, the city is a space for taking the greatest possible freedoms, and the street is probably where these are recorded most eloquently. Walls scribbled over like an exercise book carry drawings and messages. Games like hopscotch could be one of the freedoms Koolhaas speaks of: chalked on the pavement they mark an area for unplanned children’s play. A quirky sketch that changes each time it is re-drawn, its very fragility guarantees its survival.
This is a review of Borchers field records on quoits, bodies and games.

Understanding coast urbanization/ Gonzalo Cáceres + Francisco Sabatini
Incorporating water naturally into areas of daily life is a relatively new phenomenon. The bathroom and today’s ideas of hygiene are modern inventions; a happy-go-lucky relationship with the sea gave birth to the modern beach resort, which is scarcely 100 years old. This essay looks at the way Viña del Mar, first an industrial extension to Valparaíso and then its upper class neighborhood, re-positioned itself towards the Pacific with the first beaches at Miramar.

A new vacation space / Macarena Cortés
Chilean society in the first half of the 20th century split over the changes: one part was horrified by the new liberal attitudes, the other rushed to adopt them. Viña del Mar was a veritable urban laboratory. The building of the first summer residences, the casino, the hotel, and the Cap Ducal restaurant signaled the shifts in direction that transformed the city into Chile’s main resort of the 20th century.

Rules. About desire, about freedom, about playing / Rodrigo Tisi
The second half of the 20th century saw a global change, from salon to street society. Benjamin foresaw it: pavements, street corners, arcades and parks became the backdrop to modern city life, with Paris and New York offering the clearest examples. In the street today you can bump into the truth.
Acconci operates in this public domain, taking the street and its buildings as the pillar for his work.

Reading on Lina Bo: Pompeia / Pillipe Blanc
Scant means and the prevailing amateur building techniques mean that inevitably much of South American architecture shows tool marks mixed up with hand marks. Seen like this, a building differs little from a sandcastle or a mud pie.
The spaces planned for play and meeting in Pompéia in San Paulo are full of these marks, but left in this case by workmen filled with ambition and generosity.

Consorcio La Florida building
Proyectos Corporativos
Santiago, Chile, 2002.

Santa María del Sol housing
José Domingo Peñafiel + Raimundo Lira
Santiago, Chile, 2002.