Architectural Portfolio

A. LAURA SOLANO RODRIGUEZ PORTFOLIO

LENTO This portfolio is presented in two parts: Architectural Formation and Architectural Practice. It aims to represent an irreducible experience that has defined a particular approach towards architectural practice. To name it I chose LENTO. I received my professional formation in two important institutions from Latinoamerica: the University of Costa Rica and the National Autonomous University of Mexico, at the Max Cetto Workshop. Thus my formation is embedded with the background of a complex territory, full of richness and severe inequalities. I grew near to tropical life to see it die at the expenses of an uncontrolled urban growing. I have been influenced by the visions and reflections of known architects that I have been able to meet in diverse contexts. They have potentiated in me a critical approach towards architecture. I have been able to confront precarious architectural working conditions, to understand that at the core of a rich and extractive industry there is the exploitation of an unvalued architectural knowledge. LENTO confronts this. It is a mode. It is becoming collective. In Spanish, as well in Italian, it means slow, but its Latin roots refer to tenacity. LENTO, because: for whom the time is gold? Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

I architectural formation

LENTO CONCERT HALL FOR PUBLIC SPACE 2010 The first exercise made with computer generated imagery, serves to question market demands on architectural representation. Those demands were required in an architectural design course, in that context, the images 1 and 2 were highly valuated because of their capacity to represent a finished object, a commodity ready to be sold. However, a major part of the work and the theoretical proposal was obscured or undermined by these renders. This experience of marketing ruling part of the academic sphere became a starting point for a critical path to explore representation and the boundaries of architectural discipline. COPERATIVE 2011 Puntarenas is a town in the Pacific coast that in 2011 continued to face problems related to poverty due to the shutdown of commercial activities in one of the oldest ports of Costa Rica. In that context, an architectural project should be proposed. The project suggested a cooperative organization for the town fishers, and the Twelve Angry Man collage (fig.3) aim to represent the discussion process in which that organization would be based on. Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.1 Fig.2 Fig.3

LENTO OPEN WORKSHOPS SCHOOL AND COMMERCIAL RESISTANCE 2012 Fig.4 On the other side, in a wealthiest area of San José, a commercial project should be built to deal with the intensive urban growing (characterized by commercial and residential buildings). The project proposed a temporal structure that would be able to be moved and constructed next to diverse gated communities (fig.4). A series of services offered by scholars, artists and interdisciplinary professionals organized as a collective would set a new kind of economy interacting with gated communities. This commercial is not related to the corporative space that we are used to. It is a commercial resistance. Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

LENTO OBSERVATORY FOR A TROPICAL FOREST 2013 Fig.5 A fictional station for scientific observation in the middle of the tropical forest served to accomplish a wood structure with a cantilever of 30m long (fig.5,6,7). Portfolio of previous works.Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.6

Fig.7

LENTO ITINERANT WOOD MUSEUM 2013 The ICOMADERA (Costa Rica Wood Institute) asked to design an itinerant museum to promote the use of wood in the whole country. The architectural proposal questioned three identified certainties regarding the role of walls in museums exhibitions. 1. The use of walls to exhibit something predetermined by an expert. It was questioned by offering the possibility of choosing the exhibited object through images of it (a wall for projection) 2. The invisibility of walls as enclosures in order to maintain a human-objet relation. Questioned by a shutdown of lighting and image projections, a kind of spatial performance. As a result: a room with no exhibition was left to make room for a human- wall/enclosure relation. 3. The last certainty of the wall was the human-enclosure relation. It was questioned by folding the wall in order to open the enclosure. What is seen in the images 8 to 16 is the documentation of design process in models and the last two photographies (fig.17, 18) show the final wood model with the folding walls. Fig.8,9,10 Fig.11,12,13 Fig.14,15,16 Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.17 Fig.18

LENTO SOCIAL OBSERVATORY 2013 Fig.19 This project proposes a structure in order to create a habitable bridge for a brook. Its joints were proposed to hang different artifacts (projectors, screens, lighting, walls…), so that people of the informal settlement Los Diques could decide for different events. The origin of the project was to question an stablished premise that asserted that bother people (because of its economical and social vulnerability) was an acceptable design argument to provoke a change. Instead, this proposal aimed to become a space for the autodetermination of the community by offering diverse kind of events. An architecture for a social psychodrama. For the present portfolio, this project is represented only by one of its details. (fig.19). Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

LENTO CANTILEVER CEMETERY 2012 Fig.20 Based on the exploration of the ordinary, Enrique Walker proposed several certainties that were used to question, think and advance an architectural proposal at the Given Ideas Workshop (Taller de las ideas recibidas). The photography (fig.20) documents the design proposal of a Cantilever Cemetery. Portfolio of previous works.Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

LENTO THE GENEALOGY OF URBAN RESIDENTIAL TYPOLOGY 2015 In 2015 Yoshiharu Tsukamoto proposed a research of three different generations of a particular typology in San José (Costa Rica) in order to propose the fourth generation typology. This architectural design proposes the Shared Bridge Typol-ogy. 1st GENERATION: FAMILY HOUSE tained a “shared condition” that is not usual in most of present houses development. This “shared condition” Two oligarch houses were built for different families at is what the fourth generations aims to develop. the beginning of XIX century in San José, Costa Rica capital city (fig.21). 4th GENERATION: SHARED BRIDGE 2nd GENERATION: HOUSE FOR RENT The fourth generation of this typology aims to maintain the “shared condition” found in previous generations. At the end of XIX century it was built “El paseo de las In the middle of a fear culture and residential Damas” a highly important street for the urbanization development, where, the norm is to isolate most of our of San José. The new path was located at the front of daily relations, this project seeks to provide architectural these two houses and it provoked the modification of conditions for communal and self-sustained relations. other paths in later years. Also, the ground level in front of the houses was raised about two meters up and the In order to achieve this, the typology preserves main entrances of the houses were affected (fig.22). elements such as mixed uses (residential development, commercial, cultural), the common entrances for With these changes, the houses owners decided to several houses, the pedestrian access and the bridge split the buildings and, through different bridges, they as a direct connection between commerce (second connected the second level directly to the street. The level) and the street, and communal use below the division of the houses was made in order to rent them as bridge (fig.24). At the same time, the project proposes various housing units and migrate to other places. With two main transformations; the first one is to locate this decision they created the beginning of the bridge the residential use in a new level so as to keep some typology, in which the access to the street is established distance between the housing and the ground level. on the second level and the bridge provides conditions of communal spaces below it. Also, they assured the The second transformation is the modification predominance of the pedestrian mobility and daily of circulation inside an outside the buildings, for relations between neighbors through common entries instance, the second level (commercial use), provides to different houses. connections between the buildings through wall openings to create a kind of market place. Also, 3rd GENERATION: HOUSE AND COM- the rear façade is constituted by a circulation that MERCE communicates all the spaces, and at the same time, provides the possibility of individual residential access At the end of XX century, for several reasons, San José (fig.26). The kind of proposed circulation can be seen lost its popularity as a place for residential use; the city as a net of rooms that allows the building to function as centre was predominantly commercial. This tendency a whole system. affected the uses of the mentioned buildings, and made them rentable not just for housing but also for Finally, at the third level, the houses are connected commerce. In this case, the bridge typology also as- by communal spaces (services, laundry, social areas, sured the maintenance of residential spaces at ground communal kitchen, dining rooms, etc.). This level is level because there wasn´t an appropriate relation to supported by an independent structure that also the street for commercial use in this level (fig.23). The provides support for the historical buildings. Finally, the spatial practice of bridges construction, made by the ground level is where all the activities for the support owners as a response to a new urban infrastructure, has of this community take place, members of it and any provided conditions for the hybridization of diverse other person can participate in the construction of this uses through years. The bridge typology has main- typology (fig.25). Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.21 Fig.22 Fig.23

Fig.24 Fig.25 Fig.26

Fig.25 details.

II architectural practice

VIDEO INDEX Links and passwords Atlas. Mexico City Link: https://vimeo.com/145954700 Password: none Self-Portrait Link: Password: H Building Link: Password: Avenida Chapultepec. Atlas Methodology Link: Password: It Builds Link: Password: Seconds of a B Movie Link: Password: Link: Password: Link: Password: Nervi and the capitalist horror Link: Password: Film Space as a Free Space. Chasing Venice Link: Password:

PUBLICATIONS Links IPnrtoecrevsioews dme agdeenttroifiLcuaicsióSnaleinnalsa. CEimudparedsdareiaMlisémxiocou.rbano. vLiienwk:/3h0t6tp0s7://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/revistarquis/article/ DOI 10.15517/RA.V6I2.30607 Cover page photography. Architectural academic journal: Lviienwks/:25h0tt0ps://revistas.ucr.ac.cr/index.php/revistarquis/issue/ hPaptd8rtefep?s5soe:6r/ni/gftweian5wc=cwipo4u.r/nbe3_lsi1yce9a_atE8rioc9dnh1i_gt7doa2erttei5aa._inllP/efrtue/lpsleut ebnxltitac/ca5it9oiocnn0_/8y3_71Ec9bd89ai t16o7frd2i a5clc_. Vparorddiuycatio3n–3Film Space as Free Space | Pre-workshop Lspinakc:e-ash-tftrpe:e/-/svpaardceiy-apxrper-ewsosr.ckoshmo/p2-0p1ro8/d0u6c/t2io6n/v-3a/rdiya-3-film-

LENTO ATLAS 2015 Video link: https://vimeo.com/145954700 The images of the pho-tojournalist Enrique Metinides serve as starting point where Mexico City appears as a collection of incidental spaces. The Sidelong Glances unit questioned what kind of cities do these images reflect and document, and also, what do they articulate about Mexico City. This proposal is a montage that focuses on the body as an articulating category to document the city. This proposal was presented as part of Species of Spaces an Architectural Association Visiting School in Mexico City,withthesupportof ValeriaGuzmán Verri and Alejandra Celedón. Portfolio of previous works.Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.27 “You must either give up talking of the Fig.28 town, about the town, or else force Fig.29 yourself to talk about it as simply as possible, obviously, familiarly. Get rid of all preconceived ideas. Stop thinking in ready-made terms, forget what the town planners and sociologists have said.” “(…) in the ideal dividing-up of today´s apartments functionaliity functions in accordancce with a proce¬dure that is uneqquivocal, sequential and nycthemeral. The activities of the day correspond to slices of time, and to each slice of time there corresponds one room of the apartment.”

Fig.30 Fig.31 “(…) no one lives exactly like that, of course, but it is nevertheless like that architects and town planners see us as living or want us to live” Proposed referential text: Species of spaces. G.P. Fig.32

LENTO MAP OF GESTURES at ICP 2016 Video link: https://vimeo.com/181577664 Fig.33 Map of gestures is a photographic exercise that aimed to document gestures and places of a specific path in the city of Turin to produce a portrait of it. The chosen path was the Line 4 of the tram which connects the north and south peripheries with the city center (fig.33,34,35). It was developed on the framework of the International Center of Photography/Camera Master class. Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.34 Fig.35

LENTO SELFPORTRAIT 2017 Video link: https://vimeo.com/191355125 Dance is a perfect act of architecture. Our movement, a portrait. Fig.36 Portfolio of previous works.Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113



This visual proposal analyzes the conflict between the Sculpture Space (Espacio Escultórico) and the Building H (Edificio H) in Ciudad Universitaria (UNAM, Mexico City). The Sculpture Space is a collective work, made in 1977 to delimitate the UNAM territory through a cultural and public vocation. Also, it served to create one of the main ecological reserves in the city and it is one of the more relevant landscape art in the world. Its landscaping qualities were affected by the construction of an eight-story building in 2015. The visual work proposed an approach from the body as spectator of urban development. The work defined by three concrete actions carried out in both spaces: to scratch a paper with a pen (a paper supported in a surface of both infrastructures), to pour a colorful liquid on surfaces, and to walk –circulate- in both spaces. All these actions allowed confronting visually the discourses and aspirations that are embedded in both architectures. While the Sculpture Space is a space for meditation, observation and partially free movement, the H Building is a surveilled space that restricts free circulation. At the Sculptural Space there was no one that questioned our actions, no stone that refuted our scratches or a norm for moving our bodies. It was the only place to observe a megalopolis without any skyscraper profile or even a building trace until the construction of H Building. At that building our actions were controlled, questioned and suppressed. This visual is a work to document the discourses that are being put forward by authorities on a continuing process of urban growing. The work was confronted with professor Peter Krieger, researcher of the Institute of Aesthetic Research at UNAM.

LENTO SCULPTURE SPACE AND H BUILDING 2016 Video link: https://vimeo.com/195399486 Fig.39-44 Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.45

LENTO AVENIDA CHAPULTEPEC ATLAS 2016 Fig.46,47 Video link: https://vimeo.com/195399486 As part of different urban development interests at Avenida Chapultepec (one of the main avenues in Mexico City center), several kinds of visual registers have been produced by diverse social actors. This project confronted three kinds of visual registers: the ones produced by the local government in order to promote a specific mega-project along 1.3km of the avenue, the visual productions made by several real-estates enterprises at the near “colonies” (neighbours), and finally, the photographs that register some dynamics found in the avenue. This confrontation questions what kind of urban conditions are built on those kind of representations. Also, it points out the relation bodies-city that appears on the images and finally documents alternative citizen organization to influence and be part of the intensive urban development. In this portfolio are shown some of the photographic registers at Mexico City streets (fig. 45,46,47,49) and a collage (fig.48) produced as part of the first chapter of the research that deals with the notion of the landscape consumer. Portfolio of previous works.Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

Fig.48



architectural practice architectureasan art of inhabiting needs to observe, explore and ques- tion habits

LENTO has used images photography, video, dance is rigorously devoted to cross boundaries between disciplines to get closer to our past to make projects for the past Because every past contains a missing opportunity See G.Agamben Costruire e habitare 2018lecture

AT VENICE BIENNIAL 16. MOSTRA INTERNAZIONALE DI ARCHITETTURA

LENTO IT BUILDS 2018 Video link: https://vimeo.com/249728227 Fig.51-54 It Builds is a video for the open call Vardiya to participate at the 16th Architecture Exhibition at la Biennale di Venezia. This open call selected young architects between 500 participants from all over the world to award them with a par- ticipation in the construction of contents at the Turkey Pavilion during diverse weeks at Venice. The video answers the question What does a biennial do? proposed by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts. Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

LENTO SECONDS OF A B MOVIE 2018 Videolink:https://vimeo.com/271293366 https://vimeo.com/271293342 https://vimeo.com/2712933941 https://vimeo.com/2712933941 The aim of these works was to use filmmaking tools to think about city spaces. It was choosen a generic structure of a horror B movie, specifically a catching scene, to film diverse spaces. The first four videos were filmed at Torino before arriving at Venice. The fourth of them Nervi and the late capitalism horror presents a building which is called Palazzo del Lavoro designed by Pier Luigi Nervi with the collaboration of Gio Pionti for the centenary of Italy unification. A building that once was dedicated to work for the celebration of part of Italian identity is currently abandoned; instead, a new kind of building is put forward in the city: the gentrificated factory for the middle class consumerism in the neighborhoods of the city periphery. The video shows the Palazzo del Lavoro as a shadow, as a memory that threats the fantasies of an unsustainable consumerism that uses promises of collectiveness as slogan, at taste for sharing can be read at the entrance of this space. Fig.55-58 Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113

LENTO CHASING VENICE 2018 Video link: https://vimeo.com/249728227 Fig.59-62 At the Biennial I used the proposed filmmaking tools as an architectural representation that could help me to observe the city away from its massive tourism. Venice is made of paths, of walks between bridges, calles and campos; it became impossible to observe and sense something about this city by just remaining in the most know and visited places. So I walked. With a cartography that I made I realized that I was trying to chase a devoid Venice, I choose a path away from the main calles then I learn it. I tried to walk on the nights then I made this video in a few days as a potential to chase another Venice and it came with a singing, not with a camera. Portfolio of previous works,Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113



LENTO A HOUSE IN LECCE, PUGLIA 2018 This was a proposal to discuss, to talk. There was an interest to restructure a summer house which is located at San Foca at the Adriatic coast of Puglia. The owners wanted to make some modifications in order to remove the outside structures that were added to the original plan. This is a translation of part of the text that was shared with them: “The fact that, in the house of San Foca, the corridor is dark and almost unused is not accidental. The importance of corridors and doors in the determination of human relationships within the space has already been pointed out. In a well-known essay (almost viral), Robin Evans pointed out that the characteristics of modern housing (based on the supposed satisfaction of basic human needs) seem to transcend our own culture, and therefore, everything seems neutral and indispensable. Fig.64 Fig.65 Portfolio of previous works.Torino, Italia T +39 3756232113



Throughout the essay, he shows us that the architectural elements are not exactly impartial in the determination of social relations. For example, in the old Italian architecture it was considered that having more doors in a room was better than having few, because it made the house a discrete matrix but with connected rooms and public roads. It is important to clarify that this point has been discussed by Pier Vittorio Aureli who points out that the proliferation of rooms on the Italian palazzo had to do also with a notion of privacy and access (not just with the relations pointed out by Evans); at the end it had as a consequence the creation of anti- chamber instead of corridors (passages). On the other hand, in nineteenth-century England it was thought that this organization (the one with several doors in room) was inconvenient because it made domesticity unattainable. Thus, the terminal rooms were then favored (with a single door) and a single income for the whole house. Something similar happens with the corridor. While circulation in the old Italian architecture was closer to a network (where people were prone to random encounter) according with Evans; in England, the linearity of the corridor (which leads to private or individual rooms) reduces the possibility of contact between people. The plan of this house in Puglia recalls the modern English arrangements and perhaps that is why a slight constriction is felt in the hall of San Foca. Its circulation does not take up the complex matrix of which Evans spoke; (that in fact it is not precisely a network of random encounters, but the way of moving and access from the more public to the most private, according to Aureli). And with this modern corridor the permeability so characteristic of the social relations present in southern Italy is not present at the house. The lack of contact (or the fear of touching) is one of the most painful characteristics of our societies, so, with this project we propose to confront it, to get closer. With this we began then a collective production of a project. With the way in which we materialize collectively a small project (that begin only as a fiction), we found an alternative (very human, very dear and familiar) to the irrationally capitalist mode of production that has stolen our time to have dreams. With this fiction begins a kind of slow Architecture. Our mode is