Manifesto

This text was written as a demand of André Freiermuth, as an attempt to fix certain topics that define our approach to architecture. André had always the Manifesto as a reference, a very strong word that creates connections with all important artistic movements of the beginning of XX century, a word that defines a starting point and a position for the next steps. This brought us to the question: what is a manifesto for us? in this moment?

As we said in the previous exercise, we have a difficult relation with the language and the definition of our work: architecture produces a certain reality that differs from the literary reality, one is based on the physical experience and the other on the language. At the same time, architecture and literature have very close relations to politics and cultural references, two topics that we can find in most manifestos and that bring both worlds together.

We then took the manifesto in a lighter way than those of the cubists or futurists, understanding it as a description of our interests in this moment, something that under this light is not a starting point or a ultimate position any longer but rather a compendium of our interests that tomorrow could be different, almost like an instant statement, an instant manifesto. We have listed 10 topics that we find on our working desks, footprints of our activity that allow us to be found, like traces on the snow: they are not our activity but we understand there is somewhere an activity because the footprints are still fresh.

These 10 topics vary in concept and have a short description that is left slightly open, as we think that saying too much has no sense anymore and we don’t intend to do a manual. We tried to make them talk about our architecture, but also about the way we work or about the way we see the world. Once we had them, we sorted them in alphabetical order, allowing them to create new connections and reinforcing the idea of found information, of «instant manifesto».

Concept

Focketyn del Rio studio is a concept driven architectural office: it pursues a constant research and development that reach to unexpected discoveries. Every project is understood as a small laboratory that grows concepts which are applied to that or other projects: we call this process cross pollination.

Public Realm

Focketyn del Rio studio develops most of the work in competitions for public buildings and understands the meeting spaces of the public realm as a basic tool of the architectural language. Every project should maximize the spaces for social interaction as a way of expanding in the futures the values created by the European modern society

Network

Focketyn del Rio studio partners worked for several offices in a very wide range of scales, creating a very strong, precise and wise constellation of collaborators. The studio decided to use this net from the beginning, using this resources to create a very experienced human labor force that supports and reinforces the inside concepts created for each project.

Soft Radicality

We believe in a social responsible place of the architect in the world. We believe that architecture also has political values. We believe that very powerful economical forces drive our work. We believe that we are in a very conservative era. We want to be part of the change. We want to propose meaningful political projects. We want buildings for those who want – and don’t want to be politically engaged. We want to hide strong concepts in friendly words. We want to be soft radicals.

Facades

The facades developed by the studio implement different layers of signification, so that these can be understood and read by a wide range of users and public. They span through semantic fields that involve meaning and forms coming from local elements but also involving from an architectural, constructive and historical point of view, in order to create different ways and levels of lecture of a building.

Rejected Architecture

After the several crises that had overcome the XX and XXI century, our generation must rethink the concept of «progress». We must intervene in fields that previous generations wouldn’t do, and do it from an «ecological» point of view, understanding the resources that have been already expend and the ones that we’ll expend as a global compute. Understanding architecture as a part of a cycle is one of the studios obsessions and produces highly rational, compact and ecological buildings.

Users

The use of the building, the appropriate material decision, the pursuit of a future flexibility, the deep understanding of the fluxes, in definitive a certain love for the unexpected and for a design that steps back before becoming too present. These thoughts become rules to judge the work and to put the user and its experience of buildings in the center of design.

Shape

A building must interact with external forces (environment, weather, regulations…), as well as internal forces (program, users, comfort…) and we expect of each of our buildings to combine these factors in a comprehensive way and to bring them forward, creating new words which can, nevertheless, still be understood. This is how we judge if a specific shape is appropriat or not for any project.

Scale

Working in a wide range of scales (from objects to masterplans) has been a very characteristic way of confronting the discipline in the studio. This constant jump of scales (temporal, spatial, development) is a drive to look with open and awake eyes to the specificities of each challenge.

Precision

Pushing the limit of precision in each moment of the project allows us to find new opportunity areas: it denudes the scheme of its cultural, linguistic values and moves it to a more clear, neat realm where it’s easy to discover poetic and pragmatic qualities that were covered before.