• PROJECTS REVIEW 2008

    Inter 4 is unique in its willingness to be bold and accept non-utopian results, based on the belief that in order for new architecture to happen, many imperfect intermediate steps have to be made.

    Inter 4 attempts to bridge the gap between theory and practice. We try to reinject a measure of idealism into architecture, while avoiding the pitfalls of irrationality, ‘architecterrorism’ and pure aesthetic revelation. Over the last couple of years we have been developing a methodology that helps us to extract potentially feasible concepts from the conflictual complexities of today’s rules and regulations, overwhelming technological possibilities and broad, opaque, cultural globalisation.

    The conventional tools of the architect have become ineffective in the contemporary world, with its complex mix of ingredients. If we therefore discount context as being too dependent on an individual’s cultural background, where does this leave us?

    What remains is geometry and scale, and the relation between scale and the proposed tectonic or geometric ingredients of a project. Small things need to be treated differently than large things. Large things have other inherent potentials than small things. This is like viewing architecture in the same way as landscape. Both mountains and rocks can be beautiful, both can be functional, but mountains should not be designed as if they were rocks.

    This year the unit has focused on large objects: skyscrapers and cruise-liners, in order to investigate the effects of scale and ways of approaching the ‘large’ differently from the ‘small’.

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    Credits

    Unit staff
    Mark Hemel
    Nate Kolbe

    Students
    Azri Syazwan Abdul Gani
    Santiago Aceves
    Kokkin Chan
    Kasang Kajang
    Gee Woong Kim
    Ji In Kim
    In Sub Lee
    John Naylor
    Olivia Putihrai

  • Intermediate 4

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