B-Pro Prospectives Lecture Series Spring 2023

If each civilization is remembered for the artifacts that they have left behind monumentalised posteriori (the Egyptians for their pyramids, the Romans for their infrastructures, etc…) then what will be the equivalent(s) of contemporary civilisation?

The title 'Monumental Wastelands' is derived from reinterpreting the definition of what a monument is from when the "Nine Points on Monumentality" were first published (written by J. L. Sert, F. Leger, S. Giedion). In the text, the authors outline what qualifies a monument, stating that it ought to outlive the generation that produced it as well as reflect the wants and needs of the people. Through our research and this magazine this definition is being confronted as most monuments are arguably lacking in satisfying this condition – hence we are searching for new forms of monuments or anti-monuments. The ‘wastelands’ portion is derived from looking at the byproducts that result of the making of these outdated monuments – for instance the scarred landscapes in the form of marble quarries, which we can also read as some form of monument; or perhaps we should start to consider them as such in order to recalibrate what means and to what ends those wants and needs are realised. It is often in these eventually abandoned and forgotten areas where past or new forms of life reemerge, existing on the fringes of our 'contemporary modern' lives.

The modern project has structured contemporary thought and society which has direct implications on how we conceive order and how knowledge is constructed and validated, which is often executed through top-down structures across socio-economic spheres and that rejects or attempts to tame what is commonly perceived as savage, wild and uncivilized; something that the publication holistically tries to disrupt.

The first issue on Autonomy questions systems of control and the re-evaluation of certain grounds on lands, humans, non-humans, the discipline, emerging technologies and future forms of cohabitation.

The second issue on Logistics examines various scales and relationships between ecology, economy, domesticity and identity from material, human and non-human perspectives.

Déborah López is a licensed architect in Spain, and Lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett. She co-leads Research Cluster 1 for Architectural Design MArch under the title 'Monumental Wastelands' with a focus on climate fiction (Cli-Fi), teaches design in Year 2 in the Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 & 2) programme where she is also the Year 3 Coordinator.

Hadin Charbel is an architectural designer and Lecturer (teaching) at the Bartlett. He co-leads Research Cluster 1 for Architectural Design MArch under the title 'Monumental Wastelands' with a focus on climate fiction (Cli-Fi), teaches design in Year 2 in the Architecture MSci (ARB Part 1 & 2) programme where he is also the Year 3 Skills Coordinator.

Pareid is an interdisciplinary design and research studio led by Déborah López and Hadin Charbel. Through a form of techno-research-bashing, projects are narrative driven while varying in scales and mediums; often positioning themselves within a socio-political discourse and operating at various scales and media through iminent fictions. Their work has been widely published and exhibited including at the Venice Biennale, Seoul Biennale, and the Royal Academy of Arts and most recently as part of the 2022 London Design Week. They were the recipients of the Arquia Innova Award in 2020, Premio COAM Emergente in 2020, and awarded Architizer’s 2020 A+ Popular Choice Award. They have just recently curated the Bartlett’s Prospectives Issue 3 under the theme of Climate F(r)ictions and are both the founders and directors of Monumental Wastelands Magazine, a recently published bi-lingual and augmented book with guest contributions spanning topics from ecosophy, aesthetics, autonomy, logistics, and technology.

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The lack of interoperability in building information modeling (BIM) is acknowledged by the scientific community and by architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) actors and impacts digital collaboration. This research aims at investigating this double issue, involving technical and organizational considerations in the context of a fragmented and low-digitalized industry. A three-pronged state of the art reveals that these two realms are but seldom considered together in the scientific literature. A technical as well as organizational device is therefore proposed to improve BIM interoperability: a collaborative framework, based on iterative cycles of collective data queries and enrichment.

This framework aims at establishing interprofessional BIM co-modeling processes and is supported by a software prototype, Treegram, allowing to federate and transcribe heterogeneous BIM data into a neutral database, which users can query and enrich. As queries are the core of data exchange, BIM collaboration is organized around data query/verifications/enrichment cycles.

The use of Treegram on an actual project shows that while the proposed framework works from a technical point of view and improves data flows, it nevertheless questions the limits of the traditional modes of project production in AEC and raises the question of the business models likely to accommodate the integrative rationales of concurrent engineering and industry 4.0 technologies.

Trained as an architect (in Paris Malaquais architecture school), Léa Sattler is specialized in the field of computational design and BIM (Building Information Modeling). She has worked for Gehry Technologies Europe, on projects such as Louis Vuitton Foundation (Paris) and Luma Museum (Arles), and for a French BIM startup on projects by Jean Nouvel, Zaha Hadid and Sou Fujimoto. In parallel, she has taught in the Digital Knowledge department of ENSA Paris-Malaquais, and has defended a PhD thesis about BIM collaboration and interoperability at ENSAM engineer school (École Nationale Supérieure des Arts et Métiers). As a senior lecturer at ENSA Paris La Villette since 2022, her research topics range from digital design ecosystems to the notion of concurrent engineering and open BIM.

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