Hands thinking: the briks pavilion

Abstract

The special commission for the construction of a temporary architecture built entirely with recycled briks would lead to an innovative teaching experience for 120 students from E.T.S.A of Granada in the 1st Year Project Design subject during the course 2009-2010 who participated in this project and for the authors of this text who acted as teachers, directors and coordinators.Aside from the eminently technical issues linked to the design of a new wall resulting from the sewing, stacking, juxtaposition or locking of a simple milk brik, the challenge of constructing the Brik Pavilion (the name by which this project would be known) would aim to rethink the traditional separation between theory-practice, student-teacher or university-business in architectural teaching.This pedagogical exercise would set in crisis the idea of a “classroom” as a teaching space replaced by "workshop" understood as a flexible place, without frontiers, between teachers and professionals. A place where the student could approach to the most tangible architectural dimension thanks to a teaching method based in work with physical models.The result would be an absolutely integrative, participative and collective pedagogical exercise in each and every one of the project stages. Throughout this text we will explore the different stages through which the proposal passed by, from the initial order to the final execution, the devices developed and the methodology carried out for the realization of such enriching as a complex experience.