Archinect - News

Andrés Jaque appointed as Columbia GSAPP's new Director of Advanced Architectural Design Program

2018-05-23T14:11:00-04:00

Columbia GSAPP Dean Amale Andraos announced today that Andrés Jaque will be the new director of the school's Master of Science in Advanced Architectural Design program, effective June 1, 2018. As founder of the Office for Political of Innovation and a teacher of advanced design studios at GSAPP since 2013, Jaque will succeed Associate Professor Enrique Walker, who has directed the program since 2008.

The three-semester Advanced Architectural Design program is for outstanding students who already have a bachelor's or M.Arch degree, and is best known for offering students a framework through which they can explore professional and academic concerns. In directing the program, Jaque aims to further develop architecture's role as a critical practice that is based on constructive debate of ideas and innovative experimentation.

“More than ever, architecture is now a key player in the challenges the world faces. The AAD program occupies a unique position from which the relevance of architec...

Cutting across the Chicago Architecture Biennial: Andrés Jaque's "Superpowers of Ten" performance

2015-10-12T18:45:00-04:00

A sausage as tall as you are. A skin cell the size of a dinner plate. The universe, in a glittery fan. These are a few of the props used by Andrés Jaque, founding architect of the Office for Political Innovation, in his "Superpowers of Ten" performance – a play staged on the ground floor of the Chicago Athletic Association during the opening weekend of the Chicago Architecture Biennial. Inspired by the Eames’ 1977 “Powers of Ten” film (the same year the Biennial’s namesake conference was held), the under-an-hour performance investigates the power of design to scale up, or down, into historic social and cultural sea changes.

Initially developed for the Lisbon Architecture Triennial in 2013, “Superpowers” is staged like a super-polemical elementary school play: a narrator guides actors, dressed in cartoonish cardboard or papier-mâché costumes, through stories of 20th century design history. The opening act plays direct homage to the Eames’ film, recreating the zooming in and out on the...

Archinect Sessions Episode #18: Moonwalking Or (The Expected Virtue of Social Architecture) with Andrés Jaque, winner of MoMA PS1's YAP

2015-02-26T13:38:00-05:00

Winner of this year's MoMA PS1 Young Architects Program, Andrés Jaque of the Office for Political Innovation, joins us on the podcast this week to discuss his winning design, COSMO. In a continued thread from last year's YAP, The Living's "Hy-Fi", Jaque's COSMO focuses on issues of sustainability and ecology – its main element is a series of pipes that will purify water with biological treatments.

Before winning the YAP, Jaque's office already had a piece in MoMA's permanent collection, IKEA Disobedients (2011), the museum's first "architectural performance" acquisition. COSMO will be installed from June 23 through September 7.

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Listen to episode eighteen of Archinect Sessions, "Moonwalking Or (The Expected Virtue of Social Architecture) with Andres Jaque, winner of MoMA P...

YAP 2015 winner Andrés Jaque/Office to install "Cosmo" at MoMA PS1 this summer

2015-02-05T19:06:00-05:00

MoMA PS1 announced today that "COSMO" by Andrés Jaque/Office for Political Innovation is the winner of the 2015 Young Architects Program competition. Every year, the YAP winning design is realized into a temporary outdoor installation placed in the outdoor courtyard of MoMA PS1 in Long Island City, New York during the annual Warm Up summer music festivities in late June. YAP proposals have to provide seating, shade, and water, and also follow guidelines that address environmental issues and sustainability.

Made of customized irrigation components, COSMO is described as a moveable party artifact that is also biochemically engineered to filter and purify 3,000 gallons of water in a period of four days. The structure will continuously eliminate suspended particles and nitrates, balance pH levels, and increase the level of dissolved oxygen. As a result, the same body of water will become more purified with each cycle.

Similar to last year's winning installation "Hy-Fi", COSMO is more t...