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JOSEP FERRANDO | ...self

conversation · nuances · expression

editor: Félix Arranz | associated editor: Jaume Prat

architecture + architects

scalae ebook collection #003, english draft edition

march 2013

ISBN: when final ebook and print editions are published

bookID: scalae.net-ferrando-self-draftENG-20130331-01

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scalae documents, broadcasts, and stimulates debate around, criticism of, and research into architects and other agents involved in the narration, creation, and construction of architectures that provide shelter for people’s lives and aspirations.

www.scalae.net

[collection credits]

Félix Arranz, editor and director

Jaume Prat, associated editor

editorial board

Eugeni Bach, Jordi Badía, Antonio Bedmar, Eva Blanco, Josep Cusidó, Olga Felip, Borja Ferrater, Ferran Figuerola, Beth Galí, Jordi Ludevid, Fernando Marzá, Josep Lluís Mateo, Ariadna Perich.

industries board

Cricursa · Lamp · Ciments Molins · Figueras International Seating

guest entities:

Banc de Sabadell · Hydro Technal Alumafel · Roca Sanitario SA · Roca Barcelona Gallery · Andreu World · Fundación RBA

institutional network

guest entities:

Col·legi d'Arquitectes de Catalunya (library) · Institut Ramon Llull · Arquitectes per l'Arquitectura · Associació Arquinfad del Foment de les Arts i el Disseny · Escola Tècnica Superior d'Arquitectura de Barcelona, UPC · LaSalle URL · ESARQ UIC · Catalunya Radio

[scalae international ebook collection]

The scalae architecture + architects international ebook collection is a European initiative that began in Barcelona. It became a reality through the support and teamwork of a group of experts, institutions, and companies that are committed to the internationalization of industries and their work, product intelligence for the construction industry, and the configuration of an architectonic project based on cultural exchange and debate.

The collection is based on scalae’s earlier publications and initiatives: print publications (scalae 0.0; 2003), podcasts (scalae 1.0; 2005), and the scalae.net rss documentaries (scalae 2.0; 2009), complementary undertakings which are all still available.

Each issue in the collection focuses on a single Catalan, Spanish, European, or international architect, studio, or architectural agent, and the text is divided into three sections. The first section, ...self, is a transcription of a conversation -also available online as a podcast- that covers the principles, processes, and results of the person or studio in question. It also includes a selection of significant graphics or drawings of theirs or which reflect their style. The second section, ...from, includes the subject’s opinions, experience, or critiques of topics and objects they hold dear. The third section, ...about, reflects others’ opinions, experiences, and critiques of the subject’s creations, techniques, and professional and personal output. The ...self, ...from, and ...about sections make up a complete issue. Together, the texts are published as free, internationally distributed ebooks in English, Spanish, and Catalan in .mobi (Kindle®) and ePub (iBook, iPad, eReaders) formats.

In the final stage of this open production process -which includes both the ebooks and the online material- the issues in the collection become available for low-cost, on-demand printing for those wishing to have a paper version and for public reference libraries in Catalonia and the rest of Spain and in international centres for architecture and culture.

The collection is testimony to the efforts of many people –a fractal map of involvement on the part of the editorial board and multiple other agents– whose only motivation is the desire to open up ideas, documentation, and research so as to foster debate. Their work does not rely on sponsorship or conventional advertising but rather on collaboration: companies produce original articles about their work, which constitute an alternative –and direct– form of expression.

[issue credits]

· issue: Josep Ferrando ...self, draft, ENG

#003 scalae architecture + architects ebook collection, march2013, scalae ed, Barcelona (Catalonia; Spain; Europe)

· editor: Félix Arranz

· associated editor: Jaume Prat

· social management: Montserrat Arnau

· english translation: Victoria Patience [nativawordcraft.com]

· photographs: Adrià Goula

· drawings & sketches:  Josep Ferrando

. technical & distribution support: Micky Bou [ysi.net]

. free distribution & subscriptions: archbib.com

. printed paper version (march 2014)

. ebooks@scalae.net

. disponible la versió en català d'aquest ebook a archBIB.com

. disponible la versión en español de este ebook en archBIB.com

[conversation]

Josep Ferrando, in conversation with Félix Arranz, discusses his career path. Collaborations have always been a constant for this architect who has recently turned forty. He has adopted a systematic approach to working with other people, with certain protocols regarding work and professional relationships that enable him to communicate effectively with professionals from different countries and different regulatory contexts and take joint decisions. In this conversation, he devotes particular attention to the distinction between excursions and expeditions; the vital importance of documents such as the site plan -both ground plans and cross-sections; the active void, understood as a potentially inhabitable, democratic, urban space; his role as a university lecturer who teaches at various universities; the things he has had to give up, out of conscious choice or because he has been forced to; the expression of gratitude as a symptom of relationships that have been understood properly; his city, Barcelona; the possibility of building with a single materials; and understanding austerity as a permanent requisite rather than the result of specific circumstances.

The following section contains the transcript of this conversation, the complete version of which you can also listen to, in Spanish, in the scalae.net documents section.

becoming the director of a studio...

...takes a lot of motivation. A lot of motivation and being surrounded by motivated people. Almost all the people who I invite to work with me were students of mine, and I always choose them because of their attitude towards learning rather than their specific experience.

I can work alone because I get together with other people to take on certain projects, depending on their size and location. That’s the way I like it. It’s like being part of an ever-changing collective. We tend to base the project at my studio. When we work outside of Spain we collaborate with local teams. Trying to do things abroad alone is a mistake. You always need a local team. They let you know about the environment. By environment I mean the atmosphere of the place: from building regulations to the way projects are delivered to social issues.

I only take on work in places where I’ve already spent time teaching or leading a university workshop. Places I know, where I’ve had experiences. The teams I work with there are led by friends. We do a lot of work via skype. This kind of work wouldn’t be possible without skype. There’s a really important change the moment you can share your screen. You can draw as though the other person was next to you, while they watch, without needing to send a fax or an email. We can work side-by-side, from opposite ends of the earth. We start with sketches of the site, and once we start to agree on the program, the local team gets to work, as they’re the ones who know what is essential wherever it is that we’re working, from circulations to logical accesses. And local regulations are also part of their DNA. That’s something that we might get wrong from here, because we don’t usually check the regulations we know: they’re practically part of us. But regulations are a grammar that can be calamitous when applied to another country. When the job in question is far away, we work through approximation.

We begin by working -almost obsessively on the site plan. It’s a plan that expresses sensations, that gets down the entire three-dimensional complexity of the site. You have to experience the site through the drawing. We also work with two types of model, a small one for geometry, lines, directions, masses and voids, folds, all very abstract; and a larger one, made from a single material, which highlights the project material, with small modifications (if the project is heavy, the material will be heavy). The material might be the colour white applied to a range of basic materials: concrete, terrazzo, false ceilings, exposed brickwork. Colour is a material that is made manifest through the light and shadows of the construction.

constantly going on an expedition, every day...

I’ve learned this way of working at various places. And at the School. The ETSAB: Barcelona School of Architecture. The sheer size of it means that you can choose the degree course you want to take, follow the curriculum you want, choosing the professors that interest you. This isn’t possible at other schools where I teach. I chose people like Xumeu Mestre, like Albert Illescas, one of the best teachers at the school, people like Josep Maria Gil, like Albert Viaplana… You could get Viaplana to correct your project in the corridor just by intentionally passing by. On my last course I chose Antonio Sanmartín and Robert Terradas. I wasn’t looking for a specific line, but rather for people who I knew would give me the information I needed so that I could keep hold of what most motivated me, what seemed most interesting to me. I didn’t wait for my teachers to give it to me. I took it from them. In fact, few people chose to study under Albert Illescas, but a lot of people remember him. It was hard to get people to choose his courses because he was very... well, you had to understand him. You had to understand what he was really about, not the way he said or did things, or his comments. They were, or are, teachers who make you observe a lot. All of them are great readers, great music-lovers... they taught me something which has been really useful to me: multidisciplinarity. Illescas was a great lover of jazz, a great collector. What all these teachers have in common is their dedication to the profession: their love for what they do, the esteem they hold it in. And those little obsessions that they jot down: notes recording everything they do, what they buy, what they see, what they visit.

My teachers taught me the difference between an excursion and an expedition. When you go on an excursion, you go somewhere, visit it, and come back with a souvenir of some sort. When you go on an expedition, you go in search of something. The thing that changes is you. You bring back something about the place inside yourself. It becomes part of you. What all these architects have in common is that they are able to make anything into an expedition, every day, from hopping on a bus to taking a trip to Chicago. An encounter between information and constant learning.

My teachers are people with their hands in their pockets. They don’t need to discover great things. Their eyes are always open. They’ve read a lot. Going on expeditions is about educating your gaze, learning through it. Preparing the terrain for what you might find in it.

drawing from the tip of your pencil...

The site plan, like your gaze, prepares the terrain for what we might find there. There’s no point to it if we don’t establish it from the ground up. Most site plans that we see are bird’s eye views, they speak of the city’s masses and voids, about occupation and emptiness. We talk about unoccupied space when voids become active. The site plan drawing has to do with the drawing of the ground floor. It’s not only about identifying how public space is transformed into stages on which different events are played out, how a building is capable of becoming a public space. Instead, it’s about how, when we draw a tree in a certain location, that tree must be able to transmit how you feel when you’re standing under it. We don’t base our work on a standard boundary, on any old drawing block that you can pick up anywhere and repeat infinitely, but rather we try to explain what a deciduous tree is, how it’s built. For most of the year, this type of tree is nothing but branches, a kind of spider’s web that draws textures onto the soil. Then its leaves come out, and it starts to provide shade. Our drawing needs to explain what an evergreen tree is, the way it weaves a canopy of shade year-round. Or if the tree is vertical or horizontal...

That’s what I mean when I talk about the site plan: how the site’s features make you perceive it.

The drawing is the tool for this. We redraw the site, its geography, the people there exhaustively. We’ve taken the idea of drawing from the tips of our pencils to extremes, like in the Winterthur competition, where we asked ourselves how we were going to explain, through the site plan, that the site was covered in snow. It was white on white (the plan was white) until we realized that we could show how thick the snow was by drawing people’s footprints in it. That was important for us, because we’re based in Barcelona, where it almost never snows, and suddenly we had to design something for a place where it does. The thickness of the snow makes you walk differently, more slowly. More than a site plan, it’s the cross-section of a situation, told through a ground plan. Or lots of them. They are multiple data sections. That’s why the snow is important, or the tree. It might seem like an anecdotal detail, but it allows you to understand that when a place is covered in snow, you can’t just drive up to it. People go on foot or by bicycle. Approaching a site surrounded by tarmac isn’t the same as one surrounded by sand or by snow. The rhythm of the approach is totally different. The scales of the entrances are very different. By drawing snow, we are able to understand that it’s a site that we approach more slowly than one that is tarmacked. The drawing changes if it’s a place you know for sure you’ll arrive at by car. The thresholds are on a different scale. More than a site plan, it’s the cross-section of a moment in time.

the life that society says you should live...

When I was starting work on my end-of-degree project, I started teaching at the ETSAB: Barcelona School of Architecture and at the La Salle School of Architecture. A bit later, at the EINA and IED interior design schools, and at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I don’t think of it as teaching in five different places, but rather as teaching in a single place in five different spaces. Teaching is an exercise. I do my best to have my classes either very early or very late so as to be able to devote myself fully to the studio in the time between. This has forced me to give up on the life that society says you should live. Or what the ever-changing canons dictate. You have to renounce everything that lies outside the world of architecture. It all ends up being absorbed by that world.

Travelling really invigorates me. It brings back my balance. Being in a country you don’t know, with other people, in another culture, is incredible. These trips to give classes and conferences really let you experience the place. You get the feeling of having lived in the city even if it was only for a few days.

I’m lucky to have given conferences in São Paulo, at a wonderful school, the Escola da Cidade. I’ve kept up this relationship with Brazil and, above all, with São Paulo, which is an aggressive city. Arriving there is like a slap in the face, but you end up loving the place. I’m working on a thesis about architecture from São Paulo, which is on another scale. It operates in a place where both the natural and urban worlds have extraordinary dimensions. These are built using two elements: by manipulating the ground, level zero, which is not the level of the site, but rather where you establish the ground level to be, and by manipulating the roof, which might end up being very thick. Certain relative measurements are established between the ground and the roof which create an active void. This active void provides shelter from this enormous natural and urban scale. The void is also democratic. It’s a place where anything can happen.

This knowledge affects my work. It’s become part of my attitude. This insistence on establishing level zero, for instance, is extremely important, and we apply it to all our projects. In Catalonia, we’re dealing with a landscape on a much smaller scale than in São Paulo, so voids of that size make no sense here. The São Paulo School of Architecture splintered off from the School of Engineering, so it made sense to work with these huge structural spans, which come from civil engineering, and incorporate them into housing. Here it would seem gratuitous. For them it’s logical.

to learn quickly and pull myself together...

During the fourth year of my degree, my father died, and I decided to start working. My first job was at a town council. Then I spent quite a few years at the studio of Roberto Terradas and Esteve Terradas. I had the good fortune to learn a lot thanks to the responsibility they gave me. Although I didn’t have much experience, I took on large-scale projects, from the planning stage through to construction and client relations. I had to learn quickly and pull myself together. That helped me. I’m grateful for the confidence they placed in me. At the same time, I did some competitions and, after winning a couple, I decided to work on my own.

Here at my studio, except for a few private housing projects, all our jobs are public works. We’ve never worked for private developers, we haven’t done any speculative building work, only public projects, so the way we see the profession has been the same right from day one.

We always try to understand energy as a common-sense issue: from the start, it’s better to use traditional solutions –from cross ventilation to good natural lighting– rather than trying to solve problems after the fact with highly industrialized or elaborate solutions to a problem that could be fixed with a strategically placed patio. Because of this, all our plans include a study on overhead light. In some cases, the program is based on this.

We have to base our work on austerity. I am interested in architecture that is based on austerity but that doesn’t want to look austere. In general, people think it’s good for a building not to look expensive. Not only should it not be expensive, it shouldn’t look it, either. We have to make the best buildings possible with the austerity required not only by this moment in history, but at any moment.

i don’t believe much in the idea of a Barcelona School...

I’m from Barcelona. The economists say the city is doing well, financially speaking. There are things that could be built, but I don’t see many happening. There’s a lot of talk, but not much work going on yet. For a while now, the architectonic discourse hasn’t really convinced politicians. In the past, there were other problems too –big events, for instance. At one point, that idea was a success, like with the Olympics, when a whole city was built because of big international events. Then there was a chain of errors. As new events were dreamed up, the city’s architecture started to be built by architects that weren’t from the place where the event was being held. The Barcelona Olympics gave rise to architecture created by architects from Barcelona. A way of creating a city. Everything was linked together. Then we started coming up with more and more events, and the percentage of local architects became smaller and smaller. It was more a mass of architects than of architecture. That’s where we went wrong. Especially considering that with our tradition of excellent architects, some amazing things could have been built.

I don’t believe much in the idea of a Barcelona School. At one point there was a single type of school, a single way of doing things. But there are more ways of doing things that we think. Is Enric Miralles representative of the Barcelona School? His form suggests not but, on the other hand, we all know who he has worked with, what he has read. He does belong to a way of understanding architecture that is taught at the ETSAB and which, at times, is misunderstood. The term ‘Barcelona School’ has lost a lot of its original meaning. It’s not so much to do with what’s been written about it but with how people think of it, the vague set of definitions for it that make talking about it rather pointless.

There are situations that make me furious. Ugly things. While travelling I’ve seen things that have made me indignant at times. It’s outrageous, how things like that have been built in such wonderful spaces. The agents that intervene in those sites don’t demand real architecture, so they don’t get any. I suppose it’s an attitude that involves not having to really look at those places, but it does make me furious, especially because there are places that fit this pattern that are spectacular.

Although you don’t need to travel to realize that.

[nuances]

A second conversation, this time with Montserrat Arnau, Jaume Prat, and Félix Arranz, allows us to delve deeper into issues that Josep Ferrando himself considers vital to understanding his way of thinking and working. These include his skill at drawing; the constant duality that results from always working with at least one other person; the way that duality transfers to the design process, bringing with it asymmetry as a conditioning fact and the balancing of opposites as a conscious methodology; his interest in the geometries of pattern design and the folds of dresses; and his love of certain activities that form part of both his professional and personal lives: learning, teaching, and experiencing variety through trips, workshops, and intensive courses.

fundamental principles: the skin of fishermen...

I’ve drawn a lot ever since I was little. Always. I taught myself to draw, when I was five or six. The drawings I did then were pretty good for my age. I’ve always asked a lot of myself, and when someone told me that a drawing I’d done was good considering I was only five, I would get angry. Something’s either good, or it’s not. It’s like architecture. Either we do it, or we don’t. Being a young architect is pointless. If only it were useful... but I don’t believe in it. I don’t believe in older architects, either. Some architects remain valid, and others don’t. Youth is not a merit. On the contrary. I’m more interested in character than youth. Experience. That goes for buildings, too. They get old. It’s something I include in my designs. Sometimes aging adds new layers of material. And it affects the various parts of a building differently. You end up with thicker textures, with patinas that build up over time. Textures, cracks. Like the skin of fishermen. You can see the life they have lived through their skin. Experience speaks through the skin. It tells a story. I’m not interested in Botox.

Nobody in my family is involved in architecture or construction. I have three sisters; one of them is my twin. Since we were kids, our roles have been clearly divided: she was the active one, and I was the quiet one. But although she was the extrovert, whenever she wanted something, I had to ask for it. I always had to ask for things. Our roles never changed. Things stayed that way until she left home. Maybe that’s why I’ve always designed with somebody else. Things are going well for me by myself, with no fixed partner, but I like to know there’s someone out there that I can have a conversation with, explain things to. It’s like a two-part design system. This duality also affects the systems that make up my architecture. An asymmetric duality: between places where there’s sound, and places where there’s silence, between structural spaces... The system is more flexible. You can push its limits, and it likes that. The system has been thought out so that it expresses itself through these dualities.

processes: it’s a question of strategy...

Asymmetry and instability. Dualities define the system. They relate scales to one another. Each building contains a small city within it. The concept of the threshold is connected to these dualities, a physical, visual body that might be made up of a group of served spaces that separate the two parts of a module, or of the transition from module to module. Or it might be made up of a module that, by functioning differently, makes up the entrance and gives the system meaning. There is always a distance, even if it’s only tiny, between what’s already there and what you place there, designed through the site plan, which defines how the building will fit into its surroundings. The earthworks, which establish level zero, root the project in the terrain. This ground zero might be higher than the land around the building, forming a platform that floats above the landscape, connecting it with things both near and far; or it might be sunk in it, creating an enclosure that defines a more intimate horizon, humanizing the scale of the construction.

The aggregation unit, made up of groupings of served and servant spaces, is the intermediate module between the totality of the building and the smallest room, and the totality of the building and the city. The way these units are laid out – be it staggered, in a circle, grouped at height – is what allows for a complex reading of the building. The grain of the building, its patios, the volumes that constitute it – all these factors facilitate a dialogue with the surroundings when the building is silent. The system might appear to be irregular, but it isn’t at all. Asymmetry unifies spans and builds interior facades. Thicknesses are defined using the fewest possible lines which, in combination, multiply possibilities.

The continuity of the system is guaranteed by the rhythm of the light. When possible, this is overhead lighting, which lays out the building, organizes the space, combines with different roof heights, with changes to the ceiling. These changes always overlap. The aim of all this is to develop the complexity with which we read a system that, with a bare minimum of rules, gives the richest and most varied results possible. The system has to be clear on all fronts: maximum economy, maximum richness in terms of space and material, maximum resources; it needs to only cost a little but look as though it has cost a lot. If a building made entirely of two formwork moulds looks as though every piece is different, all the better. I play at a sort of confusion through a clear rhythm, not direct and Cartesian, but the result of many intuitions. Complex intuitions that have been reconstructed through mathematical formulas and validated by the system.

results: a two-way dialogue with the body and with space...

I choose materials according to the circumstances surrounding the project, the financial resources that are available... I build up an argument through all that. We investigate the relationships between possible materials. Sometimes you choose a material and it gets changed. The project ends up being the better for it, because it forces you to focus more on the system, which is able to include unusual components. At the URV Campus at Tortosa, for instance, possible construction errors were incorporated into the system from the start by using, in the precast concrete panels, a relief with a vertical module that’s 12 cm high, which is the maximum acceptable error for a building of this size. Materials can have different textures and reliefs. They can hide joins and make the module disappear. A relief can de-scale a building. It can make it seem monolithic. It might bring a new logic to the surface, one of wrinkles.

Partly because of family influences –my mother was a dressmaker– I’m very interested in the methodology of fashion. We wear second skins. In many designs, like Issey Miyake’s, for instance, the issue of distance from the body comes up. A dress is a two-way dialogue with the body and with space. It’s autonomous. It goes everywhere with you. With clothing, joins are a vital issue. Sewing seams. Geometrization has to do with joins, with folds... Miyake sells dresses rolled up in tubes, as though they were flat, because the material is what matters. A material that is acted upon. The result is flexible because you can wear the dress in different ways. Depending on how you wear it, it might look casual, or it can be an evening dress... The material can work in many different ways.

A dress, like a building, is a project, a system. And in almost all projects, the systems are hidden. Time does the rest. The project is constantly redrawn to show how it ages, how it wears away, because I want that process to be understood. I even try to bring it about, like in the models we’ve made from concrete containing steel wool so that it ages faster. Buildings, like dresses, are different at each given moment, when they have a texture to them.

everything else: to build team spirit...

I like to visit new places, new cities. If I want to learn about a place, I do a competition. It’s one way of travelling there. Of getting to know the place. You can travel doing competitions and workshops. Between competitions, workshops, and conferences, I’ve been all over the world, except Africa. With a bit of luck, I’ll be going to China and South Korea this summer. Going to lead a workshop is like doing a competition. I partly do it for the exercise. You have be able to put the whole thing across in a week, to encourage twenty or thirty people... One thing that’s really invigorating and makes me feel really satisfied is when I see in a student’s eyes that they’re going to try to explain to someone else what you’ve explained to them.  If things go well, the day comes when you see that. It doesn’t mean that the student in question is going to create good architecture themselves, but they’ll endeavour to get good architecture made.

Every time I lead one of these workshops it’s an expedition. In two senses. I do it for myself, to soak up the culture of the places I travel to, in the broadest sense, and I do it to export architecture. To get a group of people to change for the benefit of their city. To build team spirit. It’s like being part of a family. The perfect workshop lasts no longer than ten days. In other words, a week and a bit. There should be a weekend in the middle. When there are distractions, the rhythm changes, and when people feel comfortable, we all go out for dinner... Workshops should be able to point those who take part in two directions: towards the city and towards academia. We all should learn something: the students and me. Workshops are a form of training, not research. They’re a good excuse to learn something by teaching.

...natural light highlights textures with JF

by Ignasi Cusidó and Pep Cusidó

In the work of the Catalan architect Josep Ferrando light is characterised by being treated as independent systems either with natural light or artificial light though both are expressed to distinguish between materials. He gives the former, natural light, pride of place over the latter and his work endeavours to get the most out of light.

The architect prefers natural light from the sky which he always takes into account to let it seep into the building and fill the different spaces. However, Ferrando doesn’t make the mistake of always introducing light from above, but rather one of the devices he deploys most in his buildings, whatever their scale, is that set out in the programme using light patios. These patios allow light to be introduced into the building from wherever he deems appropriate and always in extremely careful fashion. Ferrando uses light to distinguish between the various spaces and he usually encrypts them in exactly the same way as the other elements going to make up the system.

As lighting consultants, we are very aware how important it is to know how to make the most of natural light during the day and knowing how to substitute it subtly and inconspicuously with artificial light when it gets dark. The essence of the space has to be genuine during day and night, and has to provide a consistent sense with the time of the day, and the good use for this purpose of both lights, natural and artificial, is not immediate. We like the way in which Ferrando separates them making neither artificial light follow natural light, nor vice versa, giving to each time its light and place.

As far as artificial light is concerned, Ferrando always tries to avoid the general lighting of spaces. He is adept at classifying spaces into zones and at paying great attention to the light transitions of spaces, in such a way that they are never abrupt. The architect frequently uses artificial light to highlight textures and make architectural changes stand out.

This very personal way of understanding light is evident in the work carried out at the Japanese restaurant Icho in Barcelona which, unfortunately, has now closed its doors. His preference for light from the ceiling creates a luminous restaurant ceiling comprising a succession of narrow and broad wooden panels with luminaires placed on the upper part. The combination of these identical panels transforms the ceiling into an original sky which is simultaneously systematic and random, combining shaded areas with other more illuminated ones, playing with standard elements and minimal operation.

(translation: spain alphatrad)

[expression]

In his CV, Josep Ferrando usually includes the following statement: “All working documents are final, autonomous works to be treated, at any stage, as architecture, so as to become part of the studio’s knowledge and experience, enriching future projects and eventually evolving as part of them”. The following series of illustrations, presented in decreasing order of scale –like an extraordinary trip that starts with a landscape and ends with a footstep in the snow– reveals the multiple meanings of a single word: document, which is equally valid for a material construction –a model, although that particular term doesn’t do the work justice– as for an infographic construction –a plan, another insufficient term– as for a diagrammatic construction –a sketch, but... again, it’s more, maybe a map of the senses– or maybe even a fish-shaped bottle, ready to float away with a secret message inside it.

... sublime maps that become extraordinary journeys

by Félix Arranz and Jaume Prat

Josep Ferrando explains the difference between excursions and expeditions, revealing what has motivated him during the first stage of his professional career. This motivation was perhaps passed on to him by Albert Illescas and was also, perhaps, inspired against the myth of Ariadne and the labyrinth, part of his attempt to move beyond the epic and determinist conception of architecture in which all paths are laid out in advance. By trying to bridge the gap between verbal discourse and the discourse of the systems of symbolic expression used by this architect from Barcelona, we might be able to come up with a series of motivations that are equivalent to the expeditions he speaks of.

This sequence would include the extraordinary voyages which Michel Serres (*) alludes to when he entangles the motivations of Jules Verne, who was able to travel into the infinite distance without ever leaving his desk. It would jump ahead to the sublime maps of feelings and senses where “the essence of modernity, the scientific and technical perception of the world, mingle with the essence of animal life” that Michel Houellebecq (**) is able to see in a Michelin guide. The sequence might end in the subject’s personal cell, in the pure romantic and personal introspection of someone who knows themselves to be as much an engineer as an artist and a bulilder: in other words, an architect. As such, he is free of the chains of space, time, and expression, because time and space form part of his science, and conscious expressive ability is the source of his own vitality.

In this way, Josep Ferrando thinks and travels with his hands. His sketches, models, and informational drawings imply the presence of expeditionary vehicles that adventure into the forests of the geometric families that are just as likely to culminate in precast concrete panels as in furniture or entire urban projects that are shaped exactly like one of the buildings within them.

On his real and imagined voyages, his manual and physical expeditions, Josep plays with scale using a language that is solid but at the same time sensitive to the changes that are sparked by the evolution of his thoughts, at a pace marked by the things he finds along the way.

His expeditions, and the geometries that emerge from them, are all part of the same game. His logic of assimilation is equally of use to him when venturing to a distant country as when travelling around his own bedroom, like the logic put forward by Xavier de Maistre at the time when the great explorers were reaching the ends of the earth for the first time, filling in the blank spaces on the mapamundi, the map of the known world. Ferrando’s mapamundi is an extraordinary, fundamental site map, a document that is valuable in itself (just like the map that Houellebecq proposes in his novel, which is greater than the territory it represents). It is testimony to his ability to transform any given moment of his expeditions — the departure, the return, the subsequent reflection, or the preparation of the next trip – into a consistent body of work, to get it down on paper.

FA and JPO, march 2013

(*) Michel Serres, philosopher and professor of the history of science, was recognized by Michel Foucault as the inspiration for Words and Things. In his article “The geodesics of heaven and earth,” from the book Verne: an underground revolutionary, he defines extraordinary voyages as “an ordinary voyage through space or time: a path from one given spot to another desired spot; an encyclopedic trip: the odyssey is circular, it travels the cycle of wisdom; and finally, a voyage of initiation, like Ulysses’s wonderings, the exodus of the Hebrews, or Dante’s journey.”

(**) Michel Houellebecq, La Carte et le Territoire, Paris, Flammarion (2010, trans. as The Map and the Territory)

[referencies]

This section contains twelve links to online references about the works, projects, and discourse of Josep Ferrando. The first is his biographical profile (in Spanish) at scalae.net (1). The following five are works of Ferrando’s that were published on scalae.net, as part of the projects and works section: the URV campus at Tortosa (2), the Salt police station (3), the house at Bescanó (4), Icho restaurant (5), and the international competition that Ferrando won for the Calitri Square, Italy (6). The seventh reference is Josep Ferrando’s own website (7). The eighth is an article (in Spanish) by Anatxu Zabalbeascoa on the house at Bescanó, published on her blog on the wesbite of El País newspaper (8). The ninth is an article (in Spanish) by Josep Ferrando on the light in the work of Oriol Bohigas (9). The tenth link is to an interview with Mark Koehler at Ferrando’s own studio (10). The eleventh is a video (in Spanish) on an exhibition at Portimâo in June 2012 (11). The twelfth is the Facebook page for Josep Ferrando’s studio (12).

1: Josep Ferrando profile

2: University campus, URV at Tortosa

3: Comisaría de policía at Salt

4: Family house at Bescanó

5: Icho Restaurant, at Barcelona

6: International competition, won by JF, Calitri Square, Italy

7: Josep Ferrando website

8: article ...about "Casa rampa" by Anatxu Zabalbeascoa (spanish)

9: article ...from "Geometría y luz en Oriol Bohigas" (català)

10: video JF interview by Mark Koehler, 2009 (english)

11: video Exposición en Portimâo, 2012 (portuguese)

12: Josep Ferrando facebook profile

Josep Ferrando graduated as an architect in 1999 from the Barcelona School of Architecture, where he was influenced by teachers such as Albert Illescas, Albert Viaplana, Enric Miralles, Elías Torres, and Josep Quetglas.

He is currently working on his PhD within the Architectonic Projects Department at the Technical University of Catalonia, where the topic of his thesis is “The structure of the void as a dialogue between architecture and landscape”.

His built works include housing projects such as the houses at Bescanó and Tiana, and numerous health, cultural and educational facilities, notably the award-winning Salt Police Station, the campus for the Rovira y Virgili University, and the Postgraduate Building for the Technical University of Catalonia’s Barcelona Campus. His work also includes public space projects such as Barcelona’s Avenida Paralelo and Vía Augusta, and the winning design for the Collserola Gates; and interior and product design projects, including his own office. His design for apartments for Cerdanyola del Vallès recently won the first Europan 11 prize, and he has designed public housing projects for various European cities, such as Milan and Zurich.

Parallel to his studio work, since 1998 he has developed an intense teaching career, mainly at the Barcelona School of Architecture (Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura de Barcelona, ETSAB UPC), as well as at the La Salle School of Architecture (Escola Tècnica Superior d’Arquitectura La Salle, ETSALS URL), the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC), the School of Design and Art (Escola de Disseny i Art, EINA) and the European Institute of Design (Istituto Europeo di Design, IED), where he is director of the master’s in interior design.

He has also been the guest professor responsible for end-of-year projects at the Zurich College of Technology (Hochschule für Technik Zürich, HSZT), and director of intensive workshops at the City School (Escola da Cidade) of Sao Paulo, and at the Positive University of Curitiba (UNICENP).

His work has been exhibited in the USA, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway, Portugal, and Japan, among other countries.

He has given conferences at numerous universities, including the Harvard GSD, the Catholic University of Chile, the Hamburg CHE, the Palermo School of Architecture; and at international congresses such as the UIA’11 in Tokyo.

[net & fractal map]

The editors would like to thank the individuals and companies that were invited to sit on the editorial and industries boards of the scalae architecture + architects international ebook collection for their support, hard work, and suggestions. We are also grateful to the public bodies and institutions that were asked to participate through our institutional network. Their inspiration and generosity enabled us to launch the collection, polish the ideas that underlie it, perfect the processes used to create it, and hone the goals we share. Their help has made it possible for this issue to reach the hands of those who are interested in architecture and the agents that take part in the creation of it.

We would also like to thank Josep Ferrando, and the staff at his studio, for the time and effort they have put into making this ebook a complete text that documents, in a comparative fashion, the approach and results of this architect from Barcelona during the first stage of his professional life. This publication will also contribute to understanding how different generations of architects and the different agents involved in the many facets of what we call architecture approach and resolve architectural projects and works.

We are grateful for Adrià Goula’s meticulous snapshots, which put a coherent finish touch to the graphic and documentary material in this book, as do the five works mentioned in the references that are included on scalae.net: thank you to Adrià Goula and Pedro Pegenaute.

Josep Ferrando would like to say a special thank you to all the people whose work, skill, advice, and technical contributions have helped to shape and improve the studio’s expressive, documentary, research-related, and professional undertakings and who, over nearly ten years, have made the studio into a great team, one big family:

...thank you to everyone who were with me at the start: Laura, Mercè, Jordis, Ramon...; to those that followed them: Anna, Ekain, Guillem, Marco, Moncho, Roman...; to the people who have built up the studio over the last few years: David, Carol, Marta, Carolina, Jordi, Rafa, Félix...; and especially to the person who has been with me constantly from day one: Marc Nadal;

...to the people who have kept me company with their friendship and knowledge: Marta Peris, Charmaine Lay, Ana Moya, Bàrbara Noguerol, Marta Poch, Elena Rocchi, Albert Illescas, Joan Carles Escofet, Pedro García, Jorge García, Ferran Laguna, Xavier Llobet, Joan Pascual, Xavier Prats, Estanis Puig, Esteve Terradas, Alfonso Villarreal...; to Vera who has shared this journey at some point;

...to my partners on different projects, both Spanish and international, who have made certain dualities whole;

...to teachers and students;

...to the people who have been by my side unconditionally from the start of this journey and who have shaped my “attitude” and my “sensibility”: my parents and my sisters;

...thank you to the editorial team for their warmth and professionalism.

We are grateful for the comments and contributions we have received from members of the fractal map, some of whom are listed below. These will undoubtedly nourish the upcoming “...about” and “...from” titles in this collection, the earliest versions of which are available at scalae.net:

...self Rafael Moneo 02: Sobre la construcción y el oficio | On construction and the craft...(esp/eng)

...about Oriol Bohigas: Juan Domingo Santos -la casa de los xuklis- (esp)

...about Oriol Bohigas: Marta García-Orte -Escola Thau School- (esp/eng)

...about Oriol Bohigas: Iñaki Ábalos -Pabellón del Futuro, Expo Sevilla 92- (esp)

At the same time, Jaume Prat has written a regular series of articles that aim to reveal how context, reviews, analysis, and criticism can be complementary rather than conflicting terms, in keeping with our hopes for this collection...

...Shame, o los abismos culturales (esp)

...Paris, Texas: Amnesia (esp)

...Crear un lugar; de Ivo Andric a Norman Foster (esp)

...Push The Light Away, sobre las cruces de Tadao Ando y Nick Cave (esp)

Thank you to Apple and Amazon for including scalae ebooks as downloads in their respective shops.

Finally, we’d like to thank all the people who have supported the collection by reading and spreading the word: over 6,000 copies have now been downloaded through the iTunes and Kindle bookstores or through the free subscriptions system at archBIB.com. We are grateful to many of them for their efforts to help users who are not familiar with the technology in question to be able to read these ebooks. Below is a quick guide on how to read Scalae ebooks on different devices:

The scalae architecture + architects international ebook collection distributed by archBIB as mobi and ePub files can be read using a range of devices: Smartphones (Apple iPhone, Android, and Windows), tablets (Apple iPad, Android, and Windows), ebook readers (Kindle® and ePub readers), and computers (using Kindle® ePub reading apps).

+iPad: by opening the epub files you received by email using the preinstalled iBooks app

+iPhone: as above, after first installing the iBooks app.

+The Kindle app can also be downloaded for iPhone and iPad, in which case download the mobi file version of the ebook.

+Android and Windows: using the Kindle app, in which case you need to download the mobi file,

+Android and Windows: using ePub reading apps, in which case downlaod the ePub file.

Computer options, all of which use ePub files:

+Adobe Digital Editions is the official (free) application

+ Mozilla Firefox add-on which allows you to read ePub files directly from the browser

+ Sony ereader

There is also a Kindle app for computers, in which case download the mobi file format of the ebook.

Barcelona, february 2013

[notes]

[get involved]

Sharing this content through social networks is very simple: most ebook devices and apps allow you to highlight a paragraph or phrase and share it via your Facebook or Twitter account (once you have set up this feature on your device).

We welcome new articles, opinions, or comments on these conversations with Josep Ferrando, his personal work, or his professional work as an architect firm. Proposals* should be sent to ebooks@scalae.net -if accepted by the editorial board, texts will be published on the scalae.net site and may be included in the appropriate ...about volume of the scalae ebook collection.

*Texts must not exceed 4000 characters including spaces in the language of the writer’s choice. The author(s) should establish a critical connection between their own professional background or personal interests and the world of architecture or that of agents that have been published or written about in a scalae “...self” ebook. For further information, see the articles in the documents section on www.scalae.net

[subscripció]

Why subscribe? You will automatically receive, free of charge, all the new issues and updates in the collection in the appropriate format for the device or app of your choice (iPod, iPhone, Android, Kindle®, ePub reader, iPad, tablets, notebook, or desktop). We have found the following apps and devices to be the most versatile: the Amazon Kindle®, the Kindle® apps for Windows, Apple OS X, Android, and Apple iOS, and the iBooks app for Apple iOS. Subscriptions website: www.archbib.com

[technical note]

This issue of the scalae architecture + architects international ebook collection is a “draft” version of the ...self volume on the architect Josep Ferrnado. Its Book ID is: scalae.net-ferrando-self-draftENG-20130331-01. The issue became available online on 31 March 2013. In subsequent months, corrections and updates to the earlier content will be incorporated to produce the “ready” and “final” versions of the text. The “final” version will be available in print as a book for libraries and collectors. The ...about and ...from volumes on the same subject may also become available in coming months, and will be subject to the same revision process before the publication of the print version (please see the complete explanation of the collection for more information)

[collection catalogue]

published ebooks...

· scalae ebook "...self Oriol Bohigas" [iTunes] [archBIB]

· scalae ebook "...self Josep Camps & Olga Felip" [iTunes] [archBIB]

· scalae ebook "...self Josep Ferrando"

ebooks "in press"...

· scalae ebook "...self Anna & Eugeni Bach"

· scalae ebook "...self RCR arquitectes"

· scalae ebook "...about Oriol Bohigas"

· scalae ebook "...from Jaume Prat Ortells"

[copyright]

The third volume in the scalae architecture + architects international ebook collection. The architect Josep Ferrando, from Barcelona, talks about the professional path he has taken; the expeditionary nature of all of the personal, professional, and university-related activities he has ended up being involved in; the way he understands any of the documents he produces as full-blown architecture; his vision of his career path as a journey that encompasses work on any scale. The rest of the book is made up of original documents, bibliographical references, an invitation to join the conversation, and the fractal map of scalae.net collaborations.

The Digital copies of the scalae architecture + architects international ebook collection are free, so it is not allowed for sale. If you wish to show us your gratitude for the reading, please consider to make a contribution to Arquitectes Sense Fronteres NGO and its cooperative programs.

(cc) 2013 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (by-nc-sa). You may not use this work or any work derived from it for commercial purposes. Any resulting work may only be distributed under a license identical to this one.

Table of Contents

SCALAE | JOSEP FERRANDO | ...self

[collection credits]

[scalae international ebook collection]

[issue credits]

[conversation]

becoming the director of a studio...

constantly going on an expedition, every day...

drawing from the tip of your pencil...

the life that society says you should live...

to learn quickly and pull myself together...

i don’t believe much in the idea of a Barcelona School...

human scriptum, by Adrià Goula

[nuances]

fundamental principles: the skin of fishermen...

processes: it’s a question of strategy...

results: a two-way dialogue with the body and with space...

everything else: to build team spirit...

dual human, by Adrià Goula

international workshops

...natural light highlights textures with JF

[expression]

... sublime maps that become extraordinary journeys

Sketch comp. panels Cerdanyola

House in Barcelona, photography Adrià Goula

House in Bescanó, photography Adrià Goula

House in Bescanó, geographic plan

Winterthur police station. Steps & snow

URV Campus, Tortosa

URV Campus, Tortosa. Floor plan

16 Collserola Gates, Barcelona

Apartments in Cerdanyola

Fish message

[referencies]

QRs

ref: Tortosa, Tarragona

ref: Salt, Girona

ref: Bescanó, Girona

ref: 'Icho', Barcelona

ref: Calitri, Avellino, Campania

[net & fractal map]

vertical human, by Adrià Goula

[notes]

[collection catalogue]

[copyright]