Blanca Valdes
On the blank-ness of paper: The production of whiteness in paper, or the landscapes of bleach.
This presentation studies the production of whiteness of paper, and the entangled landscapes, infrastructures and workforce needed to produce the effect of ‘nothing’. It focuses on the paper mill of Laja in Chile, where eucalyptus pulp is processed with imported bleach and mechanical decomposition of lignin in order to physically break down the colour of wood. The presentation questions the correlation between whiteness and purity, and goes on to shed light on the impossibility of an ‘original’ state, relating it with the heavy processes behind the blankness of paper.
Marina Addis Waldmann
Clinical white
This presentation looks at the history of illness and architecture as they are deeply intertwined. The battle against bacteria and viruses has shaped the history of built environments. Victoria Bates in her article “Cold White of Day: White, colour, and materiality in the twentieth-century British hospital” aims to show that whiteness stayed important in modern British hospitals as part of an expanding colour palette, rather than being replaced or relegated with the rise of the pastel-colour welfare state, particularly as a symbol of hygiene but also as a continued part of creating ‘modern’ hospitals. Colours in clinical environments are essential tools of communication between human beings. From the coloured uniforms that mark out different jobs to the triage coding system, colour is a crucial part of creating structure and order in hospital life. Wall and floor colours help with navigation and spatial organisation, as well as with hygienic practices and attempts to improve the hospital environment. These colour choices have rarely been made unthinkingly; each colour is often carefully selected for a combination of practical and symbolic reasons.
The study on hospital colours is part of a research on contemporary hospital design. As institutional landscapes of care, hospitals raise the question of how bio-political conditions influence design, in this case the role of medical imaging in transforming perceptions of illness, and its effects spatial design. Furthermore the research aims to highlight how healthcare workers perceive the tangible fragility of an ill body while also mediating with the abstract representation of illness in medical imaging.
Eleonora Antoniadou
Bodies as vessels/ tools for radical architecture pedagogy during the 1970s
This presentation will explore the relationship between bodies and architecture in the current discourse through the lence of pedagogy. By examining how bodies are currently utilised in architectural pedagogy and then moving on to explore the various debates surrounding the topic in practice. The discussion will also touch upon the relationship between bodies and architecture from a philosophical and anthropological perspective, focusing on the concept of embodied experience. Lastly, the presentation will also address the current debate on AI technologies and the impact they might have on the relationship between bodies and architecture.
