Relocating as Design Strategy
Maarten Gielen is a designer, manager, and researcher of the Brussels-based collective Rotor, comprised of people sharing a common interest in material flows in industry and construction.The topic which was given by him on previous pam talk was about the relocating of the materials as the design strategy in term of increase the quality of the design.
The talk is extraordinary amazing and interesting about reuse back the old materials in new way to maximize the possibilities and potential of every materials. From his talk, I found out that Marteen Gielen is absolutely passionate on reusing the useful materials and develope the potential of the materials. He is very appreciate the materials too, he had a great knowledge about the characteristic of each of the materials. He did a lot of research about the materials and try to find the best solution to reuse back the old materials in the new design.
Materials is one of the main elements in architecture. Different materials has different characteristics which will give various of impact to the architecture. If the architect apply the materials wisely and correctly, the building could be last longer against the impact of the climate and natural forces. However, if the architect fail in choosing the materials, it might spend more on the building maintainance and cause the ugliness of the image of an architecture. And also the greatest issue which is cause the building collapse. The topic which was given by Maarten Gielen was about to relocate the materials as a design strategies instead of demolish the whole structure which might cost more money and human power. By relocating the materials, it will reduce the cost of renovating and also give a second live to the old materials. This topic is very interesting that he gave a lot of examples about how the old materials could be reused in the architecture design. The design is innovative and widen our horizon on focusing the life cycle assessment of the materials.
Although the design which was shown by him was just a prototype of design, i think this is a new way for us as an architecture student to learn about how to actually apply the best materials in various of situations. We might need to increase our knowledge about the characteristic of each materials, and apply the materials seriously and carefully in our design. So that, we not going cause more wasted materials in designing the architecture.
As an architect, we should take the responsibilities on protect our nartural environment and design the architecture without harming our environment, but blending with it. Architecture should be formed to serve the community and society. It should create more benefits than causing the problems to our society. We should take the wastage which was created by the architecture in our consderation, so that we are able to design an architecture which is more sustainable and practical with our natural environment. As a student, we need to explore more about the abilities of the materials. Materials is very important to the architecture, we need to be careful in applying the materials when we doing the design.
