Let´s Twist, Again

Welcome to the 8th session in the lectures series 2022/2023 of LSU, the Lightweight Structures Unit, Faculty of Architecture, Universität Innsbruck hosted by Professor Günther H. Filz.

Our guest in this session is Ramiro Diaz-Granados Design faculty member at SCI-Arc and has been a visiting faculty at UCLA AUD.  Ramiro received his Bachelor of Architecture from SCI-Arc in 1996 and a master of Architecture from UCLA in 2003 during which he was awarded the Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill Traveling Fellowship in Architecture. From 1997-2003 he was co principal of a design-build firm where he designed and built over 20 high end single and multi-family residential projects in Los Angeles and Mexico. His professional and academic work has been published in various magazines and books in the United States, Mexico, and Europe. From 2003 - 2005 he worked with the award- winning firm Gnuform as a lead designer and collaborator as well as Johnston MarkLee. From 2005-present he has won or placed in a handful of competitions and has participated in several exhibitions and installations. In 2009 he launched his office, Amorphis,  in Los Angeles. In 2016  the office won a commission for a large-scale permanent installation (Afterglow) for the Student Experience Center at Oregon State University. Amorphis designed, fabricated, and contracted the project.

This lecture will focus on three projects that explore the tectonic, spatial, and cultural effects of twisted surfaces in architectural production. By drawing parallels to twisted bodies across history and culture, the lecture attempts to outline two distinct insights: one, to locate twisting as a tectonic perversion at the service of an architecture of becoming, and two, to locate architectural effects alongside other forms of cultural production. Similar to the dance craze of the 1950’s spurred on by Chubby Checker, twisted forms pervert what is structurally acceptable. In doing so, they relate to the body in motion, offering a continual dual-sidedness as one moves through and around its space. The three projects shown relate in time, vary in scale and effects, and share a pursuit of the twisted as a deviant of tectonic conventions.

Please Click Here to join the lecture.