Category: Human Spaces

Architectures, spaces and design solutions that propose a positive change for human life on earth and, possibly on other planets.

Human Spaces The Osaka Experience

First Stop: DONTSTOP architettura – Milano

Post author By T.E.A.M.
Post date March 19, 2021

For the first time visitors from outside our lab crossed the entrance of the pavilion that Sacripanti imagined for the 1970 Osaka International Expo.

The first tickets for a preview of the experience went to DONTSTOP architettura, an architecture studio founded in Milan in 2011 by Michele Brunello and Marco Brega, who welcomed us to discuss with them the adventure of T.E.A.M. followed by a visit to the pavilion. Maurizio De Caro, an architect, architecture theorist and critic and founder of Maurizio De Caro/Architects&Planners, joined the visit.

DONTSTOP is a multidisciplinary studio that involves itself with architecture, urban planning and exhibit design. Their dynamic approach, always open to debate and encouraging innovation, has stimulated a fruitful discussion on the integration of the medium of virtual reality in the design process. We considered the different ways to approach this according to the type of user and the objective to be achieved.

Human Spaces Must-Read

Osaka ’70 on tour!

Post author By T.E.A.M.
Post date March 1, 2021

So, Maurizio Sacripanti’s reconstructed architecture is finally on tour! If you own an Oculus Quest you will soon be able to download the experience, if not, we can schedule a special VR session and bring it to you – during sessions, we strictly adhere to anti-COVID-19 protective measures.

It’s been 50 years since the conception of Maurizio Sacripanti’s project, never built, of the Italian pavilion for the Osaka Expo.

With T.E.A.M. we made a detailed reconstruction of the 3D model based on interviews with the design team and the study of the architect’s documents, with the aim of experiencing the building in VR with the Oculus Quest.

For our lab, Osaka ‘70 is a research tool that allows us to investigate the relationship between VR and architecture, in particular the relationship with kinetic elements. For the visitor it is a way to explore a never built project – one which is nevertheless fundamental for the history of Italian architecture – and enjoy a total experience of the space as Sacripanti imagined it.

Frontiers in Design Human Spaces The Osaka Experience Tools and Technology

The Osaka Experience III: a Conversation with Maurizio Dècina

Post author By T.E.A.M.
Post date January 5, 2021

As already mentioned in the introductory articles about Maurizio Sacripanti and the Osaka competition, one of the main topics of the research project T.E.A.M is the digital modeling of several architectural designs, some of which were chosen from existing projects. One of them is the project of the Italian pavilion for the Osaka World Expo of 1970 designed by the Italian architect Maurizio Sacripanti.

During the early stage of our research project, we discovered an account of the Accademia Nazionale di San Luca made by the Italian engineer and academic Maurizio Dècina. He worked with Sacripanti on the Osaka pavilion, designing the mechanical and electronic parts of the project, and processing a system capable of achieving the movements of the pavilion. We are excited to present the following interview, conducted on July 25, 2020, aimed at understanding the contribution of Maurizio Dècina to the Osaka pavilion, his experience in the social and cultural context of those years, his vision of the union between computer science and architectural design, and finally the technological tools behind the Osaka project. We have translated the interview from Italian to English and the original text will be shown below.

Frontiers in Design Human Experience Human Spaces The Osaka Experience

The Osaka Experience II: the Competition

Post author By T.E.A.M.
Post date December 15, 2020

“An architecture in continuous motion is not utopian… if you consider the normal perception of today’s individual, accustomed to current modes of transportation, television and fast-moving information, this perception is a mutable and dynamic one.”
Maurizio Sacripanti

If you missed the first introductory article about Maurizio Sacripanti, you can find it here.

In 1968 Sacripanti and his team joined the competition to design the Italian pavilion for the Universal Exposition of 1970 in Osaka. He proposed the idea of a space in perpetual motion, a living organism, experimental and courageous, which clearly differed from the other competing projects. This proposal was aimed at the promotion of the messages and contents that were supposed to represent the Italian values of the time. His idea of Italy was clear: “a reality in motion, amidst a thousand difficulties, and with a thousand obstacles, but with a commitment to vital and continuous dynamism” [1].

Frontiers in Design Human Experience Human Spaces The Osaka Experience

The Osaka Experience I: Maurizio Sacripanti

Post author By T.E.A.M.
Post date November 27, 2020

“[…] this man who, using time as an instrument of something else, treated it, as an architect, as if it were matter […]”
Renato Pedio

T.E.A.M. research is based on experimentation. The Piattaforma Zero represents the first laboratory in which to test basic dynamic structures, detached from a precise context. In order to both get a better understanding of the phenomena we are studying and to test the tools of our workflow, we felt even the need to confront existing projects of kinetic architecture.
As a first case study we have chosen to deal with an iconic project of recent architectural history: the pavilion for the 1970 World Expo in Osaka by Maurizio Sacripanti. This architecture, unfortunaely never realized, was presented at the competition of ideas held in 1968 to select the building that would represent Italy at the international exhibition.

Frontiers in Design Human Experience Human Spaces Must-Read

Putting Time in a (virtual) Box

Post author By Valentina Temporin
Post date November 3, 2020

“I despair not that, even here, in this region of Three Dimensions, your Lordship’s art may make the Fourth Dimension visible to me; just as in the Land of Two Dimensions my Teacher’s skill would fain have opened the eyes of his blind servant to the invisible presence of a Third Dimension, though I saw it not.”
Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland

A couple of years ago, a client commissioned us to design a small exhibition pavilion to promote the wine products of his territory, and at the same time to draw attention to the region and its artistic and natural beauty.

The exhibition structure required maximum flexibility: it had to be suitable both for indoor and outdoor installation, it had to be easily assembled and disassembled – and therefore easily transportable – and it should impact the visitor with its attractive aesthetics.
Given the requests and the temporary nature of the set up, we imagined applying to the project the studies on kinetic structures under development within Poplab. These studies explore the idea of a variable structure architecture, able to modify its shape according to parameters related to the external environment, and, above all, to the interaction with the user.