From January 9th-16th Ed van Hinte and Adriaan Beukers lead the winter workshop at the Architecture Academy in Amsterdam, a yearly event in the Artist in Residence program. They were invited to address the Lightness theme.

Lightness in architecture has a different meaning than it has in structural design. Architects tend to think in terms of program, form and appearance rather than start developing ideas from opportunities offered by materials and technology. Therefore Van Hinte and Beukers decided to turn things around and let the participants (about 140 architecture students in ten groups each guided by 2 teachers) experiment with thin floppy materials and binding agents to discover ways to turn them into stiff structures. The assignment is in a booklet.

Despite the freezing weather and thanks to the generous support of the Academy the workshop became a feast of concentrated effort and fun. Students and teachers worked very hard and bluntly tried what sometimes never had been tried before. A lot of different things can emerge when so many people put their open minds to it. Some interesting inventions turned up. Most groups easily reached the required height of three metres. Apart from this slide show many more pictures are on the Academy report website.

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