Archives: Assistants
Aristofanis Soulikias
Aristofanis Soulikias is an architect and film animator. He is a PhD student at Concordia University, in the Individualized Program (INDI), under the supervision of Dr. Carmela Cucuzzella, Dr. Cynthia Hammond and Prof. Luigi Allemano, pursuing an interdisciplinary research-creation study with the title: Architecture and Film Animation: Visualizing and educating on the built environment through stop-motion and under-camera techniques, which aims at examining how Architecture and Film Animation can inform each other and evolve with the use of traditional stop-motion techniques that have re-emerged, owing to adapted digital technologies, as to engage citizens with their urban built environment and its intangible realms.
His B.Sc in Architecture and a B.Arch from McGill University were followed by a period of professional conservation work on Mediaeval and Post-Mediaeval monuments in Greece which, in turn, led to a scholarship by the Hellenic Society for the Environment and Cultural Heritage towards an MA in Conservation Studies at the Archaeology Department of the University of York, UK, completed in 2010.
After a two-year fellowship at the Prince’s Foundation in London, UK, where he worked and received training on sustainable urbanism, Aristofanis returned to his native Montreal to learn the craft of film animation at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema of Concordia University, where he completed a BFA with distinction. His graduation film Last Dance on the Main, an animated documentary on the perilous state of Montreal’s built heritage and social fabric was selected by TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten for the year 2014, and won four awards in international festivals. That same year he received the Mel Hoppenheim’s Emru Townsend award in Film Animation.
Title: Architecture and Film Animation: Visualizing and educating on the built environment through stop-motion and under-camera techniques
Supervisors: Dr. Carmela Cucuzzella, Dr. Cynthia Hammond and Prof. Luigi Allemano
Aurélien Catros
Aurélien is an architect graduated from the Lyon School of Architecture.
He first worked alongside heritage architects in France before undertaking a doctoral thesis at the University of Montreal under the supervision of Jean-Pierre Chupin and Bechara Helal.
Thesis project title: “Reciprocal transfers between physical and digital models in the architectural project”.
Like their analog counterparts, digital models influence architects’ appreciation of projects throughout the design process. These singular theoretical objects generate a great deal of critical analysis but are rarely theorized in conjunction with analog models, although these models are regularly used in concert. Ontologically, these productions are dissimilar: in terms of medium (what is the model made of?), objectives (what is the purpose of the model?) and temporalities (is it a static or dynamic model?). As the reciprocal transfers between the different medium diversify, the productions on either side of these operations potentially admit new uses and therefore new evaluation criteria. From a theoretical point of view, it seems essential today to question the factors put in crisis during the transfers between these different supports since these criteria will reciprocally participate in defining architectural quality. How do digital models contribute to redefining the evaluation criteria of the architectural project with or against analog models?
This research deals jointly with analog and digital models as instruments of representation and simulation of the architectural project. We propose to : 1) Update existing categorizations of modeling in architecture in order to situate these productions within the general theory of models, 2) Compare the different digital models to their supposed analog “equivalents” according to the proposed categorization in order to understand the modalities of transfers between them within contemporary practice, 3) Identify the biases and potentials of the joint and disjoint uses of these models through their interactions in order to improve and optimize their respective uses by designers.
Our theoretical framework is based on general categorizations of models that have already been the subject of attempts to adapt them to analog and digital models in architecture. This categorization will constitute the analysis grid that will allow us to study the successive iterations of the modeling of different projects. Considering that these iterations beget the evaluation of the project by the architect and thus its evolution, our methodological approach is in line with the qualitative and theoretical comparatism proposed by the Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA). We will identify the similarities and differences between successive study models in order to identify how the characteristics of these models (supports, objectives, temporalities) influence the modification of the project and the creation of the next model. In particular, we will seek to isolate different factors for evaluating the quality of architectural models that would prove – if applicable – specific to the design of the project in the digital age.
Lucie Palombi
Lucie Palombi est architecte diplômée de l’École d’Architecture de Versailles (France).
Titre du projet de thèse : De la textualité du projet professionnel en situation de concours en architecture
Au croisement de deux disciplines apparemment disjointes – l’architecture et l’écriture – repose la textualité. Si le texte peut sembler secondaire par rapport aux pratiques du dessin et du modèle, des écrits rédigés par des architectes nous sont parvenus depuis la plus haute Antiquité. Certains d’entre eux sont même devenus des monuments littéraires : De l’architecture (Vitruve, 15 avant J.-C.), L’art d’édifier (Leon Battista Alberti, 1485), L’architecture considérée sous les rapports de l’art, des mœurs et de la législation (Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, 1804), ou encore Vers une architecture (Le Corbusier, 1923) – l’un des livres les plus lus du XXème siècle -, autant d’ouvrages publiés par de grands éditeurs de littérature. La discipline architecturale connaît une production livresque considérable entre traités, manifestes, monographies, textes de présentation de projets, romans et autobiographies. Il existe même des prix qui soulignent l’excellence des ouvrages d’architecture : le Grand Prix du Livre de la ville de Briey, le Prix du livre de l’Académie d’Architecture, le Prix Alice Davis Hitchcock, ou encore le Prix DAM (Deutsches Architecktur Museum). La textualité architecturale est doublement en concours : parfois, le texte accompagne le projet d’architecture en situation de concours ; d’autres fois, la textualité est l’objet même du concours.
Dans cette thèse, nous cherchons à comprendre la nature de la textualité en architecture, ou, plus précisément, les attributs des écrits rédigés par des architectes – dont le rôle premier est apparemment de concevoir des bâtiments avec le dessin – ou l’image – comme outil privilégié. Qu’est-ce qui caractérise l’écriture en architecture ? Que cherche à combler la textualité ? Peut-on identifier une sorte d’identité architecturale véhiculée par le texte seul ? Les objectifs de notre projet de recherche sont les suivants : (1) Contribuer à une théorisation de l’écriture primée (2) Raffiner les connaissances sur la textualité en architecture. Notre démarche scientifique sera essentiellement d’ordre herméneutique et comparative. L’analyse discursive usera de la capacité de la représentation en architecture à séparer texte et image.
