PAPER: What is the background behind MAP, how did it develop as an idea leading up to its first issue ‘ANTARCTICA’?
David Garcia: The idea of the publication was mainly to try and transfer the discussions, the methodology and the design methods that we had in the studio and move them outside our practice. This was a way for us to get it out for a public discussion, and eventual feedback. So the intention was just to expose our actions. That meant that we wanted to represent what the studio was about and how it worked. The way our practice, MAP Architects (previously David Garcia Studio), works is to collaborate with the scientific community in its widest understanding to inform architecture with the challenges it has today which I think are quite specific, they’re much more complex than what they have been before. Mainly due to our denser cities and spreading communities, we are in touch with natural and artificial challenges which are quite extreme, whether it’s pollution, derelict infrastructure or political frontiers. The idea is to represent how we tackle those problems in a publication which for me had several aims; it should be very affordable, I wanted something that if you were just slightly curious, price would never be an issue. I wanted our questions to spread so that there was a feedback. That meant that magazines and books were out of the questions because of the amount of time it takes to produce but also the expenses involved. Very quickly I saw that the publication could express how we work; first we engage in research, and then we engage in design. It should have an aspect which was very objective, just a collection of data on a particular theme, and one which was subjective, with the language of architecture to engage with questions that came up from the research. That duality asked for a two page format. Facts. Design. Because it was called MAP (Manual of Architectural Possibilities) and it is linked to a map, the two concepts merged together very quickly into a folding map format. That’s how it came to be physically. We use three months of research with contact with experts and scientists. Then we take a pause where we debate questions that have risen from that research, and then we do series of three to four projects that take up those questions from a very pragmatic point of view or a very critical point of view, or even sometimes a cynical point of view.
The research side of MAP 'ANTARCTICA', the first issue of Manual of Architectural Possibilities.
P: So the studio was doing these kind of projects before you established MAP as a publication, was it just an extension of your previous work?
DG: Yes, it is an extension of our methodology. The only difference is that what we did at the studio were competitions or commissions and sometimes research projects. With regards to MAP it is almost solely speculative projects. Although some of those projects, funny enough, have then become real projects. Because there was interest and they have transformed themselves, but that was the only difference, it was a form for research and speculation without a necessary permission, but it has been a strange boomerang where sometimes those speculations have become studies and commissions.
P: The topics of extreme environments and disasters is something that seems to appeal to many, which is also mirrored in popular culture in recent years where films, tv-series and video games have been treating similar subjects as MAP; Contagion, Pandemic, Chernobyl Diaries, S.T.A.L.K.E.R., The Day After Tomorrow are just a few examples. What makes these extreme environments and disasters so interesting, and is it more relevant today than 50 years ago?
DG: I think that all themes rise from present contemporary concerns and sometimes they are very abstract, sometimes they are very concrete, sometimes it is a geography that we are interested in, such as Antarctica. It was an area that would be interesting to know what it was like as a continent and how it would compare in terms of its challenges. Some are a bit more abstract, like ‘ARCHIVE’. The transition that we have had in the past 50 years from analog to digital, what are the implications with regards to information and the built environment? Others are very physical but their apparent expression is much less tangible, which is the idea of ‘QUARANTINE’ for example. Although once we have picked up on a subject we touch on all these different histories and implications, I have to say we have never been influenced by a film or a fashion. I think it is just things that are in every one’s concern, whatever creative, or non creative, realm it is. The ideas of radioactive pollution has obviously had very imminent results from Chernobyl and Fukushima. That becomes part of the general consciousness and with regards to quarantine, I think it has been a constant concern throughout humanity literally. The fear of extinguishing through epidemic. It has also very direct implications today mainly due to the way we are interacting with nature, but also because we are moving and are in touch with the world in an overwhelming scale and speed. So I think that our themes come from general concerns that are also touched upon by many other fields.
P: The studio is, as mentioned, doing collaborations with many different institutions in various scientific fields. The research aspect is touched upon in a university environment, but many times in a problematic and naïve way, treating the research only as a justification for form or programme. How important is research in architecture, both in practice and in the university?
DG: It is naïve to think that you will become an expert at the fields that you are going to be touching, because they are very complex. But at the same time it is vital for any designer to come close and to collaborate with those who are experts in the fields of study that your design touch. Mainly because your design decisions are informed decisions that become much more robust, and I don’t believe in the pure artistic fancy as the only submission for any architectural design. I’m not saying it isn’t vital that there is a spatial quality that goes beyond the functional, I think it is. But I think just as strongly that it is important that building performs beyond the phenomenological. I think it also has to, as an element in the environment, be more than just a passive, static shell. It can be a performative shell, and that performance can be active or passive, meaning that it can engage with its challenges, not because it’s moving around but the way that it is implicitly designed. I do not that think those two aspects need to be put against each other but I think that ethically and for design robustness it is vital to understand as much as you can about the challenges of the context.
P: Is it different though in a university? Should the approach be different compared to practice where you have more resources and possibilities to contact the experts in these various fields?
DG: I think it is actually easier in the university because you have more time and dedication. In practice the resources are very limited, and even though there is an income from projects it is seldom the case that you can convince the client to invest in that type of research. Normally what you create is a parallel platform to the project so that it can be invested via public funding or alternative funds. The resources are again very specific and pigeon holed into what they should go in to. So for us it is a challenge to convince the clients that we should have more time and more resources.
P: What is the process like when it comes to deciding the themes and topics of MAP?
DG: The decision regarding what theme to explore is always on going, there is a constant discussion at the studio about ideas, projects and themes. There is a catalogue of possible themes which we brainstorm, it is an on going process.
P: One thing that we particularly enjoy about MAP as a publication is the way you can read it in so many different ways and different scales, as a poster on the wall as well as a small booklet for example. How important is the graphic layout of MAP, both in terms of readability as well as its visual impact?
DG: I would never call the publication a poster, although it can be used as one. Nonetheless, the graphic detailing is vital for us because we feel we would like to communicate at different levels. One is more immediate, where info-graphics is one very important tool to communicate basic facts through a graphical lens. We are very careful about the way MAP forms a single open page, a double page, a folded element and how you can read it from fold to fold. It has the power of the map as an object, where you can choose segments that you would like to read, and the index is actually expressed as a coordinate system, indicating longitude and latitude. It is also important how one issue of MAP visually connects with another. If you put all the issues that we have done so far next to each other the project pages communicate. There is always a territory that bleeds into the next, the rivers become fields that transform and connect the publications when aligned next to each other. For us it is very important that it is not only about content, but also about form and that they work together as well as possible. It is one aspect that takes a lot of time, we normally design five or six radically different proposals for each MAP, apart from the hundreds of versions during design development. There are many that are thrown out and redone and so on, so there is a lot of work on that level, and if we are not happy with the result, we postpone printing. A printing deadline is not a major factor for us and we would rather postpone it for a month than compromise the standards.
P: How do you approach information and come up with new interesting ways of presenting it?
DG: When we research, the most difficult part is cooking down the data we have gathered. We have to get down to the essentials so that MAP becomes a gate into information but not an encyclopedia. When we find the most relevant aspects we try to combine them so that someone rather quickly can come to terms with what we are dealing with. Once we have selected those parameters it is just a question of experimenting with different ways of communicating that data. There is only a small team working on how to present the data visually.
P: How many people are working on each issue of MAP?
DG: It changes during its production but I would say an average of four to five people. Sometimes there are twelve and sometimes three.
P: You mentioned that the publication is separated into a subjective and an objective side. Is there ever a danger that the research will become design-centered if these aspects are not separated?
DG: We are not allowed to design when we research because we do not know what we are going to be designing. At that stage we just want to know what is ‘Quarantine’, what is ‘Antarctica’, what is ‘Chernobyl’? It is only when we have identified some of the questions, problems and challenges that interest us that we engage with design, and that happens after the research is done. Once the design phase begins there is once again feedback from the experts in the specific field. Some of the projects are extremely pragmatic. Others are much more subtle and are critically aimed at construction methods and social or political aspects, and some of them are in fact satirical and cynical in their approach.
P: What projects have been developed into real life projects?
DG: The Maldives Habitations is a project that has become an ongoing subject of research for the government, which in turn has produced other small projects. The Iceberg Habitation has received focus of attention and has also been tested at different scales. We believe that all of the projects that we create could be realised. We do not think that we are doing any science fiction. Even the most radical ones, such as the Iceberg project. All you need is a caterpillar and then start by making a whole into an iceberg. I feel that all of the projects that we have designed, even if they might appear very strange or unusual, are possible. All you need to do is to engage technologies. The Zoo for contaminated species is the most radical one, but it’s not science fiction, it’s just a big hole in the ground with a dome. Some of these projects are just the most simple solutions to the problems approached, the ‘Ready Made Antarctic Base Station’ for example is a project where you would just land a series of retired air crafts on Antarctica instead of Arizona to create a work station. For us they are just alternative ways of engaging with the built environment, but I don’t think we make any of our buildings float in the air or stand by wishful thinking. I think what we challenge are other aspects, we challenge ways of design and building that are not necessarily traditional ones.
The Maldives Habitations - a project by MAP Architects that is now materializing.
P: What is the next extreme environment for MAP to investigate?
DG: The next MAP is focusing on Greenland. It is special, because it is the only MAP so far that does not only present projects designed by us. It takes the work that we have done for the Venice Biennale this year where the Danish pavilion selected four architectural teams to tackle different challenges on Greenland. We thought that the research was so thorough that it could easily be a MAP. It is essentially going to be about Greenland and its challenges and at the same time a collection of projects by the different teams. MAP Architects and Henning Larsen Architects formed one team, BIG (Bjarke Ingels Group) and a Greenlandic studio called Tegnestuen Nuuk formed a second one. Another one consisted of Vandkunsten, Qarsoq Tegnestue and Clement & Carlsen. It was a one year long research process where we visited Greenland twice and collaborated with the local architectural practices.
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Architect David A. Garcia is founder and principal of MAP architects. He is the editor and publisher of the international publication MAP (Manual of Architectural Possibilities). www.maparchitects.dk
He was interviewed by Samuel Michaëlsson and Hugo Losman on the 20th of November in Lund, Sweden.
Hugo Losman is a third year architecture student at the School of Architecture in Lund, Sweden.
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