La Vila
Workshops in La Vila. Courses throughout the year. Dates to be agreed
Directors: RCR Arquitectes – Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, Ramon Vilalta
Tutors: 1 RCR tutor, 1 collaborating university tutor
Duration: Options of 4 to 7 days.
Places: Minimum 9 and maximum 12 participants. 1 tutor from the collaborating institution.
Level: Level adapted to the group from beginner to advanced
Languages: Spanish / English
Objective
From an attitude of constant research, the goal is to learn to feel the place from a key underlying focus in RCR Arquitectes’ way of projecting.
The workshop is designed to encourage creativity and perception from the unique experience born of a specific place. Attentive listening arises from within us in a sense indicated by Luis Barragán when he says “Don’t do what I did: see what I saw.”
Workshop
The workshop is based on four central concepts:
Creativity. Shared creativity as a resource to give answers with meaningful content.
Experience. Live, be and understand a place derived from observation and experience;
Specific Time. Ability to reflect and give answers in a given period.
Broad Context. Transversal and integrative research instead of definitive and closed answers.
Introduction and closing session with RCR. The initial presentation of the course and closing session will be with Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, or Ramon Vilalta. Exploration of the “Geography of dreams”, the territory of the Villa, a territory of dreams inspired by nature, with existing spaces to live in and others to explore and investigate.
Feeling The Site
“When we receive an assignment, we must not forget that we are asked to solve a question. To understand the question well, we must be wide open, understand beyond words, and feel beyond our thoughts.
We offer this workshop to help you feel, understand, and create. There is no “the answer”. The answer is multiple; we will direct it according to our decisions. To take them we must use all our senses. Not only reasoning is a good guide. Everything that enters our pores, our eyes, our touch, our smell, our ears, in short, all our senses will be capital. The more open we are, the more perceptive we will be, and with it, the more variables we will handle, and we will be in better condition to take appropriate paths (decisions).
We are here to feel, to perceive, to understand. The place, La Vila, is an inexhaustible source of stimuli. So we are in this place to perceive so that you perceive and help yourselves on your path. It will not be a recipe or reproduction workshop. It will be an experience workshop. We only truly understand things when we experience them firsthand. So you must open yourselves to the stimuli of this place.”
Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta
Dance Atelier
To feel, perceive, and understand the place, we will investigate it with all the senses and the body with the dancer Sílvia Brossa.
Photography Atelier
To explore the act of observing, we examine the concept of genius loci with the assistance of photographer Eugeni Pons, utilizing various approaches such as the vanishing point, texture, abstraction, and volume.
Philosophy Atelier
With the help of philosopher Jordi Pigem, we will discuss the sense of place in relation to our experience of space and the world.
You can listen to Jordi Pigem’s talk at the Open Program 2021 about examining the concept of place.
Guided Visits
Visits to works by RCR Arquitectes. Guided tours of RCR’s essential works: Barberí Space, the Athletics Stadium, the Bathing Pavilion, the Pedra Tosca Park, the Les Cols Restaurant and Marquee complex, the Bell-lloc winery or the new Perelada winery.
Teaching Team
Architecture Workshop · RCR Tutor
Maria Amat (Barcelona, Spain, 1989) is an architect from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC) and the Technische Universität Berlin (TUB). Postgraduate in Business Management by the Pompeu Fabra University (BSM-UPF). She is co-founder of Metrònom Arquitectura, 2020, a studio that performs private assignments and public projects through awarded competitions. All of them are under the common denominator of the care for details and the pre-existing—design drawing professor at ETSAB-UPC. She has been a tutor at the RCR Summer Workshop since 2023.
Architecture Workshop · RCR Tutor
Xevi Bayona (Olot, Spain, 1982) is an architect from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC), where he also obtained a postgraduate degree in Landscape Architecture and a master’s degree in theory and practice of architectural projects. Since 2008, he has been a lecturer at the Polytechnic University of Girona, and since 2018, he has been a lecturer on the international master’s degree in ephemeral architecture at Elisava.
Bayona Studio is a workshop and studio focused on experimentation and research, combining different disciplines that complement each other: architecture, urban planning, art, landscape, and light. His works include the rehabilitation of the Tortosa State Bridge over the Ebro River, the rehabilitation of the sports area of Sant Jaume de Llierca and the Olot Trade Fair, among others.
Since 2017, he has been collaborating with Àlex Posada of MID Studio and has been the artistic director of the Lluèrnia Festival in Olot since its beginnings. He has received numerous national and international awards, including three FAD awards, and has given lectures, workshops, and projects in various European cities.
BAYONA STUDIO Xevi Bayona · Instagram
Architecture Workshop · RCR Tutor
Estel Ortega Vázquez (Barcelona, Spain, 1977) graduated from the Barcelona School of Architecture (ETSAB-UPC), with teaching experience at the ETSAB in 2010 and at the School of Architecture (ESARQ) of the International University of Catalonia (UIC) since 2008, and participates in workshops and other national and international universities. She founded the architecture studio Cubus Taller de Arquitectura in 2003 and 15515 Arquitectura in 2017. Her projects include cooperation, research and rehabilitation, museography and museology. She has collaborated with the Eduardo Chillida-Pilar Belzunce Foundation, the Bullilab Foundation, and the We Are Water Foundation, among others, and was co-curator of the Catalan Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018. She has been a tutor at the RCR Summer Workshop in 2017 and the RCR Workshops in La Vila since 2018. She has been collaborating with RCR Arquitectes since 2018.
Dance Atelier
Sílvia Brossa Mari (Olot, Spain, 1965) holds a Performing Arts and Education postgraduate from the Vic Institut del Teatre. In addition, she has a degree in Choreography and Performing Arts from the Barcelona Institut del Teatre. Furthermore, she has a postgraduate in Expression and Communication from the Barcelona Municipal School of Expression. She has worked for ten years as a performer with the Magnet and Burch Company, two seasons on a project for the Teatre Romea, and three years for the Els Joglars Company. In addition, she has created several short plays for different festivals and has extensive experience as a teacher, both with children and adults. She has been collaborating with RCR Lab·A since 2018.
Photography Atelier
Eugeni Pons (Barcelona, Spain, 1964) graduated in philosophy from the UAB and studied photography at the IEFC in Barcelona at the same time. He began his professional career in 1992 with advertising photography and directed it 1995 towards architectural photography. Winner of five LUX awards for architectural photography, he collaborates nationally and internationally with some of the most relevant publications in the sector, such as Wallpaper, Architectural Digest, Architectural Record, A+U, Bauwelt, Interni, Abitare, Arquitectura y Diseño, Diseño Interior, El País Semanal, La Vanguardia Magazine, El Periódico, among others. In 2004, he exhibited at the Sala Greek in Barcelona and participated in various collective exhibitions, such as Barcelona-Madrid at the College of Architects of Barcelona. In addition, the MoMA in New York shortlisted him for the photographic collection of the exhibition On Site: New Architecture in Spain.
Philosophy Atelier
Jordi Pigem (Barcelona, Spain, 1964) holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona. He was a professor of the Masters in Holistic Science at Schumacher College (United Kingdom) from 1998 to 2003. He is the author, among others, of Bona crisi. Cap a un món postmaterialista (2009), Qüestió de valors. Del consumisme a la sostenibilitat (2010), Entendre la natura. Fonaments d’una cultura de la sostenibilitat (2011), La nova realitat. De l’economicisme a la consciència quàntica (2013) and ntel·ligència vital. Una visió postmaterialista de la vida i la consciència (2016). He is also editor of Ivan Illich: textos essencials (2009) and co-editor of El somriure diví (2008). He coordinated the first three volumes of the Catalan edition of the Opera Omnia Raimon Panikkar. He has obtained the Philosophy Award from the Institut d’ Estudis Catalans (1999), the Essay Award from Resurgence and the Scientific and Medical Network (2006) and the Joan Maragall Award (2016).
