SAN JOSE UNBOUND/ TRAFFIC

“First you took our tram, and then the trains. While every other country laid new rails, you dirtied our lives with traffic, potholes, faulty bridges and expensive by-paths" - (Nuestro Nombre es Costa Rica, 2013).

Costa Rica, internationally known as the 'Switzerland' of Central America, is known for its unbridled and unspoilt nature. But in the capital it's a different story, with San Jose literally suffocating under ever increasing traffic loads woefully dependent on outdated infrastructure.  The economic, social and environmental costs are real and quantifiable - the chaos existing in the big metropolitan area costs the country 370.000.000 $ of annual loss in time and fuel - and that adds up to a very big problem. However like all big problems the solutions are often complex and multi-layered and therefore need to be split up into manageable micro layers.  

Using contemporary computational methods the workshop San Jose Unbound will provide students the opportunity to develop 'pin-pointed' architectural strategies, to help alleviate San Jose from its traffic dilemma and uncover opportunities for a better, healthier city. The workshop is intended to be very process-orientated and will introduce participants to a series of tools and techniques that as a combined workflow will demonstrate a systematised or parametric approach to architectural thinking. Spanning twelve days, the workshop shall be divided between night sessions focused on skill-building and workflow techniques and afternoon sessions which will allow the students time to apply the teachings in developing solutions to the outlined problematic. Students will be introduced to the potential and capabilities of parametric tools and techniques and will acquire basic skills in Grasshopper, Maya, and Photoshop post-production.