"The desert – even sand dunes country – is not without help and sustenance if you know where to look."

Reyner Banham, Scenes in America Deserta (London: Thames & Hudson, 1982), p. 16

DESERTA ITINERARY / January 2011

DESERTA

Wednesday 5th – Friday 14th January 2011

Pedro Ignacio Alonso, Programme Director_ AA Visiting School Santiago

Tutors: Marina Lathouri, Thomas Weaver, Christopher Pierce, Tim Street- Porter, Rodrigo Pérez de Arce, Arturo Lyon,   Pedro Ignacio Alonso  

DESERTA ITINERARY

STAGE 1

Wednesday 5^th / HYPER DRY

09hrs.    Introduction to the workshop – Santiago

               Pedro Alonso - Pilar Cereceda and Ana Maria Mujica (Atacama Desert Centre)

11hrs     Depart to SCL Airport

14hrs.    Flight to Calama – arriving at 17hrs.           

17hrs.    Bus to Maria Elena – arriving at 18:30hrs.

20hrs.    Dinner

Thursday 6^th / MINING TOWNS

08hrs.    Breakfast

09hrs.    Visit to Maria Elena

13hrs.    Visit to the ghost town of Pedro de Valdivia

15hrs.    Visit to the Loa River Oasis

17hrs.    Bus to San Pedro de Atacama – arriving at 19hrs.

               

Friday 7^th / LIGHT
06hrs.    Departure to Laguna Cejar
07hrs     Visit to Laguna Cejar and photographic session with Tim Street- Porter

14hrs     Lunch in San Pedro de Atacama

19hrs.    Bus back to Calama

22hrs.    Flight back to Santiago – arriving at 01hrs.+ 1

               

STAGE 2

Saturday 8^th

10hrs     Workshop in Santiago at Lo Contador Campus, PUC

Sunday 9^th

9hrs       Workshop in Santiago at Lo Contador Campus, PUC

STAGE 3

Monday 10^th / ENERGY

9hrs       Workshop in Santiago at Lo Contador Campus, PUC

               Public programme

17hrs     Eugenio Garcés, Extreme weather: mining towns in the cooper and nitrate industries

18hrs     Francisco Forster and Jerry Wolff, Energy  

Tuesday 11^th  / LAND

9hrs       Workshop in Santiago at Lo Contador Campus, PUC

18hrs     Public programme

                Rodrigo Pérez de Arce, Undo

Wednesday 12^th / FABRIC

9hrs       Workshop in Santiago at Lo Contador Campus, PUC

18hrs     Public programme

Thomas Weaver and Enrique Walker in conversation

Thursday 13^th

9hrs       Workshop in Santiago at Lo Contador Campus, PUC

Friday 14^th

9hrs       Final Jury at Lo Contador Campus, PUC
           Enrique Walker, Sebastian Irarrazabal, Alejandra Celedon, Francisco Forster, Thomas Weaver,
               Christopher Pierce, Rodrigo Pérez de Arce, Arturo Lyon, Pedro Ignacio Alonso  

18hrs     Public programme – DESERTA final lecture  

               Christopher Pierce and Pedro Alonso

              

America Deserta

“The desert is also seen as an appropriate place for fantasies…the fantasies of the buggy maniacs and lone hikers, the seekers after legendary gold mines, the exploders of the first atomic devices, the proponents of advanced missile systems, and the diggers of gigantic earth sculptures….In a landscape where nothing officially exists (otherwise it would not be ‘desert’), absolutely anything becomes thinkable, and may consequently happen.” Peter Reyner Banham, Scenes in America Deserta (London: Thames & Hudson, 1982), p. 44

Peter Reyner Banham cycling at the Silurian Lake, California

          

          Photo credits: Tim Street- Porter                

Maria Elena and the Atacama Desert

                       

            

Photo © Pedro Alonso

       

 Photo © Ignacio Infante  

                           

                           

                          

Deserta

AA Santiago Visiting School 2011

DESERTA – AA/PUC Visiting School to the Atacama Desert

Catholic University School of Architecture / www.deserta.org

5 - 14 January 2011

In its second year, the AA/UC Visiting School will approach a harsh climatic and geographical condition, the Atacama Desert in northern Chile. Usually considered to be the driest place on earth, this desert has nonetheless seen the emergence and collapse of several mining towns, always constrained by scarce water and energy resources and extreme weather conditions. Hosting the workshop at one of these towns - Maria Elena – in addition to Chile’s capital, Santiago, the programme will address the struggle of cities striving to resist the power of the encroaching desert. Close to large reservoirs of lithium, salts and other mineral components, it is located in an area with one of the highest rates of direct solar radiation in the world, allowing for design and conceptual speculation about its possible urban and architectural future from the introduction of new demands brought forward by the upcoming industries of concentrated solar power (CSP) tourism and desert agriculture. Founded in 1926 by the Guggenheim family as a mining town, its plan resembles the ideal layouts of sixteenth and seventeenth century cities like Vincenzo Scamozzi’s Palmanova or Sebastian La Preste de Vauban’s Neuf-Brisach. Within this historical and physical context the workshop will combine design and theoretical enquiry in exploring the strictures of the arid condition from the design of images that will carry the mass of tradition and association and the energy of novelty and technology, advancing the transition from the ideal plan to the possible futures of the Atacama Desert.  

The workshop is organized in collaboration with the Atacama Desert Centre (CDA), and Desertec Sudamérica, and will be taught by tutors from the AA and the Catholic University: Marina Lathouri, Thomas Weaver and Christopher Pierce will join Rodrigo Perez de Arce, Arturo Lyon and Pedro Ignacio Alonso. The architecture photographer Tim Street-Porter will be a special guest. Evening lectures and site visits to Maria Elena, the ghost town of Pedro de Valdivia, the Loa Oasis and San Pedro de Atacama, will provide insights into the surrounding landscape of Atacama. The 10-day workshop is open to engaging students, recent graduates, young designers and architects as well as professionals from other related fields interested in exploring alternative forms of practice.