Building as a Verb

Abstract

This paper describes the approach of architecture/urbanism practice and research workshop “orizzontale”, based in Rome, Italy.
The approach of the group is heuristic: it is to get involved, to put themselves on the line, to “play the game”. As a machine that absorbs and transforms every kind of things, orizzontale has a clear attitude for mutation over production. The act of building things is a primary tool the group uses to build communities, link them together and create confidence in the idea of a better society.
Experimental does not mean “avant-garde” but rather “empirical, exploratory, in-progress”. The scientific attitude toward fact-finding and result-testing is an integral part of orizzontale approach, together with the artistic aspects of the work. Among the strategies adopted by the collective a special attention should be given to the attempts to translate in a spatial language the ideas, very literally. The results of this process can be called “spatial metaphors”, “discursive buildings” or “talking machines”. What orizzontale leaves behind is not necessarily a construction, but the process which is able to build up knowledge, consciousness, and trust.