From 6 to 14 July, at the School of Architecture of the Riga Technical University, an intensive course took place, adapted to the format of the Blended Intensive Programs (BIP), which was developed within the EUT+ network.
This course was organised by the staff of the school of architecture (Antra Viļuma, Egons Bērziņš, and Sabīne Baltaisbrence, mainly), but has been taught and directed by professors and researchers from the School of Architecture and Building of the Polytechnic University of Cartagena (Martino Peña Fernandez Serrano and Pedro García Martínez).
The content of the course was focused on the design and construction of deployable structures, a subject on which both Spanish architects have been working for some years. Thanks to their previous experience, the students attending, who come from different schools of architecture belonging to the EUT+ network, such as Technological University Dublin (Ireland), Darmstadt University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Technical University of Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Polytechnic University of Cartagena (Spain) and Riga Technical University (Latvia) have managed, in just 5 days, to build a full-scale set of three wooden deployable arches.
The professors involved have held similar workshops before, in places such as Germany, India and Taiwan, with very positive outcomes. The course was divided into two parts. The first part provided students with the theoretical information necessary to understand the most important design principles, based on the discoveries of Spanish architects such as Emilio Pérez Piñero and Félix Escrig, who have pioneered the field of deployable structures. The students then designed and fabricated, using digital means, the knots, and the main parts of the structure, first on a reduced scale and finally on a real scale.
In this case, three wooden folding arches of 5m span and 2.5m height, each consisting of 10 folding modules, were produced. These three arches have been placed in the courtyard of the School of Architecture of the Riga Technical University. This construction, made of wood, in search of greater sustainability, has not only served as an experiment for the professors involved and as a learning experience for the students (Marta Katarzyna Kociołek, Grasielle Martins, Dora Kralj, Aleksander Domaradzki from TU-Dublin, Paul David Mäder, Tom Lovric, Luis Enrique Pommerening, Alexander Schmid from Darmstadt, Leontina Maria Pop, Raluca-Maria Petrovai, Georgiana Condurachi, Alexandra Tesileanu, Istvan Simofi from TUCN, Luis Ortega Escalona, Paloma Gomez Del baño, Alejandro Martínez Vera, Victoria López Maiquez, Ana Noguera Navarro from UPCT, and Linda Daugule and Dina Aleksandroviča from RTU) who have participated. But also, as by remaining in this location for a few months, it can also serve as a material testimony that introduces new students to the exciting world of deployable structures. An issue that is once again relevant today, due to its multiple applications at different scales.