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The unit will continue exploring toxic contexts through radical touristic speculations; engaging with global urgent environmental issues whilst amplifying the relations between body and altered natures, triggering a new consciousness towards these complex landscapes.

Following the alternative touristic experiences and forms of engaging toxicity that the unit discovered in the Rio Tinto mines, this year we will dive into the biggest ecological disaster in Europe: The Portman bay. Lo-cated in the south of Spain, it has an immense artificial black beach, which is the consolidation of many years of mining waste disposal. Invisibilised and almost abandoned, the Portman bay is paradoxically adjacent to one of the most popular touristic destinations of the 70’s-90’s, La Manga del Mar Menor, and it is surrounded by a delicate ecosystem of beaches, reli-gious traditions and flamenco festivals.

We will engage with these tensions through immersive experiences, whe-re the body and technology become fundamental instruments to expand the ways of knowing and intervening in the environment. Developing im-mersive design tools, from 360 degrees perspectives to virtual reality, we will draw from the countercultural practices described in the Whole Earth Catalogue to generate critical and creative responses to this hyper-con-temporary black and toxic context.

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TOURISM

Tourism is one of the most rapidly expanding global economies that in-volves human experience, technology and territory. And its trends are developing at the same speed. If two decades ago the options revolved around the sea, mountains or urban tourism, now the options have multi-plied with its democratisation and specialisation: adventure, luxury, expe-rience, peer-to-peer, wellness, culinary, medical... and responsible tourism in all of its guises, from ecotourism and indigenous travel to volunteerism. But new trends are also evolving in disaster and toxic tourism, which will be at the core of this year’s programme.

All of these ways of knowing “the other” – either places or humans – are configured by the geographical, climatic, cultural or historic conditions of their territories, and are also sensitive to wars, political instability, oil pri-ces, or climate change, as recent events in Algeria, Jordan or the US have demonstrated. Yet, they are also transformed through technology: the in-ternet has individualised the search for alternatives, airline competition has broadened the range of available destinations and reviews on social media sites have transformed tourists into critics. We ask: how does im-mersive technologies like VR affect and constitute techno-tourists? How do their physical and digital experiences co-constitute one another? How are landscapes and ways of knowing altered?

NEW TRIP DESTINATIONS: TOXIC BEACHES

This year we will dive into the biggest ecological disaster in Southern Europe: The Portman bay. Located in the south of Spain, it has an im-mense artificial black beach, which is the consolidation of many years of mining waste disposal coming from La Unión. Invisibilised and almost abandoned, the Portman bay is paradoxically adjacent to one of the most popular touristic destinations of the 70’s-90’s, La Manga del Mar Menor, and it is surrounded by a delicate ecosystem of beaches, religious tradi-tions and flamenco festivals.

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Calblanque beach, La Manga del Mar Menor

This scenario creates the frame to understand the unit’s interests, explo-ring the idea of the techno tourist as a hybrid personality between a pas-sive observer and a scientist engaged with nature, investigating proposals that, coming from classic nomadic touristic references like mobile homes or campings, are also inspired by the Whole Earth Catalogue, countercul-tural techno-settlements and other radical architectures like The House of the Century.

The House of the Century worked as a lunar station where Ant Farm crea-ted a whole system for environmental observation. Through new recor-ding devices, Ant Farm designed an editable narrative process where the users were capable of creating their own audio-visual version of the ecosystem. This year our “nomadic touristic stations” will operate in the same way. From a privileged position, strategically located in this particu-lar enclave surrounded by the beaches and the see, our stations will ob-serve and intervene in these toxic horizons, creating new forms of percei-ving and inhabiting the sea boarder. we’ll create a journey going from the infinity shorelines landscapes to their virtual immersive version.

Our understanding of the toxic, however, will not be restricted to chemi-cal concentrations, but will take into consideration and engage with the complex assemblages of bodies, politics, institutions, infrastructures, and everyday practices that constitute toxic environments. Through our pro-jects, we will explore forms of inhabitation through restoration, overlap, protection, coping, remediation, etc.; redefining at the same time what tourism, the toxic and their interrelation could become in the future.

1St TERM PROPOSAL: OBSERVING THE LANDSCAPE

As the first Tour Operator ambassadors, students will research Portman Bay’s geographical, social and environmental conditions, as well as new trends in tourism, immersive technologies like VR and forms of inhabiting the toxic -including science, art, sci-fi, etc.- in order to construct a critical response to both the brief and the site, and to propose a topic and loca-tion for their Touristic Stations. They will prepare the digital and virtual description of where, what and how the station could be and its relation with the toxic. Simultaneously they will produce a set of big 360º colourful perspectives with the first spatial proposals of immersive VR landscapes.

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Virtual Hotel Mi5VR

The field trip will be the moment at which the Tour Operators confront the physical experiences in Portman Bay and Murcia. The students will document their site and their immersion in it by means of 360º images, videos, and a field trip handbook that will gather sketches of the develop-ment of the proposal.

Once back in the Tour Operators’ Headquarters, the students will deve-lop accurate and better versions of the 360º perspectives to be integrated and shown through a cardboard visor like VR glasses.

Outputs:

- 1 Experiential Landscape’. 45x150cm colourful 360 degree perspective.- Tourist/site map. It will be portfolio size and foldable and will be used during the fieldtrip as a navigational document. -Research booklets, in A5 format. -First Beach 3D survival kit using line axos as part of the Tourist Stations

Term 1 Skills & Tools

- Reading abilities: comprehension and communication of theoreti- cal and architectural texts. -Reading abilities in terms of maps and geographical information.- Spherical Photography: Use of devices (Theta camera) and associated software/apps to get immersive pictures.- Personal research skills.- Strategies for working with digital technologies and translating on 2D images and digital spatial experiences.- Drawing techniques to communicate ideas more effectively graphically.- Rhino.-Unreal Engine

Black toxic beach, Portman Bay

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La Union Mines

Calendar:

Week 1: 25th September-Intermediate Unit Introduction.-Intermediate Unit Interviews.-First Meeting - presentation of the brief & fist exersice

Week 2: 2th October-Talk on Deep Mediterranean contexts: rituals, countercultures, activisms. -Talk on Toxic landscapes

-Initial research on Toxic/tourism/Portman bay. Readings discussion and site selection into the Booklet and tourist/site map.

Week 3: 9th October -Workshop I: 3D modelling kit of beach and first experiential 360º pers-pectives

Week 4: 16th October-Tutorials -Talk on Immersive Formats and Virtual Reality-Trip preparation. Project research and development plan of the site.

Week 5: 23h October-Workshop II advanced immersive 360 perspectives-Beginning of unit trip from Thursday 26th Week 6: 30th October- OPEN WEEK. Trip to Murcia/Portman BaySite visit and registration, field trip notebook production. Week 7: 6th November-Development

Week 8: 13th November-VR Workshop I: Introduction to Unreal Engine and First 3D project ver-sions.

Week 9: 20th November-Immersive formats and VR jury/pin up: Friday 24th

Week 10: 27th November -Development

Week 11: 4th December -Portfolio check

Week 12: 11th December-11th Final jury-15th December. Christmas Party.

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STATIONS FOR TECHNO-TOURISTS.

60’s Counterculture redescribed the nomadic settlements going from American tribes, to massive music festivals or even prototypes to explore remote planets. One of the aims of such a nomadic rebirth was a new ge-nerational awareness understanding the planet as a fragile environment to be carefully inhabited. The 60’s key edited document deploying this sensibility was the Stewart Brand’s Whole Earth Catalogue, with the format of a survival manual, Stewart Brand combined simultaneously military technology, ecology, no-madic traditions or the very first mass consumer computers.The consequence of such a radical catalogue for architects was the lear-ning a whole range of light technologies for deployable architecture, going from the Buckmister Fuller’s geodesic domes to the native Ameri-can tipis. But beyond its architectural output The Whole Earth Manual created a new awareness towards our relation with nature. The main principle of the catalogue was to articulate the idea of “we are all one”, the slogan coming from one of Stewart Brand’s key collaborators, the collective of artist and engineers USCO; meaning that any design decision made to inhabit this planet is connected to a Whole and affects synchronically the community and the ecosystem. Our Touristic Stations in toxic beaches will learn from the conditions sett-le by Brand’s catalogue researching the actual meaning for architects of creative categories inaugurated in the 60’s like holistic design, as a conse-quence of the Whole Earth awareness; Touristic station understood as a nomadic multi-layered set of devices to re-connect the users and their bo-dies to the polluted environments.

RITUALS AND PILGRIMAGES

The unit has always worked in cultural contexts with strong public de-monstrations of their customs, from the island of Ibiza with its festive ri-tuals, through the traditions of India infiltrated by the counterculture in Goa, to the romerías in Huelva. This year Murcia offers an opportunity to explore the material and social organizations of their public nomadic litur-

La Manga del Mar Menor

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gies, processions, pilgrimages and fairs, which are an undeniable source of inspiration to create a new version of tourism, hybridized with the toxic beaches.

The nomadic condition of the processions will help us to re-imagine di-fferent touristic approaches to the beach. Movement and technology can play a role in redefining our relationship with the polluted environment. We will generate new versions of customer journeys, combining with im-mersive technologies like virtual reality, the informational, and everyday practices.

OBSERVATION OF THE POLLUTED

The unit will redefine a new tribe of travellers. This typology of techno-tourism will set out a group of physical and technological devices for ob-servation. The station will be operated as a portable structure equipped with perceptual instruments to experience the outer world: from mobile systems to record like drones, rovers, or submarines, to optical gadgets and filters incorporated in the architectural components. We will revisit case studies like the Truckstop Network from Ant Farm, who defined a whole network of “media eyes” to record the new visions of western Ame-rica. With such a background, the tourist-user, as an astronaut, will navi-gate through heavens, abandoned mines, and toxic beaches, adding an augmented perception via virtual technologies. We will understand archi-tecture as an opportunity to redefine the typologies of traditional light in-frastructure associated with beaches as an archetypical touristic enclave, adding qualities and enriching the displaced digital immersive experien-ce.

Whole Earth Catalogue

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Portman bay pipe

IMMERSIVE DIGITAL: VR

We can confirm that today we spend more time navigating digital spaces than experiencing real ones. One field after another -music, finance, cultu-re, etc. - has found its equivalent in the digital world. The libraries that we visit most frequently are not buildings filled with publications on paper; they are our personal libraries online with a capacity for almost infinite books. Architectural typologies have their digital translation but miss their spatial attributes. Just as in the book Flatland, a tale about a planet inhabi-ted by 2D shapes, we are living in a flattened world designed by program-mers.Immersive technologies like Virtual Reality can provide spatiality to that digital daily experience. 2017 has been ‘the year’ for this technology, and from multiple media it is described as the definitive platform that is going to transform our domestic habits. The main current powers, Facebook, Samsung, Sony, HTC… are investing spectacular budgets and talents in this area. Putting the VR pair of goggles on, you are placed in the centre of a com-pletely new spatial situation. You can look all around, move along the spa-ce, interact with your environment… that phenomenological sensation of being immersed is defined by VR pioneers in existential terms: “presence”.It’s obvious that video games will be the first field to appropriate this per-formance. But we are seeing that thanks to its highly emphatic properties it is starting to be used by contemporary artists like Chris Milk or FIELD for different goals.New architectural designs under virtual rules are to be made: spaces to amplify our senses, to enhance our daily life experiences, new architectu-ral images with neither gravity, nor up or down...they enable the creation of infinite landscapes. As in previous years, we will explore the tension between VR and physi-cal environments, exploring what one can do in relation to the other. How do they expand, complement, put into question, unfold or intensify each other’s capacities?

2ND TERM PROPOSAL: TOURISTIC STATIONS

This will be the main term to develop the core of the project and the por-tfolio. The students will work in parallel, developing the physical defini-tion of the observation station and the immersive digital experience at the same time.

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The Station could be described as an observation shelter for travellers to connect with the world that surrounds them. It will contain individual and collective gathering spaces that will at the same time be observatories; mobile architectures to perceive, experience and inhabit the coastal line.

The Virtual immersion can be defined as part of the station kit; an expe-rience to expand the ways to inhabit the landscape. Co-existing with the iconic image of a tourist contemplating the see horizon with sun glasses, the new scenarios including the toxic data can be hybridized combining VR goggles or equivalent devices.

It should contain:- A virtual station environment that enables the transformation, experien-ce or understanding that the physical station may not allow for. - Eventually, virtual toxic data-scapes

Term 2 Skills & Tools

-Drawing techniques to communicate ideas more effectively graphically-The use of Virtual Reality headset and gaming device Samsung Gear.-UNREAL ENGINE: an interactive tool for video game development, im-mersive architectural visualizations and interactive media installation.-Technical understanding of how the building is put together-Strategies for working with digital technologies and translating on paper drawings digital spatial experiences

Calendar:

Winter term 2016.8th January to 23th March

- Week 1: Workshop III. Interactive immersive perspectives and Presentation of the portfolio needs and final Station program

- Week 2: 360 degrees perspetives juryTS discussions with 3rd years - Week 3: Pin-up

- Week 4: Workshop VR II: full development of the VR experience

- Week 5: OPEN WEEK. A visit to FIELD Studio. Digital artists, VR developers,

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- Week 6: VR jury Friday Tutorials on the Physical Station and portfolio format

- Week 7: development

- Week 8: Intensive drawing weekTerm 2 Final Jury

- Week 9: Portfolio check - format everything into the manualTS Interim Jury - Week 10: 2nd year Preview tables

- Week 11: 3r year Preview tables

Beach Techno Tourist

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IMMERSIVE TOUR:

This type of tourism with a virtual goal will require new forms of visual editing, so during the year the unit will become a laboratory of visual ex-ploration, using innovative image protocols to translate the specificities of our site into a broader touristic experience to be shared globally. The third term will finalise these formats, understanding the portfolio as a new opportunity to render the 3D immersive world into 2D formats. Accom-panying the VR devices we will simultaneously launch a video version or browseable interfaces to operate with the final architectural proposals, which will be able to communicate the results to a broader audience.

CATALOGUE/PORTFOLIO

The catalogue is the technical format associated with technological pro-ducts from its first black and white standardised versions. Yet the catalo-gues made during the 1950s started to incorporate graphics, a sense of colour and thoughtful layouts that engaged their audience. Then in the 1960s another version of catalogue arose, black and white again, but loo-king for a cheap and a planetary expansion, the Whole Earth Catalogue; this edition from Steward Brand was a perfect balance between the latest technologies and environmental knowledge. With these references this year our updated catalogue will shift to a multi-layered large drawing con-taining the different ingredients of the portfolio, which will be capable of being detached in independent A2. It will be an ideal portfolio format sin-ce it will contain self-explanatory drawings and instructions on how the low impact camp is built, starting from the landscape data and how this structure has a wider impact on the local community and the landscape.

Output:

VR goggles Video: Final VR immersive with a video displaying the journey through the infinity landscapes.Portfolio, Combining big 360º Catalogue format with minimum content of:

- Drawings and images showing how the structure is inhabited and used.- Long-term impact of the context, and consequences for the ecosystem.- Renders and images of the final proposal/ model.- Details of how the building is assembled, joints, components etc.

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Inter 11 Students work: Valeria Armendariz Jumanah Bawazir

Jumanah Bawazir

Term 3 Skills & Tools

- Drawing techniques to communicate ideas more effectively graphically- The use of Virtual Reality headset and gaming device Samsung Gear.- Video editing- Technical understanding of how the building is assembled and disas-sembled- Abilities in oral presentation

Calendar:

Spring term 2016.23th April to 22nd June

- Week 1: 3rd year TS Final SubmissionVR Workshop III: Solving Issues (Madrid)- Week 2: PORTFOLIO REVIEW for 2nd and 3rd year studentsTS High Pass/ Low Pass Jury- Week 3: VR Jury Friday - Week 4: Media editing supervisors- Week 5: Undergraduate Jury Weeks - Final Jury (week 5)- Week 6: Portfolio check and presentation rehearsals 2- Week 7: 2nd year final tables- Week 8: 3rd year Part I check2nd years to start work on exhibition- Week 9: RIBA External Examination (3rd year)End of year exhibition

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Olivier Jauniaux Emily Haydn

Technical Studies:

The Technical Studies will look at temporary structures for a specific loca-tion on the coastal line; the structures will work like nomadic architectures that touch the ground lightly. The portable station will be an opportunity to choose a field of research implying the relation with the polluted and the possibility of inhabiting a difficult milieu.The Technical Studies proposals will always examine the perception insi-de-outside:- Research materiality of the surfaces.- How the materials/effects relate to the senses.- How the shelters/filters become observation devices to amplify percep-tion.- Kit of parts.- What will the impact of these settlements be in the future?- Testing how this perception affects the body.- How it can be self-sustainable in terms of energy?The TS submission will be an extension of the portfolio and will be a cru-cial part of the portfolio/catalogue as a self-explanatory guide of how to build your portable architecture and its effects on the new version of a touristic tour. Other important precedents will be stage sets, pavilions, plug-in architecture, and digital installations.

References:

Ant Farm: House of the Century Truckstop Network

Diller & Scofidio: The Slow House

Archigram: Instant & Plu-In City

House of the Century. Ant Farm The Slow House: Diller & Scofidio

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Constant Nieuwenhuis. New Babylon

Xpiral Casa Tasio: Javier Peña

Theory:Easterling, Keller. Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure SpaceEllard Colin, Places of the Heart: The Psychogeography of Everyday LifeKholeif, Omar Ed. You are here, Art after the internetJaron, Lanier. You are not a Gadget. A Manifesto and Who owns the futu-re?Fuller, R. Buckminster & Jaime Snyder. Operating Manual for Spaceship EarthIto, Toyo. Tarzans in the Media ForestMcHale, John. The Future of the FutureMcLuhan, Eric. Essential Marshall McLuhanOrtega, Lluis: Digitalization takes command.Lucy R. Lippard, Undermining: A Wild Ride Through Land Use, Politics, and Art in the Changing West

Architecture, art and technology:Borasi, Giovanna and Zardini, Mirko. The medicalization of architectureBrand, Stewart. Whole Earth Catalogue, wholeearth.comBurns, Jim. Arthropods. New design futures.Dessauce, Marc. The inflatable moment: pneumatics and protest in ‘68Gordon, Alastair. Spaced Out: Radical Environments of the Psychedelic Six-tiesHollein, Hans. Hans Hollein, Design: Man transforms : Concepts of an Exhi-bitionKozel, Susan. Closer: Performance, technology, phenomenologyMcLean, William and Silver, Pete. Air Structures (Form + Technique)Mitchell: City of BitsMonchaux, Nicolas. Spacesuits,

MVRDV: Costa IbericaRinzler, J.W. Star Wars: The Blueprints

Ready Player One. Ernest Cline Media Van. Ant Farm

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Schwartzmann, Madelaine. See yourself sensing. Redefining human per-ceptionScott, Felicity. Ant Farm, The living Archive 7Shaoqing, Wang. New Portable Architecture: Designing Mobile & Tempo-raryVirtual House (Any Magazine 19-20)Warrick, Patricia. The Cybernetic Imagination in Science Fiction

Toxic:Gissen, David. SubnatureMurphy, Sick building syndromePezzullo, Phaedra. Toxic Tourism: Rhetorics of Pollution, Travel, and Envi-ronmental JusticeDisasters and Politics: Materials, experiments, preparednessVolume #46Toxic Expertise blog: https://toxicnews.org/

Narrative:Alexievich, Voices of Chernobil (mandatory)Cline, Ernest. Ready Player One

Film:Mad Max, Fury of Road (2015)The Moquito Coast 19862001: A Space Odyssey (1968)Star Wars (1980)Blade Runner (1982)Jodorowsky’s Dune (2013)The Lord of the Flies (Brook, 1969)Valerian 2017

Techno-tourist from Himalaya

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Manuel Collado Arpia and Nacho Martín Asunción are founders of the Madrid-based office Mi5VR,

which is aimed to design virtual architectures. Since 2003 they have taught at various institutions such as

UAH Madrid, UA Alicante and UCJC and IED Madrid. They have won and built several architecture competi-

tions and they regularly participate in juries, travel as guest lecturers and participate in exhibitions such as

the Venice Biennale, RIBA London, IVAM Valencia and GD-NYU. They both obtained their PhDs from ETSAM

Madrid in 2013.

Nacho Martin will lead the VR production through specific sessions as a Consultant.

Youth Center in Rivas (Madrid). Mi5. Polivagina (Murcia). C+ Architects

–—mi5 architects.|||||

Nerea Calvillo is an architect, researcher and curator. Both the work of her office, C+ arquitectos, and

her own visualisation projects have been widely published and exhibited. She has taught at the UEM, Ali-

cante University, the AA and Harvard GSD. Formerly a Poiesis Fellow at NYU and curator of Medialab-Prado’s

Connecting Cities Network European project, she is assistant professor at the Centre for Interdisciplinary

Methodologies at the University of Warwick. She holds a PhD from ETSAM Madrid.

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