There is this myth about two titans, Prometheus and Epimetheus.* They are brothers and in charge of handing out qualities to the living creatures to survive in the wild. Epimetheus gave the lion claws, the sparrow wings, the wolf teeth, but when he ended up with man, all qualities where already spent. The human remained a hairless, skinny, weak life form without natural weapons. Epimetheus didn't think it through on forehand!Â
To solve the problem and save the humans, Prometheus did a brave act and stole the fire from the Gods. Armed with the fire, we humans could not only protect ourselves but even go further and stand above the other animals. In this story Prometheus, whose name means 'forethinker', is the obvious hero, our saviour. And Epimetheus, the 'afterthinker', is the big loser.  At least that is the classical message of this myth. Think before you act. That sounds wise, doesn’t it?Â
But what if we look at the story in a different way?
First of all, man would not exist the way we are without Epimetheus. So, in a way, according to this myth Epimetheus is our creator! Perhaps by accident, but still.
Another alternative view challenges the common praise on progress, the human brain versus nature. As we regard the depletion of the planet and its wildlife than we could call Prometheus the primordial environmental-criminal. Did he really anticipated all the bad consequences of his gift? So much of what happens around us is related to getting better, bigger, richer way beyond mere survival.Â
The point is that even when you think things through you cannot foresee everything and on the other hand, things that appear by chance might as well have a positive value. This statement is nothing new, but the faith in our capacity to 'forethink' is deeply rooted in the western way of thinking. We plan.
But it is not possible to make a future-proof forecast if the initial conditions alter. This holds a real danger in an environment that changes with unprecedented speed and scale.
With this in mind, Studio Positif aims to challenge the general practice of ‘forethinking’ in architecture. We like to think about ways to design that move away from the ideal/the concept towards a design that is fundamentally involved in the real.
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recent interview with Hello Wood about the 2013 workshop
- How did the international cooperation work from your point of view?
As we've decided to come to Hello Wood with a vague idea and without a plan, while building, the students had to generate solutions for different parts of the bar. The whole process of making a building was an experiment in creating an object without a clear guideline. We believed we could make something beautiful by sharing a feeling of what the bar has to become. The solutions- the designs as well as the building methods- came from the students and ourselves, a very diverse group of individuals from four countries. The difference in characters, backgrounds and probably education was clearly visible during the process. And the end result was a collage of distinctive talents. It was a perfect setting to observe different approaches and how they influence each other. We believe that we, as a whole team, created a unique installation, specifically based on a fact that it was an intuitive cooperation.
- How did the stepping through borders work on a more abstract level?
In this project, design and building alternated- sometimes the physical form came after ideas, like in common practice, but sometimes ideas followed physical form. Designers, by nature, tend to plan actions ahead, but when you get multiple designers working on a same project at the same time with just a very loose idea of what the others are doing, surprises are inevitable. For example, a beam that sticks out crates possibilities for new features that you normally wouldn't think of. It is a form of letting go the traditional urge of architects to control a project. Everything needs to be planned, explained and justified in advance. The plan means control. Every architect knows that during the design process and during the realization of a project unexpected problems appear. This is normally seen as an enormous nuisance that compromises the integrity of the original design. The original design is the holy product of the architect, the thing that needs to be protected against the barbarities of the outside world. Like in normal life, you try to plan ahead but in the end things turn out different. It is of course not possible to foresee everything. And that would be really boring! The only way to maintain a certain control would be to make things overly simple and safe, like never crossing the street for groceries. The same applies for architecture. The only way to have a ‘perfect’ design is to simplify. The idea of control even contains a danger when we lose the capability to deal with the unexpected.
- Is it true, that Hello Wood can bring closer institutions, teachers, students, nature with the built environment, how did the whole step closer concept come true in that year?
Although Hello Wood is a place to build and have fun while doing it, we remember lots of serious discussions about architecture and its context. Hello Wood seems to be a perfect playground for architecture-minded to share ideas. It is not only the social connection but also the assembly of twelve projects that reflect different ideas. The temporal character of the installations and just one restriction, create endless possibilities to experiment with ideas, visions, ideals, ethics, aesthetics… The difference of interventions, put together at one location, automatically generates dialogue among individuals as well as among teams.
The bar-project appeared to be a great place to host these talks. We invited students and tutors altogether each evening for a drink after the building activities stopped and in this way the bar was tested during the process of building. These nightly experiences taught us which parts of the building functioned well, and what was missing or should be altered. Everybody in the camp got involved, whether they liked it or not. Working with wood is an opportunity for students and tutors to actually build, with immediate result. Although wood is a material that can be used in lots of different ways, as the projects show, it is relatively easy to handle. This meant for our project that we could use the standard wood, but also incorporate leftovers of the complex in Csórompuszta and parts of the other projects. The project became part of Hello Wood and Hello Wood became part of the project.
