This summer I was invited by Barcelona's design school Elisava to jury the final research project of their Masters in Design & Architecture students. For the first time, the focus of a final project was not on the exploration of architecture or design itself, but on the ability to communicate a concept. As an ever growing prerequisite for design professionals, good communication skills are a must in order to stand out against the crowd and get noticed by the media, and ultimately, potential clients. Whether it's pitching an idea, presenting a design proposal, submitting a project to magazines or competitions, or simply blogging about your work, the way you transmit your thoughts visually and verbally will have a profound effect on the extent of your impact.

With architecture gone mainstream, design journalism widespread, and architects-cum-bloggers on the rise, schools are realizing the importance of introducing communication skills to the curriculum of architecture students. Just last July, USC School of Architecture held a course focused on identity-building, integrating new media and presentation techniques, using examples of brilliant communicators as divergent from one another as Cameron Sinclair and Rem Koolhaas.

Here in Barcelona, we're also beginning to see the start of this emphasis in assignments like this one at Elisava. The unique worshop, an initiative coordinated by Ricardo Devesa of MRD arquitectura, forms part of the MA in Design & Architecture directed by professor and architect Ignasi Pérez Arnal. Devesa asked his architecture students to choose a subject of their liking, and present it in an easily-digestible, visually powerful format based on the famed COLORS magazine, printed and presented before an audience. As an incentive and reward, we agreed to feature the top two winning creations on arkinet.

Not surprisingly, braving the medium proved a difficult task for most students, more accustomed to presenting a final project as a scale model rather than an illustrated magazine, and much less having to "sell it" in a visually enticing package that easily gets their message across. Two issues clearly stood out from the rest, in both a well-executed and interesting exploration of the chosen themes: Squatting and Skin.

Martín Felix Massa was especially interested in the illegal occupation movement here in Barcelona, a controversial, signficant, yet overlooked issue in local media. Cleverly reworking the COLORS title to incorporate the "k" commonly used by this subculture, with a subversive gesture equally representative of the movement, the subtitle reads: OccupiedSocialCenter: How a social movement transforms into architecture. Martín's documention of several squatting sites is organized, politically charged and engaging, full of exclusive interviews presented attractively alongside great images.

 

Nico Revuelto took on a more aesthetic theme, exploring the layers of meaning, functions and applications of the element of Skin, signalling parallels and distinctions between human and synthetic, natural and artificial. His juxtapositioning of striking images arouses the senses and provokes thought on the boundaries between interior and exterior and the role skin plays in our bodies, the built environment, and everywhere around us.

 

 

 

 

Overall it was a healthy and much-needed exercise in photojournalism, just one example of the kind of communication skills that today more than ever, come as an asset to any architect or designer in pursuit of communicating an idea or simply sharing their work. We hope to see more architecture schools empowering architects with the tools to mediate their message. Congrats to Martín and Nico and all the Elisava students!

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Ricardo Devesa (ETSAV 1999) is an associate professor at ETSAB, has written for Quaderns d’Arquitectura i Urbanismo, was co-director of Basa, taught at ESARQ, and was a visiting scholar at GSAPP, Columbia University, NY. He is co-editor of several books including Otra mirada, and Posiciones contra crónicas and is co-fundador of MRD arquitectura (2000).

Ignasi Pérez Arnal (ETSAB 1992, MA from Pompeu Fabra and UPC) is the director of the Masters in Design & Architecture at Elisava now its 8th edition and focused on Slow City and the role of theories of like Carl Honoré's Downshifting within cities, architecture and products. He has authored several books including Ecoproducts in Architecture and Design, and is a visiting professor at Facoltà di Architettura di Alghero (Italy) and OAS in Lisboa (Portugal).