Suprarural Architecture

The Atlas of rural protocols in the American Midwest and the Argentine Pampas is structured along eight systems of organization: transport and infrastructure, land subdivision, agricultural production, water management, storage and maintenance, human habitation, animal management, land management. Each of these systems possesses a number of organizational types, material components, normative relationships, and spectra of performance, which become available through a manual of instructions for a Suprarural architectural environment. The research is based on a realistic-overriding ethics towards design that operates by abstracting and intensifying unexplored territorial phenomena.
Essays by Ciro Najle, Lluís Ortega, Anna Font, Paul Andersen, David Salomon, Teresa Galí, Ramon Faura, Julian Varas, Francisco Cadau, Lluís Viu, and Axel Cherniavsky.
Photography by Pablo Gerson.
Awarded by Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in Fine Arts.
Ciro Najle, Architect, Universidad de Buenos Aires 1991 (hons), Ms AAD Columbia University 1997 (hons), Dean at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella School of Architecture and Urban Studies and Design Critic at the Harvard GSD. Ciro Najle was Director of the Landscape Urbanism Graduate Design and Diploma Master at the Architectural Association, and taught at Cornell, Columbia, the Berlage Institute, the UTFSM Valparaiso, and the Universidad de Buenos Aires.
Lluís Ortega, Architect, Universitat Politècnica Catalunya 1996, Ms AAD Columbia University 1998, M.A Philosophy, UB 2013 PHD, UPC 2016 Associate Professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and Visiting Professor at Universidad Torcuato Di Tella School of Architecture. Lluís Ortega is co-founder of Sio2 Arch (formerly F451arquitectura). Before UIC, he taught at ETSAL, the Akademie der Bildenden Künste Wien, ETSAM, Harvard GSD, ETSAB and the University of Alicante.
"In November 2017, the Guggenheim and OMA announced a 2019 exhibition curated by Rem Koolhaas, tentatively titled Countryside: Future of the World. Many reacted as if Koolhaas, known for investigating cities, was leaping into territory not explored by other architects. That, of course, is not the case. One example is Ciro Najle and Lluís Ortega's Suprarural, which combines two American landscapes: the US Midwest and Argentine Pampas. Putting these two regions together may seem odd, but it was born from the duo's studios and seminars taught at schools in Buenos Aires and Chicago. The goal, as stated in the preface, is "to develop techniques to straightforwardly urbanize with and through the rural." The bulk of the book is research and analysis, followed by "visions of the suprarural cosmopolis." The student visions vary widely in terms of form and purpose, but they tend to follow the existing agricultural grids and armatures that have already shaped the countries' landscapes." --A Daily Dose of Architecture