ISSUE 6. Interview with Pablo Kobayashi by Gabriel Esquivel
08/26/2021
Gabriel:
Pablo thank you very much for accepting the interview, you have been on our list of people we wanted to interview for some time. We want to hear your experiences, your complaints, how you see the future within the field of digital technology and the teaching of it in the academic space in Mexico. The first question I would like to ask you is why did you decide to specialize in digital technology and specifically to certain branches of fabrication?
Pablo:
Breaking down that question, I think it was a random decision like much of my career in general. Ever since my decision to make the master's degree "Emergent Technologies and Design" at the AA, which was a watershed for me, even that was quite accidental because I had enrolled in DRL, when I got there I said to myself, this is too wild, I saw the presentation of EM-Tech and I thought it was a little more grounded and then I realized that it was just as wild. I am from the first generation of EM-Tech and that did completely change my focus and the way of seeing architecture. I was carrying something that I got through my trajectory, those prejudices that existed in our times, I even had been told not to use the computer, because it kills creativity, that the computer would not be the substitute for the drafting board and obviously we did not talk about digital technology as a design tool because it seen as crazy.
I totally bought the idea, that of the architect with the sketch book in hand, the lead holder and hating the computer. But for some reason in the last semester of undergrad, I decided to work on my thesis using MicroStation at that time there was not so much talk about BIM but this made me completely change my perspective regarding digital tools. I decided to follow certain lines obviously with the typical influences of Zaha Hadid and Frank Gehry, but in that context, we saw them as those architects who were doing something totally different, disruptive without having much awareness of what it meant. In fact, having done the thesis in MicroStation was something that completely opened up the possibilities for me.
If I went a little further back when I was in my first and second semester, I had no idea what architecture was and as a good Montessori renegade I said to myself, I want to go against what they impose on me and I decided that I was not going to make plans because I did not make sense of this language through which you are seeing things as they will never be and as you will never see them. I was stubborn and the first three semesters I only delivered models, but with a level of detail that reached a certain constructive language and spatial conception. I think from there I understood the importance of thinking in the third dimension, those chips were coming together, and I think it is unavoidable the phrase of Rafael Lozano Hemmer, "technology is a language from which we can not separate," technology is in us, it is around us and digital tools have managed to permeate at a different pace, being almost a natural evolution of people. After finishing my master's degree in EM-Tech, upon my return from London I find myself with this technological desert and felt a total disconnection. We are talking 2002, 2003 about 3d printed parts with laser sintering there was only one machine in Oslo or a couple of powder printing machines there was one in Mexico (coincidentally a friend bought a ZCorp). When I returned to the professional academic reality, that’s when I entered into depression and total disappointment. I accidentally started teaching and felt the obligation to transmit what I had learned, that is, the application of digital tools as design tools.
Gabriel:
When you returned to Mexico from London and you felt a strong cultural shock, as you already mentioned, but you can you talk a little more about this shock?
Pablo:
It was an absolute shock, the denial of technology, but first we must go a few steps back. How can you pretend to teach digital tools if there is no one to use them? A friend told me that Kuka robots are like Rolex for universities, it is about who has more Kukas even though there is no one who uses them. These robotic arms are either stored in a corner or making little boxes. That's how it all started, even the CNC cutting started in the same way, as well as 3d printing, I had to see gabled roof houses in 3d printing. It is a matter of substitution and lack of understanding of the potential of the tools. Arriving and seeing that there was not even a conception of the possibilities in terms of the adoption of these tools perhaps because of postmodernist positions or validation mechanisms, that is to say what is good or bad from a point of view of Mexican architecture plus they consider people like Zaha Hadid completely outside that field. To talk about Zaha was to talk about fashions, "it's nonsense and this doesn't apply in our national context."
Gabriel:
I have to emphasize that this has been one of the constant responses we have heard. "This does not apply to our context, so this has nothing to do with us."
Pablo:
At that time it was easier to use that argument because there was a certain economic disparity that allowed us to continue doing the same thing and exclude this technological issue and I think there was a stage where technology was flaunted just to flaunt it. The economic crisis marked a before and after. These conditions allowed us to move forward, but with optimization of resources and without exuberance. This issue of exuberance was precisely what killed these movements. The idea of "Starchitect" came from there, separating those who wanted to be more creative, Gehry's photo giving the finger to reporters, denouncing the 99% of architects who are building garbage and asking to stop following the 1% who are trying to innovate. This was important to establish the argument that conditions although they are different in each place, technology is applicable in any type of condition. It is important to understand digital tools to know and how to apply them.
Gabriel:
When you returned to Mexico and saw all these problems and began to face them. From your perspective, what are the challenges to overcome to be able to break through in Mexico today?
Pablo:
I would think that the challenge for me at first was to show what was already happening and verify this, but with a much more, almost an evangelizing position to disseminate this knowledge. However, this no longer happens today. When I returned, the sources for reference were still books and magazines, today the information is much more accessible, I could even fall into the cliché of telling you that now everyone knows who Frank Gehry and Zaha Hadid are, as well as the new younger architects doing interesting work. The sad thing when you realize that in many schools, they don't know about this. The important issue today is that we have overcome that evangelical stage, access is already open, the possibilities are already on the table, but the adoption of this knowledge is still lacking. I would think that it is inevitable to mention the issue of national identity and it is precisely because we are still within this search, we are lost in what we are and what we are not, what to do and what not to do.
In Mexico we continue to believe in the importance of validation mechanisms, publications, academic positions, must great architects fall within this line, and if you don’t fall within that line, is not valid, it is not even architecture, the discussion is not whether it is good or bad, it is simply not architecture. Let's see the pavilions in the biennials, showing what represents us and there will never be an exploration of digital manufacturing, or arguments of applications of digital tools applied to design. That's another thing, they're still occurrences. As for the closing of your question oriented towards the speculation of the future, I think that today it costs me much more. When I arrived I did maintain this naïve, optimistic position, it pushed me to be part of the evangelizers of digital tools. Today I don't have it anymore, I already lost that optimism. Today I think talking about the future in most contexts has become a waste of time. I say this obviously from a rather hopeless position. What is going to happen or what would need to happen are so many things, so many layers. From a "top down" point of view, if the head does not know what these possibilities imply, it is difficult to direct. For example, this head may go to a congress and sees that the Kuka robots are the best, but he has no idea how to use it. So how do you move forward? I was part of that mechanism, I can tell you that I was the first person to teach Grasshopper in Mexico. When it came out, I didn't know how to use it and I went to the school’s office, I told them “This is an important tool, I'm really good at it and I want to teach it", they bought it and I went ahead to teach it. As I told you before, I did not know how to use it and decided to teach it to learn it. I think that marked what I consider today one of the conditions that are almost never met in Mexico, and that is that we are not used to being self-taught. It is not an open school line, I always tell my students that I was Montessori and I take it as an important point of reference. You have to know how to learn and unlearn from taxing structures, as well as so many other negative dynamics.
When I started my master's degree, I was shocked to find out that the teacher was not going to tell me what to do, I had to decide what to do. Today they continue to teach the students starting from the elementary school that they are going to give the students the resolved questions, that they are going to impose certain knowledge on them. It is difficult to expect that a college student suddenly changes the switch and says to himself or herself from now on I’m going to be self-taught. The hope that the student will go to the teacher with a thirst for knowledge and say, I already understood how I can download Rhino with all its "add-ons". however, I have some questions and I would like you to help me, besides I want to know theory behind all this. I find this hopeless because what broke my rhythm of almost 8 years of teaching the Grasshopper class was what a student told me when I was taking this class. I told to those who signed up for the class; it will possibly change because there is a possibility that a friend of mine, who was my classmate in grad school will come to Mexico. She has designed a plug-in and we're going to be the beta-testers of that plug-in and we're going to focus on this research. This student told me "I got into your class just to learn how to use Grasshopper well that’s all. "At that moment I realized that this student couldn’t understand anything. I thought she will never learn this programming well, needless to say it is important to learn how to use it. As I told you before, there are so many layers to this problem that since then I decided not to teach a program again. I demand its use and I tell the students they have learn how to program this physical phenomenon and translate it into digital, but I will not teach them how, because only then we are going to be able to force them to learn, just like they forced me in grad school. I was told, this is a program, you have to learn to use it because you have to develop a project with enough relevance for a master's thesis with a tool that you have never used. That’s it.
I think this sense of not being self-taught comes from a long time ago with so many structural layers of education in the country that we need to change and if these changes would have happened, we would have a very different future than we have today.
Gabriel:
Let's talk about your interests when you start developing your projects. Are you interested in the use of materials and analog construction techniques from Mexico combined with digital techniques as in many of your projects? What was your criteria for using these existing materials and techniques to develop and promote your projects?
Pablo:
I would start by talking about this thing you mention about the local, which would seem to give the project an added value, we know that there is a tendency to mix these techniques. For me it is a circumstantial aspect, starting with understanding the environment in which you develop. For example, the use of concrete that is a global material because everywhere it exists, this is a fairly generalized technique. Before answering I would like to think that it is structured due to certain postures, which have us a little stagnant. The question is, is it important or not that the material is local? Which is basically circumstantial and I would tell you it's what I had on hand and it's what allowed me to explore quickly. If I had wanted to explore something more complex like carbon fiber maybe if I lived in Stuttgart it would be easier for me. My interest in jumping towards this analog exploration was an echo related to what I learned in EM-Tech, where I saw the tangible potential of the physical application of the knowhow. I saw much more valuable that it will remain behind the screen instead. My pendulum was first a total digital obsession and returning the pendulum was from analog to digital. Today, I think it puts me in the middle where my exploration is digital thinking applied to the analog. We constantly talk about these millenary examples, a loom is a tool with a digital thought behind, having so many material behaviors that can be translated into sequences and algorithms that are applicable from a digital thinking structure. However, if I think they require, going back our education where there were many paradigms, the architect as an artist, as an author, so many layers and myths that build the architect mythical figure that still persists in the schools today. When I am confronted with the term material expression, as Manuel De Landa mentions it, for me it was a total shock because my pendulum led me to deny any notion of expression, because I had it boxed in the sense that it was only about personal and artistic expression. But to talk the way it can be expressed, this completely changed the criteria of what I was doing, that is, I am and helping and giving agency to material to express itself, I am part of that code as well as part of that mechanism. There is no more absolute denial of my contribution that could be subjective and informed by my experiences, but at the same time it has a great objective value and is part of this material system that I am exploring at any particular time.
Gabriel:
What you say makes me think of something else, when I began to see a few years back that you began to use pneumatic structures, inflatable elements, it became very interesting because nobody was working with these. There are several discourses within the architecture history and theory of architecture, groups like Archigram made structures of this type in the 60s, but using again these structures as a formal, performative, and volumetric investigation. What gave you the idea of working with these structures?
Pablo:
It was again that pendulous, I got tired of using concrete and I went to the other extreme, which is let’s build something with air. The use of a minimum amount of material to cover a large space. What can we find around this material behavior? Or once again one type of curiosity for another, the language of material expression. The fact that a membrane compensating pressures manages to behave in this way, I find it fascinating, it is like understanding Frey Otto's soap models for example. The pneumatic references in the precedents of the 50-60s had this fascinating side, I would almost take reinvention, to look for another form of expression and language. What I find really fun and has me really excited is this meeting point between the exploration of concrete using textile fiber forms with pneumatic structures. The pieces I am exploring have a very similar behavior as pneumatic structures where I am filling and inflating them using concrete forms, then there is duality of material expressions and characteristics with a similar language and origin, as well as similar geometric consequences. I'm very intrigued with this and it has kept me very excited.
Gabriel:
For sure, your columns are fantastic. The interesting thing for me at the materiality level is the change of a material like concrete that gives you an aspect of mass, that is, it has a different weight, at the same time working from membranes on surfaces where its behavior is extremely light, it is air, it is a void. From a point of view not only technical, but also theoretical to talk about this movement of the vacuum, from nothing to the mass, the heavy and the light, I find it extremely interesting. This implies not only research but also a different way of conceiving architectural problems, especially the ease of coming and going facing the challenge offered by materiality. I'd like to talk a little bit about your project at the Venice Biennale. How does this collaboration with Reiser + Umemoto began? It is clear that this project has many layers of behavior, in addition to technology, language, and so on.
Pablo:
That project was absolutely random, accidental, they came to me. I met Daniel López Pérez about five or six years ago in a workshop called "Corrupting Fuller," which was raised from Fuller's exploration and questioning. The idea was to break his theory and question how holistic this project was. At the same time Daniel came to present his book talking about the lecture that Fuller gave in Mexico, there we accidentally coincided. Years later, Jesse Reiser, while teaching at Princeton and Daniel being a graduate of that institution, already they had that relationship. Later Monica Ponce de Leon suggests Jesse and Daniel to do something officially together. They agree and Daniel proposes as a starting point the Geoscope and its interpretation. I don't know which of the two brought the concern of a pneumatic structure, Daniel tells Jesse "I know who can solve the pneumatic issue". They contact me with the premise that we have two weeks to develop this project, we have this sphere as a preconception or as an initial idea, where we want to raise certain things. They also believed that it could be solved with two layers, a series of pillows. I propose certain conditions that are oriented to the construction of the inflatable and I dedicate myself to developing the pneumatic piece. Another topic was the system of communication of ideas as Fuller spoke in relation to the Geoscope. He decided on an approach of recognition nodes and cultural nodes of the world guided by Daniel and Jesse as a result of their conversations. This is a synergistic and curatorial topic where all the participants were invited to the Biennial exalting a cacophony of an infinity of voices and expressions in the world. Each of the participant's proposals are divided into different sections of the Geoscope. The project had several layers generating this all or sum of interactions projected to generate the initial launch in an active and organic capsule. The approach from the communicative point of view became very interesting to me in which the initial part was a capsule where you go inside, that is, it becomes an immersive thing and the outside has a particular aesthetic of this strange organic-machinic presence with the guts of hanging out. There were many layers of experimentation and discussion, which were given organically, accidentally, randomly. Gabriel What are you working on now? Was there any reflection regarding what you experienced with this collaboration, as well as other collaborations that you have participated, in addition to considering our current situation, the pandemic, etc.? Is there any specific reflection that has generated new interest for the immediate future?
Pablo:
For now, I want to continue developing what I have already mentioned before, to continue working with this idea of the textile form with pneumatic behavior. It is still at an early stage, in fact, I sent this research to ACADIA last year and it was not accepted because it is very green, but I think it has implicit structural conditions, it has a dangerously intuitive side to it with geometric, structural information in a very simple fabrication method and that has quite a bit of potential. This is one of the lines I would like to explore, perhaps what is missing is the demonstration of this intuitive point. The issue of intuition in an academic and teaching setting is risky. In fact, we raised it with the students, in the first sessions, we talked about how their intuition is very valuable, but if in the last stages it is not informed by data and knowledge, it ceases to be valuable and generates a very rapid decline, it starts to become irrelevant, it loses operational and objective information. I don't know if I'm in a particular dilemma where my point expression and intuition is informed by my work of the last 10- or 15-years exploring materials and I sense that this method is informed by the work of Mark West, a little by the work of Philippe Block. West's work moved me quite a bit because I heard him say that his desire was to avoid pattern making altogether because this would make his method much less accessible. That is, without patterning and using fabric without any complexity, you can fabricate anywhere and in any context. If we start to pattern and put complexity in it, it begins to be much more exclusive. What I am doing is joining these two layers by means of seams and a very simple pattern, according to its geometric and structural implications with lots of potential. About pneumatic structures there is a scale thing that I have not been able to resolve and work on a larger scale. I had a bad experience where a piece flew away for exceeding the scale.
Gabriel:
Are you talking about Puebla? The work for Germán Velazco is incredible, I love it.
Pablo:
Yes, that was a very good experience! That was an exploration with a simple pattern with a freer more open form. This is not the piece I was referring to; it was another one. This was a piece of 30 feet by 24 feet by 18 feet high with a very thin membrane and that ended up being dragged by the wind. This was a good learning, this failure which I have not published. This issue of the scale jump is something that leads me to have a serious exploration, which I am taking with much more caution.
Gabriel:
Returning to the subject of a speculative criteria which has to do with teaching. We have asked this question to everyone who we have had the opportunity to interview. In order to be able to open up the paradigms of which we have been talking about, that of resistance, of not speculation on projects, of misunderstood nationalism and thus be able to promote teaching, change the existing curricula to reach that moment of the integration of digital technology in design, research and speculation. There are many answers some positive, others really negative, this is to say we do not see the change clearly. However, what you do at The Universidad Iberoamericana is research, because very few universities in Mexico actually do research on architecture. You have promoted and keep promoting that openness in research and speculation. These changes in teaching are part of your product. How do you see in the medium term in a positive way, the change that is needed within the architecture academic environment in Mexico?
Pablo:
I would tell you that from within the institution this has been historically complicated. One of the arguments is what I was telling you about. How could the institution be directed towards a line in which it does not believe in or simply do not even know that it exists? It becomes a complicated thing, this "top down" decision is not going to happen and much less from the academy. My case in particular; I would tell you that now I finally have freedom and absolute support from the Universidad Iberoamericana in regard to academic freedom. This was not immediate or free, I have been teaching for 16 years. I would say that for a long time I was going against the grain, by keeping the fight, as Alejandro Hernández talks about it, to work in the "cracks" of the system. From there start to generate the opening, you never know if you can achieve it, but at least in that space you make roots and you can start doing something. Today I am almost completely supported and feel valued at my institution. Even though, I would tell you that it is not a 100% of understanding, rather it is an act of faith and they let me do what I want, even from the pedagogical point of view, my teaching method is not fully understood or fully accepted within the institution.
When you asked me what needs to happen, I tell the students that they should learn to program and understand materials. There should be a conversation about materials and the importance of having a critical stance, encouraging the fact that they must be more scientific and objective. However, the most important message and the umbrella within the academic project is to find an individual language and criterion with convictions, not imposed beliefs and this goes beyond architecture or any other discipline or any professional context. Returning to basic education, certain ideas have been imposed on the students, a very simple one, that we mention a lot within the first day of class in our studios: the mistake, how do they conceive the mistake. For them, the mistake is completely negative, you cannot go wrong, if you make a mistake hide it. In current pedagogical approaches it is quite the opposite, this is where we learn from. We tell make mistakes, the sooner the better, the more you learn. Another issue we mentioned is the "bullshit," it is the worst enemy within this type of teaching. If you are wrong, you are wrong, if you do not know something say it. Recognizing our ignorance as a method, as an engine of learning. These strong paradigm shifts, I believe may be the vestiges of my idealist and naïve position, it is what I believe necessary for that paradigm shift to exist. Unfortunately, I feel that it will not happen, only 2 or 3 students within a group end up with more questions than answers and are truly curious, I am satisfied with this ratio. It gives me a bit of strength to tolerate that there will be 8, 10, or 20 other students who would say that it was a bad workshop, and they wasted their time because the instructor did not tell them what to do. These kinds of complaints are what make me lose faith in the future of humanity. On the first day of school, we tell you that this class is like "jumping off to the abyss with a bungee cord" and you have to sign us a letter where you accept these challenges and commitments. The commitments are, the teacher will not tell me what to do, I have to learn by myself, I have to do better every time. These are several conditions so that in the end of the course the student will not complain about the teacher not telling what to do. Our answer will be, you literally sign up for this, it was one of the conditions.
We talked earlier about contexts, and I would like to mention that the students who have surprised me the most, and I have obtained results at the level of any international level graduate program. I also teach at the Universidad Michoacana in Morelia, Axel Becerra is the coordinator of the advanced design program, he invited me to teach, which was one of the most enriching experiences as faculty because the students bring an absolute thirst for knowledge, a very strong push of a self-taught position, to contribute, to question their reality and to go further. It is a matter of attitude, of life postures and where several of these students went to ACADIA representing the Universidad Michoacana, which did not happen at the Universidad Iberoamericana. These students from Michoacán have a poor economic situation and a strong cultural undertone and I would not like to fall between misconceptions and stereotypes, but it happens that these differences are marked. A similar thing happened, and it was an exception which made me think it was not the rule. I expected that UNAM (Universidad Nacional Autosome de Mexico) graduate students would be the same as the kids from Morelia, that they would be hungry for knowledge, and I found a group with an incredible apathy and also with a predisposition to mention to me that what I was teaching them something out of their context. What needs to happen for this to change? It's a holistic question to prevent this from going into the hole, but inevitably. I think it's going to go into this hole. This is bound to end soon.
Gabriel:
Unfortunately, I share that view, which is not encouraging.
Pablo:
That is the summary, the future in the teaching of architecture, the profession and so on is not at all encouraging reflecting even the future of humanity and the planet.
Gabriel:
This directly affects the transition from academia to practice, which can be done in several ways while maintaining a digital technological approach a little more advanced than what currently exists in architecture offices. Do you consider that it is better when a recent graduate student goes to get a master’s degree abroad, which doesn't happen much in Mexico, that he soaks up those ideas and has to come back to disseminate those ideas, even if he faces that inevitable culture shock? On the other hand, that there is a direct step to the profession without leaving its context to be able to open their own office including a digital fabrication, although it is very difficult in Mexico to have a cultural agency space that belongs to the architects. How do you see that transition, which of the two forms is more feasible? This is for me the big question.
Pablo:
Simplifying the answer, a bit, of course I would recommend that they go abroad. At any academic level, whether to do a full master's degree, a summer workshop, and so on. This experience is fundamental, although this becomes an exclusive experience as we have already commented, not many students have the conditions, the resources and so on to do this, posing a very serious problem, because what happens to those who stay? Once again going backwards, I think it is a mistake to think that from the academic point of view what you did not do in school you are going to do in the professional field and vice versa. If in school you did extremely basic projects, you are not going to go out into practice and start doing transgressive projects. This transition is organic and continuous. You can clearly observe this in the students in third year, what they are doing then, is the preamble or it is what they are most likely going to develop their master's degree and probably permeates their doctoral thesis. Which means that you will spend much of the rest of your life as an architect looking at what you began to think about in third year. I think that connection and that continuity is fundamental. Having an experience where this language is spoken where there is no need to swim against the stream, helps a lot, it gives you a lot of confidence as a professional.
Gabriel:
I’m asking you about these issues because one of the goals of the magazine is to talk about what really happens in Mexico in relation to these issues, expressed through the young people who are practicing and teaching architecture. We know that we are not going to change things, but it is important that there is this type of denouncement. Do you think architecture continues to have a cultural impact both globally and specifically in Mexico? Do you think it no longer belongs to that privileged position it had for a long time ago?
Pablo:
Are you talking about architecture with a capital A?
Gabriel:
That's right, because lowercase architecture in general continues and will continue to exist only to meet practical needs. But architecture with a capital A for me is the one that must have cultural agency, that is, the architect as a provider of culture depending on the context, the techniques, the materials, the people. Do you feel that this is no longer the case?
Pablo:
Perhaps I could answer with two completely opposite positions, one is, it never was or question if it really was and the other one that would be more linked to your position, that is, it is one of its characteristics, I also believe that, but as a consequence I do not see it as an objective or as a great topic of reflection of how the discipline is structured, how it is taught and how it is transmitted, which happens with many other things. Once again, we can talk about national identity, this is a consequence but not a search that is very easy to distort. In turn, we can talk about sustainability, we can talk about social action, so many things that today have become flags, which should be implicit in our practice because we must optimize resources, and it is not only for fashion. We must be aware of the consequences of our practice, and I repeat, not as an ultimate goal or as a flag. Flags do so much damage, they always have, but today focusing on professional practice it is very harmful, and let's talk about social practices, this generates otherness, divisions and so on. This is the risk of a sense of belonging. I would like to refer to something you mentioned earlier which is the complaint. The desire to be "chair" of ACADIA was to denounce the local situation, the apathy, the backwardness, being in a bubble, the self-absorption of the guild of national architecture, and in turn denounce the part of the United States in relation to this first logo that existed in Mexico. The idea of ACADIA was to tell us to get rid of nonsense, self-absorption, let's move forward and embrace the future and our message to the United States was, don't come and teach us what's right. The situation of the taxing "know how", to take the position of coming to tell us how things are done. In Mexico we have a lot to teach and there is also a lot that we should value, and we do not do it, that is something very serious
Gabriel:
We have reached the end of the interview. Many of the things you touched on are very specific to your way of seeing things addressing extremely interesting topics and positions, we should have a much more extensive talk regarding several topics that were mentioned. These types of questions are important because they refer to those conditions that do not change or the change is very slow. What interests us most as AGENCIA magazine is that architecture students, that younger people when reading it say, I understand because it is also happening to me, to others it has happened and will continue to happen. These are difficult questions, but we want to think that they are not impossible to change. We really like that you took time to talk to us. I don't know if you have anything else to add.
Pablo:
That desert I returned to almost 20 years ago, sometimes feels that way still. There are few opportunities to have conversations at this level. And to reflect on what is happening and more in this context in which we live of political correctness is terrible. In Mexico the culture of criticism is null and if you are criticizing someone you are criticizing them personally and it should be overcome. Encouraging a self-critical stance is almost sin and is immediate excommunication of the guild and because of that I am very little involved in the guild, creating if not enemies at least some detractors and it is fine. But if emphasize that these are issues that should be discussed.
Gabriel:
Once again thank you very much. We will keep in touch, hopefully we will coincide in some event, in a conference, in a talk, or at least in a jury and follow up with this conversation. Thank you!
About Pablo:
Mexico City, 1976. Master in Emerging Technologies and Design (EmTech) from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and Architect from the Intercontinental University. He has focused his practice and research on the understanding and application of the logic of the phenomenon of emergence in the processes of design, analysis and production, conceiving the object as a result of the interaction of various factors and not as the direct sum of its parts. It studies the role of digital tools in the design process in conjunction with analog methods and traditional construction techniques, seeking a dialectical integration between tool, form and matter, integrating the body as a machine and repository that processes the code.
Current director of the geometric, structural and process consulting office Protocols Unit with a subsidiary dedicated to the manufacture of prefabricated concrete elements UP. He has maintained a constant academic practice, implementing non-linear methodologies in various exercises of theoretical speculation and practical development at both the bachelor's and master's levels. He focuses his teaching practice on the transmission of a structure of thought from the emerging and the assessment of the accident, starting from the particular to eventually obtain global results. This structure has allowed him to propose both abstract concepts and tangible materials as a starting point for research with constructive consequences. Likewise, he conceives the city as an accumulation of systems of interactions and non-linear dynamics, where attempts at descending ordering become futile without the knowledge and understanding of the emerging and changing nature of it.
His most recent research agenda focuses on two aspects of material expression: pneumatic structures on the one hand and on the other the use of textile shoring for the formation of special pieces of concrete. These have led him to a series of collaborations and interventions, among which are: -The Geoscope2 project developed with Reiser + Umemoto and Daniel López-Pérez; a pneumatic structure that brings together a series of projectors pointed inside to show an accumulation of expressions and postures towards the design, taking as a starting point the Geoscope of Buckminster Fuller. It is currently on display at the Venice Biennale, after being shown in the gallery of the School of Architecture of Princeton University. -The pneumatic sculpture produced for the artist Pedro Reyes consisting of an atomic explosion 9m high. Presented in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas to commemorate the signing of the treaty of Tlaltelolco, this piece will be exhibited in Times Square in early 2022.
Chair of the international congress of computational design ACADIA 2018 "Recalibration: on imprecision and infidelity", held in October 2018 in Mexico City with the Iberoamericna University as the host academic headquarters. Professor of subject in the Department of Architecture of the Universidad Iberoamericana since 2006. Director of the workshop "Exogenous protocols, endogenous properties" given with Brian Slocum, Luis Carbonell and Alberto Vivar. Coordinator of the Diploma in Generative Design Processes and the Diploma in Digital Logics and Material Expressions in the Directorate of Continuing Education of the Universidad Iberoamericana. Professor of the Master's program in Advanced Design of the Universidad Michoacana San Nicolas Hidalgo and in the Master's program in Architecture and Technology of the UNAM/FES Aragón. Tutor of the workshop 'Systemic interaction and the inactive manipulation of the emerging' given at SOMA. FONCA fellow in the Young Creators program 2006-2007 with the project "Interactive system of local control".