MOM (Morar de Outras Maneiras/Living in Other Ways)

Profile of MOM (Morar de Outras Maneiras/Living in Other Ways)

Business Name

MOM (Morar de Outras Maneiras/Living in Other Ways)

Location

Brazil

Services

Architecture

Website

http://www.arq.ufmg.br/mom

Principal(s)

Silke Kapp (1966), Ana Paula Baltazar (1970), Denise Morado (1964), Rodrigo Marcandier (1974), Sulamita Lino (1972)

Philosophy

MOM is not an architectural office; it is a research group based at the School of Architecture, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil. It occupies itself with critique of architectural processes of production towards autonomy of users in the production of their own spaces. This means to look at architecture as every space transformed by human work, and not only extraordinary buildings done by extraordinary professionals, or ordinary buildings signed by ordinary architects. In this view, our mission is on the one hand to investigate self-production of spaces to learn with those practices that are not operating under heteronomy, and on the other hand, to look at the architect as designer of interfaces and not only of finished spaces, so that users may actually be autonomous by having access to advanced forces of production. In sum our work is not concerned with the production of finished buildings but with the development of interfaces to help us to understand the way people deal with their spaces and also to spread a critical virus of the production of space, so people can depart from that to inform their own production.

One of the main points of our critique of the production of spaces has been the separation between design, building and use, which is a necessary condition of the modern process of design. According to Sergio Ferro architectural drawings became a necessary means to turn architecture into commodity, as they are the necessary means for the division of labour and of the domination of the labourer in the building site, focusing on exchange and surplus value. Our approach is turned to privilege use value, though we do not neglect the exchange value of every built space. In other words, our mission is to try and understand possible processes of production of space that do not reproduce the social relations of production of capitalism, and to experiment such processes.

Background

• Founded: 2004
• Offices: 1
• Design team: 5

Key projects

• Interface of Spatiality, physical interface to be assembled by users, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2005
• Lot of Ideas, Public appropriation of a private plot, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2005 (Developed in collaboration with Ronaldo Macedo and Helio Passos)
• IDA (Digital interface for autonomous production of dwellings), Collaborative digital interface and a database available at the Internet, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2008
• CIM (Centro de Integracao Martinho)'s dance classrooms, Open classrooms, 2005
• Instituto Libertas Tree House, Steel frame structure for a 'tree house' to be self built by the pupils of the school, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2006
• Method for DIY housing, Self-buildable house method, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2006. (Developed by Edmar Ferreira collaborating with MOM)
• Circo ambulante, Foldable structure, Belo Horizonte, Brazil, 2006. (Developed by Fernanda Dubal collaborating with MOM)

Key publications

• IJAC (International Journal of Architectural Computing), Noncopyrigh and the digital interface to support the autonomous production of dwellings, forthcoming 2008
• Field: , Architecture as critical exercise: little pointers towards alternative practices, forthcoming 2008
• XI Sigradi (Symposium of digital graphics), A propriedade intelectual em ambientes e interfaces digitais: a opcao pelo noncopyright no caso do sistema IDA, October, 2007
• Reconciling poetics and ethics in architecture, Learning from favelas: the poetics of users' autonomous production of spaces and the non-ethics of architects interventions, September, 2007
• TIC/ANTAC, Sistema IDA: Informacao colaborativa para a producao autonoma, 2007
• Revista Impulso, Por uma arquietura nao planejada: o arquiteto como designer de interfaces e o usuario como produtor de espacos, 2006
• Topos - Revista de Arquitetura e Urbanismo, Morar de Outras Maneiras: Pontos de Partida para uma Investigacao da Producao Habitacional, 2006
• IX Sigradi (Symposium of digital graphics), Interface Digital para Producao Autonoma de Moradias, 2005

Key awards

• Concurso Opera Prima Projetando com PVC, Braskem, Foldable structure for circo ambulante (by Fernanda Dubal), Sao Paulo, Brazil, 2007