Thick

This article is part of the Hidden Architecture Series “Attitude” , where we explore current works by contemporain architectes which, despite its differences regarding cultural or phisychal contexts, share a practical attention towards the social value of Architecture as a public structure. Este artículo forma parte de la serie “Attitude” , comisariada por Hidden Architecture, donde exploramos la producción actual de arquitectos contemporáneos que, a pesar de las diferencias manifiestas de contexto físico o cultural, comparten una atención práctica hacia el valor social de la arquitectura como estructura pública. Thickness is an increasingly elusive condition in architectural design. Alluded to in section, camouflaged in the figure-ground, and presented as a foil in the developable surface drawing, material thickness is an understudied architectural condition. El espesor es una condición cada vez más elusiva en el diseño arquitectónico. Aludido en sección, camuflado en la figura-fondo y presentado como una lámina en el dibujo de la superficie desarrollable, el espesor del material es una condición arquitectónica poco estudiada. As a term, thickness does not refer to the actual solidity of a material (as in the standardization of sheet material or thickness of marble), but a conceptual and material problem that sits (literally) at the edge of architectural thinking. The condition of thickness — the necessity of thickness — carries no central import in any era of architectural thinking, but manages to circulate through different modes of architectural production. Its condition is linked to (but is not central to) the history of stereotomy and stone construction; in the emergence of new forms of architectural drawing (developed surface drawing); and in the classic problem of the Doric order. Even in the Modernist obfuscation of solid form, it remains an unavoidable consideration in the Miesian corner and Kiesler’s endless surfaces.