Josep Ferrando is an architect based in Barcelona. He is the Dean of the La Salle Higher Technical School of Architecture (ETSALS), as well as Director of the Obert d'Arquitectura Center of Barcelona and of the Department of Culture of the College of Architects of Catalonia (COAC). Combining his academic career and his frequent lectures, his office develops projects that explore different scales and materials, experimenting with constructive systems and innovative solutions. We talked with him about the importance of materials in architecture, and about the synergies he finds between practice and teaching.
Eduardo Souza (ES): Something that stands out about your work is the variety of materials, construction systems and scales in your projects. What defines the materials and the methods used in each of them?
Josep Ferrando (JF): Material is a double concept. On the one hand, it refers to a physical configuration of matter that is associated with a series of specific properties: resistance to various structural stresses, elastic modulus, moisture absorption coefficient, photosensitivity, and so on. All these characteristics make up the expression of the material and prepare it for the second key concept to understand it: technique. Materials can be shaped by joining various pieces or by molding. Each of these two concepts is associated with a series of techniques related to the optimal measurements of the resulting piece, the way of working its formwork in case they are molded, or the way of working the joints if they are produced by aggregation of small units, to the efficiency of these measurements and to the geometry that they are able to define. Beneath these material operations is the underlying geometry inherent to the basic piece.
