La Vila

Workshops in La Vila. Courses throughout the year. Dates to be agreed

Jiujiang University students exercise at a RCR Workshop at La Vila in 2019

Directors: RCR Arquitectes – Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, Ramon Vilalta
Tutors: 1 RCR tutor, 1 collaborating university tutor
Duration: Option of 7 days (from Friday to Friday) or 10 days (from Monday to Friday of the following week).
Places: Minimum 9 and maximum 12 participants. 1 tutor from the collaborating university.
Level: Level adapted to the group from beginner to advanced
Languages: Spanish / English

Objective

Foto: Hisao Suzuki

From an attitude of constant research, the goal is to learn to feel the place from a key underlying focus in RCR Arquitectes’ way of projecting.

The workshop is designed to encourage creativity and perception from the unique experience born of a specific place. Attentive listening arises from within us in a sense indicated by Luis Barragán when he says “Don’t do what I did: see what I saw.”

Concepts

Foto: Hisao Suzuki

The workshop is based on four central concepts:
Creativity. Shared creativity as a resource to give answers with meaningful content.
Experience. Live, be and understand a place derived from observation and experience;
Specific Time. Ability to reflect and give answers in a given period.
Broad Context. Transversal and integrative research instead of definitive and closed answers.

Feeling The Site

Foto: Yoma Architects

“When we receive an assignment, we must not forget that we are asked to solve a question. To understand the question well, we must be wide open, understand beyond words, and feel beyond our thoughts.

We offer this workshop to help you feel, understand, and create. There is no “the answer”. The answer is multiple; we will direct it according to our decisions. To take them we must use all our senses. Not only reasoning is a good guide. Everything that enters our pores, our eyes, our touch, our smell, our ears, in short, all our senses will be capital. The more open we are, the more perceptive we will be, and with it, the more variables we will handle, and we will be in better condition to take appropriate paths (decisions).

We are here to feel, to perceive, to understand. The place, La Vila, is an inexhaustible source of stimuli. So we are in this place to perceive so that you perceive and help yourselves on your path. It will not be a recipe or reproduction workshop. It will be an experience workshop. We only truly understand things when we experience them firsthand. So you must open yourselves to the stimuli of this place.”

Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem and Ramon Vilalta

Know more

Program

Eugeni Pons with students from the American University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, 2018.

Introduction and closing session with RCR. The initial presentation of the course and closing session will be with Rafael Aranda, Carme Pigem, or Ramon Vilalta. Exploration of the “Geography of dreams”, the territory of the Villa, a territory of dreams inspired by nature, with existing spaces to live in and others to explore and investigate.

Dance exercises with students from Jiujang University, China, 2018.

Workshops. The Dance, Photography and Philosophy Workshops are a program to investigate space from different perspectives and disciplines, with all the senses and the body.

Visit to the RCR Arquitectes headquarters at Barberí Space in Olot with students from the American University of Sharjah, 2018.

Visits to works by RCR Arquitectes. Guided tours of RCR’s essential works: Barberí Space, the Athletics Stadium, the Bathing Pavilion, the Pedra Tosca Park, the Les Cols Restaurant and Marquee complex, the Bell-lloc winery or the new Perelada winery.

Conditions

Price 7-day course. €1,740 per person. €910 for the course and €830 for the stay and transportation. Total for 12 participants: €20,880.
Price 10-day course. €2.485 per person. €1,300 for the course and €1,185 for the stay and transportation. Total for 12 participants: €29,820.

Inclusions
Transportation. From and to Barcelona airport or Figueres Vilafant train station.
Accommodation. In Can Capsec de la Vila. The house includes a kitchen, oven and washing machine.
Maintenance. Breakfast, lunch and dinner every day, including the day of visits.
Infrastructures. Surroundings of the Villa and workspace in the manor house of the Villa.
Workshop. Architecture, Dance, Photography and Philosophy workshops and guided tours. According to the course program.
RCR Tutor. Accompaniment by a member of the RCR team.
Materials. RCR booklet.
Certificate of participation. Certification issued by RCR Lab·A.

Teaching Team

Estel Ortega Vázquez
Maria Amat
Xevi Bayona
Know more
Sílvia Brossa Marí
Eugeni Pons
Know more
Jordi Pigem