Concrete Approximations: In Pursuit of Absolute Space

Olivier Ottevaere

Softcover | 15.75 x 1.78 x 20.57 cm | 184 pp

ORO Editions | 2023 | 9781957183534

Concrete is ubiquitous but contentious: culturally, environmentally, and often politically. Yet, the architecture it produces across fields of practices remains pertinent to the architectural discipline and its history. Having been incessantly normalised, misused and abused by different stakeholders and agendas, some of its material attributes still remain very much untapped until now.

Liquid Pressure, one of concrete’s most vigorous properties, is always short-lived and can hardly be contained. Only its counterpart, known as the formwork or false-work in the building industry, is best at influencing and redirecting the course of its active forces.

Featured Projects

Casa Trevo or Trefoil House is a two-storey residence located south of Lisbon, Portugal. The site's close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean provides pleasant breezes and plenty of sunshine across all seasons. The project sits in a forest of pine trees, rising tall above a sandy terrain.

New Orders, nine concrete columns of 1.8 meters high, was created using a toolbox of techniques. The techniques are a result of experimenting with various systems of formwork for concrete casting and with analogue methods of form findings. They also investigate the potential for the resulting concrete casts to project new spatial arrangements, helping to shape a particular architecture grammar for future architecture works.