Porosity Symposium

Porosity is a symposium that brings together a diversity of voices to discuss phenomena of permeation and lightness in their fields. This is an invitation to take part in a research dialogue that uncovers new scales of understanding related to architecture, speculative design, critical thinking, art, and performance. Guest speakers will present core aspects of their porous research, their navigation of fluids through apparently solid structures, and their negotiations with gravity and constraint. Transactions of form-flow and porosity become central to understanding our complex environments and their moving possibilities. Architecture may then appear less as a “discipline” but as a “sieve” through which different disciplines “percolate”.

An arrangement of pores on a flute determines its tune. As it is for sound, could it be the same with form? Whether we observe the cellulose pattern of a popcorn beneath a microscope, the porous structure of a sponge cake, or the hollow bone of an albatross’ wing that keeps it airborne, it is the arrangement of vacancy and degree of permeability that sustains these forms. Isn’t that also the case with black holes? And cities? A city’s vitality and synchronicity may be determined by permeabilities and porosities of all sorts, from bodies to buildings, surfaces, and channels—from mass exchange to the circulation of effects.

Co-organized by Fundacio Enric Miralles and Eina Idea, Porosity stems from a dialogue between Manuel Cirauqui and Rasheed Jalloul, in conjunction with the latter’s residency at Fundacio Enric Miralles. Porosity is part of the Model Fest Barcelona - the first architecture-related festival of its kind in the city. Porosity will feature presentations by Caterina Miralles, Rasheed Jalloul, Julia Spínola, Manuel Cirauqui, and Mariona Moranta, and will be moderated by Jack Isles.