Atelier La Juntana is an architectural design and making studio on a mission to ensure that thinking through making retains a place in our digital age. We talk to Armor Gutierrez Rivas about the work of the studio.

Critical making

“We describe what we do as ‘critical making’,” says Gutierrez Rivas of his London and Santander-based practice established in 2010. “Collaborating with other architects and designers to integrate critical making into the design process is central to our work, as is using modelmaking as a tool for co-design and community engagement. It’s more than simply representing design ideas that are already fixed.”

The studio’s output ranges from kit-of-parts volumes moulded from translucent resin to etched-zinc urban planning models. For a concept for a civic building by MVRDV in Frederiksberg, Denmark, for instance, La Juntana produced a series of jelly-like colour-prototype models. “The architects of KU.BE were consulting local communities and wanted playful and tactile models to encourage people to get involved in a hands-on way with decisions about colours, functions and the future of their city,” says Gutierrez Rivas.

As well as creating conceptual interventions for the Architecture Biennale in Venice and La Cité d’Architecture in Paris, La Juntana has also built 1:1 public installations for the annual London Festival of Architecture – including a project to bring colour and conversation to a monotone financial district. “Love Without Borders referenced the language of border fences across the world to encourage people to think about the impact,” says Gutierrez Rivas. “We opened up a typical barrier with a pink love heart cut-out that people could sit in to chat, and now the structure has found a new life in a London primary school.”

Circularity, craft and technology

Recently the studio has been exploring natural and circular materials like bamboo and resin from pine trees. “Pine resin can be melted and re-moulded as many times as you like,” points out Gutierrez Rivas. “We also work increasingly with clay, which we dig up locally ourselves, and we repurpose a lot of offcuts from a local window manufacturing plant, including melting down aluminium for re-casting.”

And while La Juntana’s models and installations may be hands-on and crafted, they don’t ignore new technologies. “The Ku.Be models were generated by digital parametric modelling tools before being 3D-printed in silicone, while Love Without Borders used the latest advances in CNC milling,” says Gutierrez Rivas.

Modelmaking in the Digital Age

Part of the studio’s focus is education in critical making. From their base in Dunas de Liencres Natural Park, Gutierrez Rivas and colleagues Daniel Gutiérrez Adán and Nertos Guiterrez Rivas run an annual summer school in collaboration with the Polytechnic University of Madrid and Architecture Official College of Cantabria. “The course is called ‘Modelmaking in the Digital Age’. By teaching practitioners and students a wide range of modelmaking and fabrication skills in different media, we are hoping to ensure that the art of physical making isn’t left behind in the digital age.”

To find out more about Atelier La Juntana click here.