The next edition of the National Meeting of Architecture Students, or OSSA for short, is being held under the name Spatium. It is a hybrid edition mostly transferred to a virtual environment. It consists of interviews and essays available online. A new feature is a nationwide competition for students.
OSSA is a grassroots initiative created by students - for students. Meetings and workshops have been organized for more than 20 years. They are nationwide in scope and are attended by architects from the international arena. It's an excellent training ground for students to try their hand at design, as well as to meet experts and female experts in their field. This makes OSSA one of the largest architectural events in Poland for design students. It enjoys the support of such institutions as the Association of Polish Architects, the Chambers of Architects and university institutions, including the Wroclaw University of Technology. Workshop participants include students from Polish and foreign universities from the fields of architecture, construction, interior design, design or art history.
The organizers emphasize that:
The aim of the event is primarily to create a platform for gaining knowledge, exchanging experiences and views in the fields of architecture, urban planning, design or art. Every year we organize events, in which an average of about 70 students from Polish and foreign universities participate.
Cracow edition of OSSA 2020
© OSSA Poland
spatium, or space
The theme of this year's edition is space. The organizers understand it as a fundamental category for architecture. In this edition it also has a symbolic dimension. The time of the pandemic has prompted the architectural community to reflect on what kind of space we need. The question of how to create safe spaces and what defines that safety today is increasingly being asked. In turn, months of confinement at home during lockdown can be a reason to think about the different functionalities of the spaces we live in every day. Finally, this difficult time of lockdown has made us realize how much we need open spaces and how important a category physical freedom is.
hybrid formula
The organizers and invited guests will consider all these aspects in the events. To meet the unique situation resulting from the pandemic, this year's edition has a new hybrid formula. Some of the materials are available online. These are essays and interviews prepared specifically for OSSA. They were released in stages and are currently available on the project website. The task of the essays, written on the basis of Adrian Forti's book "Words and Buildings. A Vocabulary of Modern Architecture" was to immerse the audience in the world of concepts and definitions related to the concept of space.
The next stage of the space discourse is to look at individual definitions of space. The interviews section features short contributions from people from different professional backgrounds and continents. The organizers asked everyone the same three questions: how would you define the concept of "space," what is a "good" space, and what space has particularly stuck in your mind. Among those questioned were Steven Holl, Agata Pankiewicz and Pawel Jaworski.
Cistercian monastery in Lubiaz
© OSSA Polska
installation at the monastery
Also new is a competition that will symbolically connect the virtual space in which it is held with the physical space in which the winning work will materialize. The object of the competition is to design an art installation in the space of the Cistercian monastery in Lubiaz. The competition is open to teams that apply by sending an "introduction". As part of the design process, teams will be able to work with tutors who will share their experience. This year they are Dominika Janicka and the CENTRALA design group and Prolog +1 studio - all associated with the Venice Architecture Biennale. The competition jury includes Witold Krochmal - politician, local government official, president of the Lubiaz Foundation, Michal Duda - art historian, vice president of SARP branch in Wroclaw, deputy director of the Museum of Architecture in Wroclaw, Zbigniew Maćków - architect, founder of Maćków Pracownia Projektowa, and Oskar Zięta - architect, founder of Zieta Prozessdesign. The main prize in the competition is the realization of the winning installation worth PLN 10 thousand.
