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INTERI ORS Volume 33 Interiors | fall 2012
Ansuya Blom Jimenez Lai Shane Krepakevich Inara Nevskaya Philippe Rahm Klara van Duijkeren Vincent Schipper Andrés Jaque Ignacio González Galán Ronald Rietveld Erik Rietveld Petra Blaisse Mark Pimlott Adam Frampton Jonathan D Solomon Clara Wong Simona Rota Ernst van den Hemel Rob Dettingmeijer Agata Jaworska Dirk van den Heuvel Brendan Cormier James Khamsi Ethel Baraona Pohl Anna Puigjaner César Reyes Nájera Hans Venhuizen Jessica Bridger Carrie Smith Vincent van Velsen Lin Ying Tzu Mehruss Jon Ahi Armen Karaoghlanian
PLAYBOY ARCHITECTURE INSIDE
Still from Barbarella. Copyright Dino di Laurentiis Cinematografica, Rome
Archis 2012 #3 Per issue € 19.50 (NL, B, D, E, P) Volume is a project by Archis + AMO + C-Lab …
To beyond or not to be
Volume #32 Centers Adrift Centers are on the move: are you in or are you out?
Volume #31 Guilty Landscapes The creative use of guilt
Volume #30 Privatize! We are all individuals
Volume #34 City in a Box Corporate takeover of public domain
Volume #33 Interiors Think inside the box
Volume #29 The Urban Conspiracy The grey take-over of city and society
Volume #28 Internet of Things When things start talking back …
Volume #27 Aging Life beyond the nursing home
Volume #26 Architecture of Peace How can we materialize peace?
Volume #25 Getting There Being There Living on the Moon
Volume #21 The Block Housing for the billions: mass-produced, custom-made
Volume #20 Storytelling Another way of understanding our era
Volume #19 Architecture of Hope Design for a multicultural society
Volume #18 After Zero A new contract with ecology
Volume #17 Content Management Collecting, organizing and sharing information through architecture
SOLD OUT!
Volume #24 Counterculture How protest informs architecture
Volume #22 The Guide Architect as guide, guide as architecture
Volume #23 Gulf Cont’d The Gulf inside-out: forces, experiments, influences
SOLD OUT! SOLD OUT!
Volume #16 Engineering Society New options for social engineering
Volume #15 Destination Library Method and canon for the architecture of library 2.0
Volume #14 Unsolicited Architecture Unsolicited Architecture: the pro-active practice
Volume #13 Ambition Architect’s ambitions in a landscape of misguided purpose
Volume #12 Al Manakh History, culture and architecture of the Gulf region and beyond
Volume #11 Cities Unbuilt Architectural dimension of destruction – special focus on the Caucasus, Kosovo and Lebanon
Volume #10 Agitation Agitation as vitalizing condition for architecture
Volume #9 Suburbia On opportunities for suburbia after the crash
Volume #6 Power 2 Power at the scale of the building
Volume #5 Power 1 A photographic essay focusing on the relationship between power and architecture
Volume #4 Shareware A portable exhibition of ideas to break through architecture
Volume #3 Broadcast On methods and potentials of broadcating architecture
Volume #2 Do less! An analysis of the architectural will and how to decide on the right dose
Volume #1 Beyond On going beyond the office, the school, and the magazine
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Volume #8 China New ideas about the future of the Chinese city
Volume #7 Power 3 On architectural thinking as foundation of power structures
Table of Contents
The weird way to eliminate or evoke phantom limbs 1:04 PM, 20 Jan 13
Volume 35
In times of synthetic biology, creation acquires new meaning. Today one can not only design and build with matter, but also construct with life. This fundamentally changes the game. Making, changing, and recycling are notions from the past. Welcome to the world of growing, sequencing, replicating, and programming.
Everything Under Control Volume 35 1
2 Editorial Arjen Oosterman and Brendan Cormier 4 Glossary of Terms 6 Miracles and Monsters Urte· Rimšaite· Convergence →← 11 Verging on Convergence Rinie van Est and Virgil Rerimassie interview 15 Why Don’t You… Brendan Cormier 16 Artifice Earth Adam Rutherford interview 20 Same As It Ever Was Timothy Morton Feedback ← 25 It’s All Here: Pardisan and Zoopolis Adam Bobbette and Seth Denizen 30 A Performance of Bodies and Architecture Seth and Ariane Lourie Harrison 36 This Will Never Last Jamie Campbell 40 Watching You, Watching Me Michelle Kasprzak 42 A Stroll Through the Bubbles of Chemicals and Men Etienne Turpin Current ↓ 49 The Prefuture of Synthetic Biology Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg 52 Generating Community Oliver Medvedik interview 56 Mounds at Work Julie Bogdanowicz 60 Living Among Pests Joyce Hwang 65
Structuralism insert Dirk van den Heuvel, Salomon Frausto
97 Synthetic Dementia Kas Oosterhuis interview 101 Assimilation Dillon Marsh Feedforward → 105 Nature through the Windshield Koert van Mensvoort interview 110 Coming to Terms with Synthetic Biology Rachel Armstrong 118 Exploring the Invisible Simon Park 124 How to Build a House: Fairy Tale of a Sustainable Future Simone Ferracina and Melka Myers 132 Hackerspaces and the Act of Making Mitchell Joachim and Melanie Fessel 136 Air Mines Angel Borrego Cubero and Natalie Jeremijenko 140 On the Surface of a Dust Particle César Reyes Nájera and Ethel Baraona Pohl 144 Colophon
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Photo: Penn State University
Ball of permafrost preserved mammoth hair. Scientists hope to revive the long extinct mammoth through implanting its DNA in an egg, and using a surrogate elephant to deliver the baby.
2
12:00 PM, 20 Jan 13
'Quadruple helix' DNA discovered in human cells
Arjen Oosterman and Brendan Cormier
It’s a Human’s World Volume 35 3
In architecture a rat race is going on. Not another record-breaking tower – that wouldn’t be new(s). The race is about the application of a fairly new technology in the building industry. What at first seemed a cute and somewhat clumsy machine to produce architectural models and small objects, is now being tested to ‘go live’. I’m talking 3D printing of course and the ambition of at least two architecture offices, in Holland alone, to be the first to print a full-scale building. One is pursuing a pavilion, the other an Amsterdam canal house, complete with gabled roof. Whether the 3D printer will revolutionize the way we construct the spaces we want, or just add another option, or simply stay within the realm of small-scale complex form, is hard to predict. For the moment, how ever, it is promising; it could be the start of a further opening-up of the building industry to make design and construction more accessible to everyman. There is another rat race going on, and its conse quences for architecture and the production of space are even less predictable. Synthetic biology is developing at a tremendous pace and will change both our daily reality and our understanding of our relation with the world. It’s already started. The distinction between organic and non-organic, between life and matter, between biology and technology, between cognition and program is fading and blurring. We’ll use products made by organisms we’ve programmed, and we’ll be surrounded by manmade creatures that exist solely because they can perform a task we need done. We won’t be using nature, or exploit ing it, or exhausting natural resources; we’ll be creating the nature we need. We’re finally entering a phase in which we can bypass the dichotomy between nature and
man or the subservient position that we should listen to nature or perish. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, certainly. But from now on we won’t leave it to nature to upcycle dust into complex organisms; we’re taking the lead! After millennia of trying to overcome vulnerabilities, fight decay, and more recently the threat of extinction, today’s and tomorrow’s perspective is one of creation. Enter the glorious world of synbio and feel like master of the Universe! Well, the Earth at least. Are we finally solving problems instead of creating newer and bigger ones? Are we headed towards total control? The development in sciences mentioned above is known as NBIC convergence, the merging of nanotechnol ogy, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive sciences. If convergence is leading to greater amounts of control over our surroundings, then we should again look to the mechanisms of control, for hints of how to manage all of this. For this issue of Volume, we’ve taken three fundamental types of control, to assess the consequences of convergence: Feedback control involves the reviewing of existing information and past experiences to see if original goals have been reached. We’ll look back at early experiments on the border of technology and biology to see how far we’ve come. Current control involves the monitoring of the present system set against quality standards. So how are people grappling with synthetic biology and its related domains today? Feedforward control looks to the future, in an attempt to identify and prevent deviations in standards before they occur. In this section, we’ll look to the near and far future of biotech, trumpeting new opportunities and raising cautionary flags, to help us focus our efforts in the research and design work to come. Is all this biology talk not spatial enough for you? Then fast forward to our insert, where we’ve gone back to our architectural roots by digging up structuralism. Working with The Berlage we look at structuralism’s ambitiously modest attempt to create ‘open structures’. Looking back on its history and assessing current potential the question arises: is there room for a kind of structuralism re-loaded today?
* This issue grew from a collaboration with ‘Yes Naturally’ in The Hague: exhibitions, workshops and a conference on man’s relation with nature as seen by the arts; spring/summer 2013 (www.ja-natuurlijk.com ).
Researcher Rachel Armstrong (@livingarchitect) has one of the most active twitter accounts concerning advances in tech nology and biology in the world. With over 22,000 tweets and 7,000 fol lowers she regularly posts ag gregations of science headlines from across the globe, documenting the increasing con vergence between technol ogical and biol ogical worlds. A quick scan of these headlines provides a snapshot of the fantastic, speculative and very possible realities we face in the near future. Throughout this issue Volume is publishing selected tweets from two weeks in Armstrong’s twitter feed to suggest a hint of what is to come.
POP CULTURE MONSTERS AND SUPERHEROES INVENTIONS
1800
ns nke Fra
’s M tein
ter, ons
1 193
1850
Dynamite Traffic lights Telephone Light bulb Inexpensive method to produce aluminium Modern seismograph Machine gun Coca-Cola
Major improvements in steel industry
High pressure steam engine Major improvements in iron industry Railway steam locomotive Portland cement Aluminium chloride reduces to make aluminium Typewriter Improved cylinder sheet glass Telegraph Bicycle Reinforced concrete
Urte· Rimšaite·
UTOPIAN ARCHITECTURE
BUILDINGS
Over the past two centuries we’ve seen a highly accelerated stream of material innovation and development. New uncanny materials have been created, new processes discovered, new gizmos bought and sold on the market. With the introduction of each innovation, we’ve reacted with equal parts shock and awe, admiration and reserve. In pop culture we’ve imbued great heroes and terrifying villains with the very new powers we’ve just discovered. In architecture we’ve erected monuments out of them, and expressed our warnings through critical dystopian projects. In this timeline we trace the direct links between material innovation, and the cultural artifacts – both architecture and caricature – that have come from them. With the oncoming wave of new innovation bound to come from biosynthetic processes, we can expect a new onslaught of heroes and villains to emerge, written by Hollywood screenwriters and architects alike.
Miracles and Monsters
1800 1850
1851 The Crystal Palace, Joseph Paxton 1889 Eiffel Tower, Gustave Eiffel
IRON
1914, Paul Scheerbart: Iron construction makes it possible to give walls any form that might be desired. Walls need no longer be vertical. Hence the possibilities which iron contruction enables to be developed are quite unlimited.
CONCRETE STEEL
BIOLOGY/GENETICS
7 897 189 a, 1 an, cul M a r le D isib Inv The
1900
1910 1891 Wainwright Building, Louis Sullivan
1914, Paul Scheerbart: The surface of the Earth would change greatly if brick architecture were everywhere displaced by glass architecture. It would be as though the Earth clad itself in jewellery of brilliants and enamel.
1920
1930
1928 Second Goetheanum, Rudolf Steiner
1914 The Glass House, Bruno Taut
1930 Villa Savoye, Le Corbusier
GLASS
1914 Domino House, Le Corbusier
1919, Monument to the Third International, Vladimir Tatlin
1922 Glass Skyscraper, Mies van der Rohe
1920 Exhibition Building, Wenzel Hablik
1928 Flying City, Georgij Kroutikov
1928, Sigfried Giedion: It is pointless to discuss the new architecture <...> without touching upon its foundation: ferroconcrete. It is not extracted from nature as a compact material. Its meaning is: artificial composition. Its origin: the laboratory.
ETFE (light transparent plastic) Radio telescope Use of titanium outside laboratory FM radio Tape recorder Voice recognition machine Photocopier Radar Nuclear fission discovered Color television
Penicillin discovered Car radio
Frozen food Liquid-fueled rockets
Blender Traffic light
Short-wave radio
Motorized movie cameras Modern zipper Radio remote control Colored concrete Stainless steel
Theory of Relativity published Term genetics first coined Ford Model T - the first affordable automobile Plastics (Bakelite) Cellophane Pure metallic titanium prepared Automobile electrical ignition system
Zeppelin Radio receiver Airplane Radioactivity discovered Precast concrete technology developed
PLASTIC
AIRCRAFT/ SPACE TRAVEL ROBOTS NUCLEAR POWER
1900
1910
97
18 rs,
Pri
nce
a fM ss o
1920 ria
Ma
id,
Hu
no ma
1930 931 r, 1
7 192
8 9 3 3 193 193 193 193 an, Kong, teel), tman, M le g fS Ba isib Kin an o Inv M n( The a erm Sup te
â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tein
ns nke Fra
ns Mo
1940
1 1 194 194 an, man, m a c i st Aqu Pla
1950
dz Go
1960 Dome Over Manhattan, Buckminster Fuller 1961 Helix City, Kisho Kurokawa
illa,
195
4
1969 John Hancock Center, Bruce Graham
1962 Spray Plastic House, Archigram
a om e Hu Ato r-Ma -Me n Ma le W Th TheSpide The X Iro b i is Inv
1960 961 962 961 962 963 65 1970 n, 1 lk, 1 m, 1 n, 1 n, 1 n, 19
Th
F on e Ir
ist,
4 197
D
Cell phones
1954 Ronchamp Church, Le Corbusier
DNA sequencing technology is developed
1960
First face lifts attempted Microprocessor Recombinant DNA The ethernet (local computer network) First genetically engineered organisms Laser printer
1951,Lake Shore Drive Apartments, Mies van der Rohe
Soft contact lenses Genetic code cracked by a number of researchers Heart transplantation operation Computer mouse Man on the moon
1950
The first functioning laser First man in space Silicone breast implants The first home video recorder
1944 15 Miles into the Earth, Hendrik Th. Wijdeveld
Use of titanium for military applications Human cancer cells cultured outside of a body Hydrogen bomb Double-helix structure of DNA discovered World's first nuclear power plant Optic fiber Computer hard disk PC used by one person and controlled by a keyboard NASA established Artificial pacemaker
Microwave oven Transistor Principles of cybernetics, basis of practical robotics
Atomic bomb
Synthetic rubber
Fiberglass Z3, first programmable, automatic computing machine The first electronic digital computer 1940 1970 1972 Robin Hood Gardens, A. and P. Smithson
GLASS IRON
1961, David Greene: You can roll out steel – Any length You can blow up a balloon – Any size You can mould plastic – Any shape
1964 Walking Ciy, Archigram
STEEL CONCRETE
PLASTIC
ROBOTS AIRCRAFT/ SPACE TRAVEL
NUCLEAR POWER
COMPUTERS
77 979 r, 19 n, 1 ade e Alie V h Th art
1980
1990
2000
2000 The Eden Project, Grimshaw Architects
2010 2006 (project) Kartal-Pendik Masterplan, Zaha Hadid Architects
2003 Kunsthaus, Peter Cook
2014 (est. date) The Landscape House, Janjaap Ruijssenaars
2011, Koert van Mensvoort: Any sufficienlty advanced technology is indistinguishable from nature.
2011, Rachel Armstrong: With further technological development metabolic materials might become autonomus structures and not depend on existing infrastructures for ‘survival’.
BIOLOGY/GENETICS
1980 982 984 986 988 988 1990 990 1 1 s, 1 1 1 p, 1 T., or, et, te,
2000 001 84 1996 1999 2 , , , 19 o oe, t les sador mith n E. mlin cre t a C a r l d o dJ u S P a n T t b a n n a i Gre Con e Pre e Rob id inj n Am Age pta Th Th tN Dav a Ca tan Marti A.I. Mu
tar, Ava
9 200 g Bor
009 n, 2
ee Qu
2010
Smart materials: nano structures living structures biomimetics shape memory bioluminescence self healing photomechanics
2010 The Transcendent City, Richard Hardy
3D printing
Large Hadron Collider
World Wide Web Transluscent concrete DNA fingerprinting, gene therapy Genetically modified foods come onto the scene The pentium processor invented Automated DNA sequencing technology Cloning of a mammal (Dolly the sheep) MP3 Player Google
First 3-D video game Patent for a genetically engineered animal
Windows program by Microsoft
Domestic robots
Artificial heart successfully implanted in a human Term ‘virtual reality’ first coined Apple Macintosh
2009 Geotube Faudlers Studio
First self-contained artificial heart Smartphones Human genome sequenced Touchscreen technology for mass consumption Facebook YouTube
2009 Filene’s Eco Pods, Höweler + Yoon
1975 Stanford Torus, NASA, Stanford University
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5:48 AM, 18 Jan 13
Nearly perfect, ultrathin invisibility cloak could have wide practical applications
Feedback â&#x2020;?
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Fig. 01 Pardisan regional plan with Karl Schlamminger designed icon indicating the proposed site.
Adam Bobbette and Seth Denizen
As our contemporary design practices become increasingly biosynthetic in nature we turn to a set of terms which help to clarify the nature of all biosynthetic proposals: paradise, zoopolis, eco-management, and entanglements. Adam Bobbette and Seth Denizen take interest in how these terms propose their own biosynthetic form of life; and it is according to these terms that they investigate here a bio-synthetic paradise planned for the edge of Tehran called Pardisan.
Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s All Here: Pardisan and Zoopolis
ANIMAL & VEGETATION EXHIBITS
IRAN
CULTURE EXHIBITS CASPIAN SEA AQUARIUM
DECIDUOUS
EUROPE DECIDUOUS
NORTH AMERICA
CONIFEROUS
DECIDUOUS
SAVANA
DRY SCRUB & WOODLAND DESERT
DECIDUOUS TUNDRA CONIFEROUS TUNDRA
DRY SCRUB & WOODLAND TUNDRA
GRASSLAND
DRY SCRUB & WOODLAND
STAFF HOUSING UTILITIES
GRASSLAND
AFRICA MAINTENANCE
DECIDUOUS DESERT
SAVANNA GRASSLAND DESERT
GRASSLAND TUNDRA
GRASSLAND
SAVANNA DESERT
SOUTH AMERICA
1/16 H
OTHER
VETERINARY HOSPITAL
DESERT TUNDRA TUNDRA
DESERT
TROPICAL
OCEANIA DRY SCRUB & WOODLAND
TROPICAL PERSIAN GULF AQUARIUM
DESERT TROPICAL
TROPICAL
TROPICAL
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LABS
TROPICAL
MOTOR POOL
VISITOR FACILITIES
PLANETARIUM
NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM
ADMINISTRATION
AMPHITHEATRE
SEWAGE TREATMENT ORIENTATION
DEPARTMENT OF THE ENVIRONMENT
Fig. 03
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Fig. 02
26
Fig. 04/05 Fig. 02 The world: overlay of bioregions and continents with Iran featured in the largest space in the centre. All managerial programs outside of the line are labeled “other”. Fig. 03 Model of paradise. Fig. 04 A ha-ha separates visitor from buffalo. Fig. 05 Visitors delight in the architecture of groundhogs. Fig. 06 Underwater and above-ground views are offered of the marine life. Fig. 07 A monorail brings visitors through hilly terrain. Fig. 08 The Aviary in Pardisan. Fig. 01 – 08: McHarg, Roberts and Todd, Pardisan: Plan for an Environmental Park in Tehran (Philadelphia: WMRT, 1975)
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Fig. 06/07
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Fig. 08
in Cybernetics, Literature and Informatics (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 3. 3 Ihab Hassan, “Prometheus as Performer: Toward a Posthumanist Culture? A University Masque in Five Scenes,” The Georgia Review 31 (1977): 830-850. Hassan characterizes the term post humanism as follows: “We need first to understand that the human form – including human desire and all its external represen tations – may be changing radically, and thus must be re-visioned. We need to understand that five hundred years of humanism may be coming to an end, as humanism transforms itself into some thing that we must helplessly call posthumanism,” 843. 4 Ibid., 850. 5 Ralf Remshardt, “Posthumanism,” Mapping Intermediality in Performance, Eds. Sarah Bay-Cheng, Chiel Kattenbelt, Andy Lavender, and Robin Nelson, (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2010), 135. 6 Manfred E. Clynes and Nathan S. Kline, “Cyborgs and space,” Astronautics (September 1960): 27. 7 Gerard Cottin, “CYSP-1 danseuse-etoile est un robot,” Science et Vie (September 1956): 65. See www.cyberneticszoo.com for other articles on CYSP-1 from the 1950s. 8 Ibid. 9 Reyner Banham, ‘Monumental Windbags,” AD “Pneu World” June 1968 reprinted in Marc Dessauce, The Inflatable Moment: Pneumatics and Protest in ‘68 (New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 1999), 33. 10 Karen Barad, “Posthumanist Performativity: Toward an Under standing of How Matter Comes to Matter,” Signs, vol. 28, no. 3 (2003): 826.
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Performance (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2010), 352. 2 N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies
DNA Test Finds Horse Meat In UK Hamburgers
1 Chris Salter, Entangled: Technology and the Transformation of
10:04 AM, 16 Jan 13
Performance as Architectural Action
These examples, both historical and contemporary, demonstrate that it is possible for architects to engage performance in various contexts, provoking a spectrum of responses while assembling hybrid collectives. As the role of the hybrid other expands in the biosynthetic world, architecture will be increasingly called upon to give evidence of its entanglement with living and non-living networks. The biosynthetic is one among several ways to describe such hybridizations. In attributing agency to each actor within this hybrid network, the per formative architecture outlined in this article is one that scripts the situations of site, forming intimate, temporary scales, and assemblages which bring together human and non-human beings.
34
Why Don’t You … genetically modify a goat so that it lactates spider silk?
A handful of companies are working on producing a highstrength fiber material made of a recombinant spider silklike protein extracted from the milk of transgenic goats, made by Nexia Biotechnologies. The purified silk proteins are dried, dissolved using solvents and transformed into microfibers using wet-spinning fiber production method ologies. Revealed to have novel levels of strength and lightness, applications of artificial spider silk could include using it for artificial ligaments and tendons, bulletproof vests, and improved car airbags. Why Don’t You… live forever by replacing your organs every six years? … scan your DNA and the DNA of a pool of potential suitors to select which one will give you the best offspring? … clean the ocean with plastic-eating bacteria? You could make floating plastic villas out of them.
Fig. 01 Portal, 2011, from Looking Askance Fig. 02 An Image Idea Of A Tree, 2011, from Looking Askance Fig. 03 Portal No.2, 2012, from This Will Never Last
Volume 35
Jamie Campbell
Set in banal homes, backyards, and alleys, Toronto-based photographer Jamie Campbell’s recent photographs explore the nostalgia induced by the shock and awe of a tumultuously changing world. Based on the Jean Baudrillard quote, “When the real is no longer what it used to be, nostalgia assumes its full meaning” he imbues everyday settings with throwback Hollywood photographic effects, suggesting uncertainty at a very personal level concerning our everyday environments. In coping with the very fundamental way we will use and perceive nature in the near future, his images reflect our desire to fundamentally know what is fake and what is real.
This Will Never Last
Fig. 02
Fig. 01
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Texting Was Going to in Destroy Conversation for Over a Century new vulnerabilities the security of personal genetic information
Current â&#x2020;&#x201C;
Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg
The chatter around synthetic biology is replete with speculation, making it difficult to distinguish between what is real and what is hype – in what is an already improbable field of research. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg looks at the well-lined pockets of government supported engineering labs and artists and designers eager to work with the new ‘powers’ promised by synthetic biology and sees a collective ambition to make the world a better place; but in this critical ‘prefuture’ it’s crucial that we ask key questions: how will we shape this vision of a better world, who’s vision is it, and how will it be evaluated?
The Prefuture of Synthetic Biology Volume 35 49
Fig. 01 A Natural History of the Synthetic Future (from The Synthetic Kingdom) How will we classify what is natural or unnatural when life is built from scratch? Synthetic biology is turning to the living kingdoms for its materials library. It promises no more petro chemicals: instead, pick a feature from an existing organism, locate its DNA and insert into a biological chassis. Engineered life could compute, produce energy, clean up pollution, kill pathogens and even do the housework. Meanwhile, we’ll have to add an extra branch to the Tree of Life. The Synthetic Kingdom is part of our new nature. Biotech promises us control over nature, but living machines need controlling. Biology doesnʼt respect boundaries or patents. Are promises of sustainability and healthiness seductive enough to accept such compromise?
Photo: Carole Suety
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Fig. 02 Pollution-Sensing Lung Tumor A terminal pathology from a heavy smoker. A new species evolved, combining glass-fibre fabricating bacteria and a carbon monoxide sensor species, still identifiable by its manufacturerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s DNA tag.
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Is the Human Body Redundant? 1:25 PM, 15 Jan 13
Somewhere between a vat of expensive face cream and a baby Neanderthal lies a probable future for synthetic biology. While synbio start-ups – large and small – struggle with the reality of scaling up microscopic cellular factories into profitable business models, stories of DIY anti-cancer research, Neanderthal cloning, limitless ‘green’ kerosene, and tumor-killing bacteria are told as outcomes of a likely future where humans have full control over biology. Over the last decade, many diverse interests have contributed to this ambition of an easy-to-manipulate biology, as the field of synthetic biology has spread around research labs all over the world. Scientists, engineers, policymakers, industrialists, space agencies, politicians, and even designers are constructing a future defined by the grand rhetoric of a world-changing, world-saving technology. Fig. 01 The engineering vision supported by governments and corporations tends towards the practical. These are liquid dreams of industrial chemistry and pipelines filled with expensive molecules oozing out of synthetic organisms, invisible biological factories locked in secure vats. The bigger aspirations of synthetic biologists to place engineered life into the ecosystem, from pollutionmunching bacteria to hi-tech plants, need not be realized for synthetic biology to be deemed a successful venture in terms of investment parameters. Meanwhile, designers and artists are increasingly intrigued by the promise of biology as a material to make things, programmed from the DNA up. These visions tend to sway between mild utopias, where ‘green’ technologies successfully displace existing dirty ones, growing trees as houses, or creating novel biodegradable materials; and unfamiliar states of existence that to most, might seem more like soft dystopias: futures where algae is farmed on bodies, or pigeons defecate soap. Fig. 02 ‘Official’ biological futures tend to occupy what Drew Endy, a pioneer of the field, describes as “the half pipe of doom”. At one end lies biological perfection, where our needs are met and our behaviors are thank fully unchanged: we’ll fly endless miles in planes fuelled by kerosene, secreted by yeast that has gorged on sugar cane. At the other end are the scenes of biological terror and human error, disastrous calamities where the boun daries between designed and un-designed life is indistin guishable, or beyond our financial or physical control. All these futures are not equally likely, but progress lies somewhere in here. What are the mundane realities of designing biology today? Synthetic biology is a predicted technology that still has a lot of science to grapple with. Computer logic and biological survival are not a natural fit. While the discipline is increasingly enabled by exponential advances in DNA sequencing and synthesis technologies, in labs around the world, engineers and scientists are painstak ingly trying to wrest control over biology’s complexity. The visions are necessary to fuel this research, especially in an application-driven climate. George Osborne, the UK’s Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced twenty million British pounds of funding for UK synthetic biology in 2012, with the justification that: “They say that syn thetic biology will heal us, heat and feed us.” It may be some time yet. For a technology that promises it could make all living matter into viable material with which to build use ful things, it is vitally important to consider the future now. Investment and law-making shape the path of pro
gress, as can public opinions. Can we influence the path of our biological future? This is where I see a valuable role for design and art in these early stages, upstream in the development of a technology. Navigating the space between the mundane visions of chemicals, tethered in the technologically possible, and dreams unconstrained by existing science can help us test out what we might want from a future. It may also inspire new research areas, and make us think more carefully about others. The drive to engage in synthetic biology research is, for many engineers and scientists, underpinned by a desire ‘to make the world a better place’. How these beliefs are defined and evaluated, and whose ‘better’ will ultimately shape our common future, is something that is less clear. As companies turn to synthetic biology, they are investing in muscled-up salmon, rubber-secreting microbes, and long-lasting plastics made by bacteria. Es tablishing what we want from ‘better’ is essential, other wise we may well end up replicating existing, troubled systems of production with ‘biosimilars’. The discourse around synthetic biology tends to placate, soothing our concerns, yet this still is a technology that can be applied equally to the production of anti-malarial chemicals as to the design of ‘greener’ explosives. As such, working as an artist or designer building futures upstream in a technology comes with a respon sibility. Through my own experiments testing out different kinds of collaborations in synthetic biology, I have discov ered that by imagining a future, you might make it more likely. Arthur Clarke famously noted: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Building alternative visions that are indistinguishable from possible reality can contribute to the hype around an emerging technology. This runs the risk of desen sitizing us to the issues that we need to face, or less seriously perhaps, triggering disappointment when the future doesn’t come to pass. Now, in the prefuture of synthetic biology, is where designers, artists, activists, DIY experimenters can critique and direct the path of this possible future. As engineers, synthetic biologists ask: ‘How do we make algae make fuel?’ We also need to challenge what’s being asked. This means not only designing ways to use less fuel, but also imagining systems that don’t need fuel. The UK’s Design Council notes that: “Eighty percent of the environmental impact of the products, services, and infrastructure around us is determined at the design stage.” By affecting the direction that a technology takes at a much earlier stage than problem solving, could we do better? Synthetic biology won’t necessarily solve our problems. But it could make for a more interesting future if and when we get there.
I’d like to thank Autodesk for the generous support during the research and writing of this article.
Why Don’t You … add calcifying bacteria to concrete so that it can repair itself when it cracks? Concrete has one serious flaw: it cracks, leading to corrosion of its reinforcement steel. Researchers at TU Delft have engineered a solution by embedding calcite-precipitating bacteria into the concrete mixture. When water seeping through a crack comes into contact with the bacteria, it awakens the spores to start their calcite production, thus gluing the crack back together. Why Don’t You… put computer chips and sensors on everything? … make a bio-kerosene from bacteria and stop mucking around with oil? … grow giant mushrooms all over your building, and harvest them as organic solar panels?
Open Structures An Introductory Dossier on Dutch Structuralism
[â&#x20AC;&#x2030;1â&#x20AC;&#x2030;]
Piet Blom
Dutch Structuralism represents one of the most important moments in the development of twentieth-century architecture in the Netherlands, whether one cherishes its humanist and overall cultural ambitions or criticizes it for being an architecture of good intentions. The succeeding pages are a collection of ideas and possibilities aiming to introduce Dutch Structuralism to the next generation of architects and urban designers, as well as to expand its potential relevance for contemporary architectural practice and thinking. A supplement to Volume 35: Everything Under Control, this introductory dossier is a collaboration between the Delft University of Technologyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Architecture Department and the Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design, and The New Institute.
Introduction Salomon Frausto Structuralism does not withdraw history from the world: it seeks to link to history not only certain contents (this has been done a thousand times) but also certain forms, not only the material but also the intelligible, not only the ideological but also the aesthetic. – Roland Barthes, The Structuralist Activity The current economic crisis has increasingly left numerous buildings abandoned throughout the world. From vacant office space in the Netherlands to post-industrialized urban sites in China, the opportunity to rethink the reuse and transformation of the millions of square meters of available building stock is not only a major task for today’s architects and urban designers but it also affords them the opportunity to find alternative methods of design practice. It is within this context that the spirit of structuralism – the ability to practice in transformable, adjustable, sustainable ways in
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relation to constantly fluctuating circumstances – that the new Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design at the Delft University of Technology initiated this publication. Continuing the legacy of the former Rotterdam-based Berlage Institute – a groundbreaking educational-cultural platform for study, encounter, and debate that operated from 1990 to 2012 – The Berlage today aims to open up questions that are relevant for the contemporary discipline, expanding the university context to a broader international audience. The former Berlage Institute closed its doors in 2012 after twenty-two successful years following the parliamentary and ministerial decision to cease funding for all post-academic institutions within the Netherlands. The Berlage continues the Institute’s mission to create a learning environment for students to test and communicate models, insights, and principles focusing on architectural, urban, and landscape issues. Dutch architecture culture has never limited itself to local issues; in fact, its innovation has always been founded on an international outlook. As the building process becomes increasingly complex, ambitious, and global, The Berlage sees the challenge for architectural education today as the opportunity to directly engage with these transformations. At the same time, it aims to develop new types of architectural knowledge based on innovative forms of collaboration between architects, designers, planners, citizens, politicians, and institutions. The Berlage’s Open Structures masterclass, held in autumn of 2012 and led by Herman Hertzberger with Tom Avermaete and Dirk van den Heuvel, serves as the point of departure for this publication. The first collaborative effort of The Berlage – jointly produced with the Architecture Department at TU Delft, the New Institute in Rotterdam, which
houses the NAI and its archives, and Volume magazine – it aims for a global exchange of established traditions and experiences acquired from institutions, as well as for the worldwide distribution of Dutch expertise about the built environment. Now more than ever, it’s vital for the discipline to open up to new ideas, historical experience, and shifting paradigms that may radically transform the built environment in this time of crisis. It is the aim of The Berlage to continue structuring a unique environment for educational experimentation, one that prepares the figure of the architect to imagine tomorrow’s future.
it, become very important. Both notions refer to an understanding of design that takes into account other spatial agencies than that of the architect and both define the architectural project beyond the articulation of a perfected image. Structuralism seems to have engaged with similar issues and this explains its topicality.
The Agency of Structuralism Tom Avermaete and Dirk van den Heuvel interviewed by Arjen Oosterman and Brendan Cormier Arjen Oosterman: We’re interested in the present relevance of structuralism, so please tell us, what is so fascinating about structuralism? Tom Avermaete: The masterclass we held was about structuralism, clearly, but also about ‘open structures’. Our contemporary fascination with structuralism has a lot to do with the ongoing debates concerning the changing role of the architect and alternative definitions of the architectural project. At present a lot of people are searching for alternative roles, ‘other ways of doing’, as Jeremy Till and Tatjana Schneider have recently called it. Out of this perspective notions like ‘openness’ and ‘generosity’, in the way that Lacaton and Vassal use
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Dirk van den Heuvel: I’m really surprised that we still talk about it, and increasingly so it seems. When I was a student in the late eighties you wouldn’t touch the topic. Structuralism was not so much taboo, but old fashioned, a non-subject, and even Hertzberger himself was moving away from that position at the time. Piet Blom’s Cube Houses in Rotterdam had been finished for a couple of years and everyone was very dismissive about them. The new trend was coming from Mecanoo, and the first buildings by OMA were being constructed. So I couldn’t imagine becoming fascinated by Piet Blom at the time. My fascination is that the questions behind structuralism are still very fundamental, they are still on the table. If you look beyond just the Dutch Forum group (Aldo van Eyck, Herman Hertzberger and others) there are a lot of contemporary works, like work from OMA and MVRDV that are at least building on the legacy of Dutch structuralism. So these questions are still being asked: To accommodate the masses in an egalitarian society the search is for open, all-inclusive systems, and to devise these is extremely tough. TA: You are right to stress that the historical development of structuralism was embedded in the project for an egalitarian society and the question of ‘the greatest number’. However, it is in my opinion also strongly related to the emergence of a society of emancipated individuals who
had their own ideas and practices – especially concerning the built environment. Out of this perspective the knowledge of the architect was strongly repositioned. Structuralism illustrated that expertise concerning the built environment could also come from everyday users, in both more traditional as well as modernized societies. I believe that it is this repositioned knowledge of the architect which strongly appeals to students nowadays. In contradistinction to the sometimes self-indulgent postures of architects in the 80s and 90s, students are today looking for other positions from which they can engage with different spatial agencies. This implies not only redefining the role of the architect, but also questioning the very idea of the architectural project. An architectural project is then no longer understood as a projection of a perfect state, but rather as an interaction with other spatial agencies: of communities, of inhabitants, of future users, and so on. Hence, it is certainly about open systems, but this openness implies particularly the engagement with other spatial agencies. DvdH: Herman Hertzberger’s books are by far the most read by our students. We don’t tell them to read them, they just do. It’s quite amazing. One of the paradoxes of historical structuralism is that, although it tries to avoid the issue of form, it developed a very strong formal language that is recognizable today. Surely that’s part of why we still talk about it. And that’s the paradox, because the way it’s being revived now has two shapes. One is indeed a formal language, look at pixel power of MVRDV or the town hall in Rotterdam by OMA. And then there is a revival of those issues that you were talking about, Tom. How does architecture as a spatial system work with the other spatial agencies in the city? And then you get a very different sort of typology, configurations
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Piet Blom; J.L.M. Lauweriks; Theo van Doesburg
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Piet Blom; Willem Jan Neutelings; B. Mertens
know risk of exhausting procedures was a major argument for the Tate Gallery to move to an old factory building. Building new on a nice spot in the city would have taken at least eight to ten years more. AO: Yes. Why don’t we change the system from one prescribing what can be done into one preventing only the things that should not happen. HH: Don’t get me started. Society is changing so rapidly. Regulatory planning was invented to prevent one function hindering another. Say, noxious industry in the middle of a housing area. The idea dates from the nineteenth century. But it almost killed a neighborhood like the one here, De Pijp, where our office is. Twenty years ago the streets had all kinds of workshops and activities; you could find everything you needed within a circumference of one kilometer. Today there are only shops and housing; and restaurants, fortunately. Production has been expelled. Anyway, changeability is important and we as architects have to learn how to design buildings that can change. No building remains as built. AO: So change is one of the foundational elements of structuralism. HH: Not so much foundational as much as a reason why structuralism is again seen as meaningful. There are two reasons that caused this renewed interest in structuralism. First is the computer as a design tool. It made designers think in a much more structured way. By the way, from the start of my career I have been thinking in layers, never in separate spaces, each with their own character (color, material, function) like most designs were created. Now, the computer makes this structured and layered way of
designing even stronger. It’s totally different from how a much admired architect like Le Corbusier worked, who made each element, each detail a piece of art. But his designs are so interesting, that you accept a strangely shaped window simply for being beautiful. On the other side, Mies van der Rohe always used one type of window frame, one door and so on. Pretty boring, I’d say, I don’t know why people get so excited about these buildings; apart from the Farnsworth House of course. In the end Mies van der Rohe won the battle with Le Corbusier, so to say, by inventing generic space. Take his architecture building at IIT in Chicago. You can do anything in it. The architecture is only occupied by itself, with what I call the ‘building order’. Not with function. AO: Is that criticism or admiration? HH: Admiration! Not without critique, though. At my age I cannot simply admire, I’m always critical too. So we have to strive for an architecture that doesn’t just provide boring boxes, only characteristic constructions even when filled in a boring way, still represent quality. AO: In your own work I see a shift from clustered small-scale elements, where the exterior is simply the consequence of this spatial configuration, towards designs that address the exterior as a theme in itself in scale and detailing. HH: Yes, people criticized me for this lack of ‘gesture’, so I thought, why not give it a go? These expressive forms have an external rationale. They form a lasting shell or envelope, covering its instable content. The ‘waving’ roof of the Breda theater for instance ties
together the space; it forces the usually awkwardly protruding stage tower into a larger composition. But my latest project, the school in Italy, avoids this ‘greater form’. It is a structure that can be added to or subtracted from, to create a maximum number of possible connections and configurations with an economy of means. AO: Who are the architects nowadays that you feel related to, that understand the issue? HH: Lacaton and Vassal have very interesting ideas. Very inspiring. Also although quite differently Anna Heringer. What’s really great is the Basketbar from NL Architects in Utrecht. Within budget they created as an extra function, a basketball court on top of this restaurant building. Still too many architects are trying to create beauty. I’m not against beauty, far from it. But beauty is the gift that results from doing things right. It is not possible to intentionally make a beautiful building. It is not a goal to actively strive for. Personally, I’ve always been fascinated by what is done by people with a building. All architects I know, even someone like Aldo van Eyck, think that people spoil their buildings. They won’t say that directly, but that’s how they feel. The interiors of my elderly home De Drie Hoven were completely changed, completely ‘kitschified’. But that resulted in such great images, that it made me see the beauty of the banal. For me the essence still is ‘make space and leave room’ as my first book was called (Ruimte maken, ruimte laten1). We’re living in a moment of change. The time of fairytale castles is over.
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1 Herman Hertzberger, Ruimte maken, ruimte laten. Lessen in architectuur (Rotterdam: Uitgeverij 010 1996). The english version is titled: Lessons for students in Architecture (Rotterdam: 010 Publishers 1991).
A Selection of Work from the Open Structures Masterclass From November 19th to the 23rd, 2012, The Berlage initiated a masterclass entitled Open Structures, led by the first dean of the former Berlage Institute, Herman Hertzberger, together with Tom Avermaete and Dirk van den Heuvel. The aim of the masterclass was to explore the adaptability, extension, and reprogramming of buildings, keeping the spirit of structuralism in mind. Participants investigated the essential architectural conditions and characteristics necessary for buildings to be considered ‘open structures’, as opposed to buildings conceived as complete works of art, or ‘closed’ structures.
Students first researched existing examples of both open and closed building types in order to critically assess each type’s capacity to allow for – or prevent – change, extension, and complete transformation. They analyzed architectural features that are characteristic for open structures, evaluating the field of tension between the rhetoric and reality of openness and closedness. Working in groups, participants explored the ability of their precedent studies to adapt to change, extension, or complete transformation. They made precise diagrams, selected keywords that defined openness, and drafted sketches envisioning the possible adaptation to change, extension, and complete transformation of the analyzed precedents.
In the second part, participants were asked to make design proposals for the Ministry of Social Affairs, originally designed by Hertzberger between 1979 and 1990. They were asked to envision how this example of an open building could be programmatically and spatially transformed while keeping initial characteristics intact. Complementary to this task, the masterclass also consisted of lectures including ‘What are Open Structures?’ by Herman Hertzberger, ‘Dutch Forum and the (Im)possibility of a Universal Culture’ by Dirk van den Heuvel, ‘Mat Building: A Prime Figure of Structuralism?’ by Tom Avermaete, and ‘On LC’s Venice Hospital’ by José Oubrerie.
Salomon Frausto, Tom Avermaete, and Dirk van den Heuvel discuss with Jonathan de Veen and other members of Group 1 research into select buildings by Louis I. Kahn.
Participants and invited guest engage in a lively debate during the final presentations
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Tom Avermaete presents a lecture entitled ‘Mat Building: A Prime Figure of Structuralism?’.
Jeroen van der Drift and Herman Hertzberger discuss the Ministry of Social Affairs building.
Dirk van den Heuvel presents a lecture entitled ‘Dutch Forum and the (Im)possibility of a Universal Culture’.
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Piet Blom
This introductory publication is a supplement to Volume 35: Everything Under Control. It is a collaboration between the Delft University of Technology’s Architecture Department and the Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design, and The New Institute.
The New Institute The New Institute celebrates the innovative power of architecture, design and e-culture. The organization arose out of a merger between the Netherlands Architecture Institute; Premsela, the Netherlands Institute for Design and Fashion; and Virtueel Platform, the e-culture knowledge institute.
The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design The Berlage Center for Advanced Studies in Architecture and Urban Design is a new educational initiative at the Delft University of Technology, continuing the legacy of the former Berlage Institute. It offers a new cross-disciplinary and international postgraduate master’s degree from the TU Delft in an experimental setting, characterized by guidance and exchange with leading and emerging designers and scholars.
Architecture Department, Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft
Open Structures: an Introductory Dossier
Through its The Architecture Project and its Foundations research program, the Architecture Department of the TU Delft’s Faculty of Architecture has established itself as a leading voice on the revision of twentiethcentury architecture and its impact on contemporary practice and thinking.
Editors: Salomon Frausto and Dirk van den Heuvel Editorial assistant: Robert Gorny Graphic Design: Joris Kritis
Special thanks to Guus Beumer, Herman Gelton, Alfred Marks, Behrang Mousavi, and Jonathan de Veen.
Why Don’t You … terraform the moon by bringing a bucket of bacteria with you that turns moon dust into solid bricks?
One of the greatest challenges of colonizing the moon or Mars, is in transporting materials with which to build settlements. Students at Stanford and Brown universities are working on a method that can transform lunar and Martian regolith (planetary dust) into solid bricks, through the use of bacteria. Instead of shipping a ton of bricks to the moon, it would suffice to bring a vile of bacteria and the right processing equipment. Why Don’t You… turn your kids into cyborgs? They’ll thank you later. … program cockroaches to seek out victims trapped in earthquake rubble? … engineer pigeons to defecate soap, keeping our streets and buildings clean?
“Buildings tell us that we should walk here and not there through the positioning of a corridor, that we should sleep in just such a room and eat in another, with the light falling in just such a manner over a table of particular proportions. In doing so, architecture is communicating to us a particular idea of use and experience.”1 Yet, if the ‘communicative mode’ of architecture is an attractive way to re-frame the profession – especially at a time where the primacy of physical space is in question – it is however telling that the most powerful illustrations in McLuhan’s text on housing have little to do with architects or their artistic intent, and everything to do with the adoption of disruptive technology. McLuhan writes that: “If people are inclined to doubt whether the wheel or typography or the plane could change our habits of sense perception, their doubts end with electric lighting. In this domain, the medium is the message, and when the light is on there is a world of sense that disappears when the light is off.”2 Perhaps what architects can learn from Marshall McLuhan is not only that architecture is, as Jacob puts it, “just as fictional as any other form of communicative media”3, but also that the most profound changes to the built environment occur by means of technology, not form. In other words: If architecture is the spatial discipline par excellence, should it not help dream into existence the technologies that will shape our future cities, rather than surrender to the incre mental logic of consumer demand and to the mere arrangement of existing building materials and components? Should it not lead a conversation with scientists, programmers, engineers, and the public about what a biosynthetic, printable, digitally augmented building can or should be? As the industrial framework within which architecture currently defines its identity and modus operandi proves increasingly inadequate vis-à-vis social and environmental pathologies, these emerging technologies might offer designers a chance to expand and radicalize the discipline, precipitating a new age of sustainable development. The narrative fragments that follow look into such an (im)possible future – a fairy tale of sorts.
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Interesting! It would be even better if the system actually produced soil as a longer term outcome :) 5:17 AM, 13 Jan 13
Simone Ferracina Illustrated by Melka Myers and Simone Ferracina
Taking a page from Marshall McLuhan, Simone Ferracina argues that the means of technology in a given building has far more impact on the user, than any issue of form. He argues for architects to be more engaged with materials and components, so that architecture can catch up with the innovations currently underway in science. With the steady hand of illustrator Melka Myers, Ferracina gives us five narrative fragments of houses that offer such a glimpse of this (im)possible future.
How To Build a House: Fairy Tale of a Sustainable Future
When applied to architecture, Marshall McLuhan’s famous construct that ‘the medium is the message’ may suggest a radically different approach to the design and construction of buildings – one tilted away from the obsession with perfectly crafted and morphologically impressive objects and geared toward the re-examination and invention of the ideas, processes, and technologies that make up the very fabric of what it means to design, build, and inhabit. The view encapsulated in McLuhan’s writings is that buildings – understood as extensions of the human body and as media of communication – fundamentally shape the patterns of human association and community, determining and enabling changes in our individual and societal behavior. Following McLuhan, architect Sam Jacob describes buildings as dense informational assemblages – instructions issued through built form:
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Drawing: Simone Ferracina and Melka Myers
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Fig. 01 Burrowing Worms: Different worm varieties correspond to different tunnel textures.
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“The spandrels originated as a nonadaptive sideconsequence of a prior architectural decision. These originally nonadaptive spaces were then coopted … as ‘canvasses’ for wonder fully appropriate designs. In biological terms, the mosaic designs are secondary adap tations, and the spandrels themselves then become exaptations for the residency of these designs.”5 – from Stephen Jay Gould’s The Structure of Evolutionary Theory
“Hey Perry! Is that you?” she shouted from across the quad.
Seeding
“Magda? I have not seen you in...well, ever!” The two friends chatted often online, but had never met in person. To celebrate their fortuitous encounter, Magda invited Perry to a cup of tea at her place, a short five-minute walk from campus. “Mine is not your typical biosynthetic house,” she warned as they approached the coralline structure. “It is a bit more experimental.” Magda worried that her strange abode might affect how people viewed her, and rightly so. The house was a maze of soft ciliated structures and hard sedimentary branches. Natural light filtered from above through translucent crystals, and a salty smell pervaded the air. Serving a tea steeped in flowers harvested on a nearby roof, Magda informed Perry that her living house absorbed pollutants from the environ ment and that, breaking them down, it continually secreted elaborate calcareous networks. Dwelling in the gaps between these exuberant stalactites and stalagmites, she explained, consisted in adapting these forms to human use, in devising ways to inhabit them. “Sometimes they spread over the entire space, or get so tall that I have to climb over them,” admitted Magda, “so instead of keeping keys to the rooms of the house, I keep a hammer, and break through space knocking down the sediments I can’t embrace.” “Every discovery, however small, implies a redefinition of everything that we have so far comfortably accepted as the only possible yardstick of reality. Thus, the discovery of this unusual and disquieting botany was bound to upset the illusory consistency of our previous notions of reality and unreality.” – from Leo Lionni’s Parallel Botany6
“Tommy, can you fetch me a wall fruit?” “Interior or exterior?” “Interior, please, I am making a salad!” “The interior ones are sour,” Tommy muttered as he stumped up the stairs and picked two off the bedroom’s wall. “I don’t like these.” Back in the kitchen, his mother laid them on the fungal sink and pushed with both hands on the spongy pores. The inverted cap briefly filled with water. Linda dried the vermilion-colored fruits and began slicing. “Who built our home, mom?” inquired Tommy. “Your dad did, honey, you know that” she responded without lifting her eyes from the cutting board. Tommy persisted: “But where did he get the seeds?” Linda paused for a few seconds, stitching back together the events of the past ten months in a way that her twelve-year-old son would understand. She put down the knife and began: “Well, do you remember when we set off fireworks in the plaza and Mayor Blooms teared up?” Tommy nodded. “That night we were cele brating the Safe Seed Act (SSA) – the expiration of seed patents. From then on, anyone could collect, trade and plant seeds and spores from food and appliances.” “I can too?” he interjected. “I don’t see why not,” she responded warmly. “Your aunt Mary started growing bioluminescent windows in her backyard, Miss Marbles carpeted her roof with structural sticky leaves, the hairdresser began cultivat ing organic chairs in the abandoned parking lot next to the chapel.” Tommy cut in: “And dad? What did dad grow?”
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Adapting
John was keen on the idea that interior space might be generated negatively – by excavation and extraction. So when he heard of Negative Organic Building (NOB), a new construction method commonly referred to as ‘worming,’ he was intrigued. The architect met him on a Monday morning in the café across from the library. He introduced himself and pulled two boxes out of a black canvas bag. One box contained different color samples of a high-density mycelium polymer. “You see, your house would be first built out of this stuff as a solid, monolithic block. The soil preparation is minimal, and there is no need for foundations as long as the block is partially buried in the ground. The material provides excellent insulation and water resistance, so you won’t need the typical layering of additional sheets and membranes. What you see is what you get.” He then opened the second, smaller box. The interior was lined with a yellow, slimy liquid and subdivided in small rectangular compartments. Each compartment contained a two-inch long, half-inch thick, largemouthed invertebrate organism. “And these are our babies, the worms!” Said the architect proudly. “These little guys were engineered to chew through and quickly metabolize the polymer, converting it into a nutritious substance known as ‘worm oil’ – and carving out your home in the process.” John nodded; he had read about this rare oil and its prodigious medical applications. “Worms can’t be farmed at industrial scales,” explained the architect, “their metabolism is too sen sitive. They only feed after bonding with a small set of human co-inhabitants.” As it turns out, NOB buildings were the by-product of a mutually beneficial inter-species enterprise. John signed the contract and proceeded in selecting his house volume, color, texture, and worm varieties.
Yes, exactly, systems theory is a different science to classical science. We don't (yet) use it technologically
– from ETA Hoffman’s ‘Councillor Krespel’4
4:08 AM, 13 Jan 13
Worming
“Come here, come here, men. Make me a door right here!” He specified the exact dimensions to the inch, and his orders were carried out. Then he walked into the house and smiled with pleasure as the builder remarked that the walls were precisely the height of a wellconstructed two-story house. Krespel walked thoughtfully back and forth inside. The builders, hammers and picks in hand, followed behind him; and whenever he cried “Put a window here, six by four; and a little window here, three by two!” space was immediately knocked out.”
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Drawing: Simone Ferracina and Melka Myers
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Fig. 02 Fruity Wall: A thermally broken, cactus-derived organism that bears edible fruit.
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VOLUME Independent quarterly for architecture to go beyond itself Editor-in-chief Arjen Oosterman Contributing editors Ole Bouman, Rem Koolhaas, Mark Wigley Feature editor Jeffrey Inaba Structuralism insert editors Dirk van den Heuvel, Salomon Frausto
VOLUME’s protagonists are ARCHIS, magazine for Architecture, City and Visual Culture and its predecessors since 1929. Archis – Publishers, Tools, Interventions – is an experimental think tank devoted to the process of real-time spatial and cultural reflexivity. www.archis.org AMO, a research and design studio that applies architectural thinking to disciplines beyond the borders of architecture and urbanism. AMO operates in tandem with its companion company the Office for Metropolitan Architecture, Rotterdam, the Netherlands. www.oma.eu C-Lab, The Columbia Laboratory for Architectural Broadcasting is an experimental research unit devoted to the development of new forms of communication in architecture, set up as a semi-autonomous think and action tank at the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation of Columbia University. c-lab.columbia.edu VOLUME is published by Stichting Archis, the Netherlands and printed by Die Keure, Belgium. Administrative coordination Valérie Blom, Margel Nusbaumer Editorial office PO Box 14702, 1001 LE Amsterdam, The Netherlands T +31 (0)20 320 3926, F +31 (0)20 320 3927, E info@archis.org, W www.archis.org Subscriptions Bruil & Van de Staaij, Postbus 75, 7940 AB Meppel, The Netherlands, T +31 (0)522 261 303, F +31 (0)522 257 827, E volume@bruil.info, W www.bruil.info/volume Subscription rates 4 issues: €75 Netherlands, €91 World, $99 USA, Student subscription rates: €60 Netherlands, €73 World, Prices excl. VAT Cancellations policy Cancellation of subscription to be confirmed in writing one month before the end of the subscription period. Subscriptions not cancelled on time will be automatically extended for one year. Back issues Back issues of VOLUME and forerunner Archis (NL and E) are available through Bruil & van de Staaij Advertising pr@archis.org, For rates and details see: www.volumeproject.org/advertise/ General distribution Idea Books, Nieuwe Herengracht 11, 1011 RK Amsterdam, The Netherlands, T +31 (0)20 622 6154, F +31 (0)20 620 9299, idea@ideabook.nl IPS Pressevertrieb GmbH, PO Box 1211, 53334 Meckenheim, Germany, T +49 2225 8801 0, F +49 2225 8801 199, E Istulin@ips-presservertrieb.de North American Distribution Disticor Magazine Distribution Services, 695 Westney Road South, Suite 14, Ajax, Ontario, L1S 6M9, Canada, T +1 905-619-6565, F +1 905-619-2903, W www.disticor.com ISSN 1574-9401, ISBN 9789077966358 Contributors Rachel Armstrong is a Co-Director of AVATAR at the University of Greenwich. She is also a 2010 Senior TED Fellow, and Visiting Research Assistant at the University of Southern Denmark. Ethel Baraona Pohl is an architect, writer and blogger. She is cofounder of the independent publishing house dpr-barcelona. Adam Bobbette is assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong, Faculty of Architecture, Division of Landscape Architecture. Julie Bogdanowicz teaches architecture at the University of Toronto and practices at Workshop Architecture. Jamie Campbell was born and raised in Niagara Falls, Ontario. He is a recent MFA graduate from Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, and currently lives and works in Toronto.
2:43 PM, 10 Jan 13
Materialized by Irma Boom and Sonja Haller Structuralism insert designed by Joris Kritis
Can't sleep, robot spider dress will get me
VOLUME is a project by ARCHIS + AMO + C-Lab + ... ARCHIS Lilet Breddels, Brendan Cormier, Jeroen Beekmans, Joop de Boer, Anais Massot, Urte· Rimšaite·, Matas Šiupšinskas, Kai Vöckler – Archis advisers Thomas Daniell, Joos van den Dool, Christian Ernsten, Edwin Gardner, Bart Goldhoorn, Rory Hyde, Vincent Schipper AMO Reinier de Graaf, James Westcott C-Lab Jeffrey Inaba, Benedict Clouette, Nicole Magnelia, Sean Connelly, Jillian Crandall, Aditya Ghosh, Igsung So – C-Lab advisers Barry Bergdoll, Gary Hattem, Jiang Jun, John S. Johnson, Lewis H. Lapham
Angel Borrego Cubero is an architect presently teaching at the ETSA Madrid. In 1999, he founded Office for Strategic Spaces (OSS), an office of art and architecture. www.o-s-s.org Seth Denizen is a researcher, landscape architect, and biologist, currently teaching at the University of Hong Kong. Rinie van Est is research coordinator & ‘trendcatcher’ at the Rathenau Instituut’s Technology Assessment department. He also lectures at the School of Innovation Sciences at the Eindhoven University of Technology. Simone Ferracina (@oeverywhere) is a NY-based architectural designer and the editor of Organs Everywhere. Melanie Fessel initiated ONE (Open Network Ecology) Odyssey, an interdisciplinary research enterprise based on philanthropic design principles, to integrate ecological issues into the urban environment. Melanie is currently the Director of Design Research at Terreform ONE. Alexandra Daisy Ginsberg is an artist, designer and writer. Working in unfamiliar fields like synthetic biology, Daisy is exploring new roles for design and the implications of emerging technologies. Seth Harrison is writer and life sciences entrepreneur; Ariane Lourie Harrison is an architect and educator at the Yale School of Architecture; together they founded Harrison Atelier (HAt) in 2009 and have pro duced work that explores the intersection of design and biotechnology. Allyn Hughes is researcher and designer based in New York. She currently works at OMA*AMO. Joyce Hwang is Assistant Professor of Architecture at the University at Buffalo, SUNY, and Director of Ants of the Prairie, an architectural practice confronting ecological conditions through creative means. Agata Jaworska is an independent designer, researcher, and writer, currently working as content and project manager at Droog Lab. Natalie Jeremijenko is an artist and engineer. She is the director of the environmental health clinic at NYU. Jeremijenko’s projects have been exhibited by several museums and galleries, including the MASSMoCA, the Whitney, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt. Mitchell Joachim is an architect, urban designer and founding Co-President of Terreform ONE. He is Associate Professor in Practice of Architecture, Urban Planning and Sustainable Design at NYU. Michelle Kasprzak is a writer and curator at V2_Institute for the Unstable Media and the Dutch Electronic Art Festival (DEAF). Dillon Marsh graduated from the University of Stellenbosch in Fine Art. He currently lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa. Oliver Medvedik is co-founder and Scientific Director of Genspace. He holds a PhD in molecular biology from Harvard University and majored in biology as an undergrad at Hunter College. Koert van Mensvoort is an artist, scientist and philosopher. It is his aim to better understand our co-evolutionary relationship with technology and help set out a track towards a future that is rewarding for both humankind and the planet at large. Timothy Morton is Rita Shea Guffey Chair of English at Rice University. He is most recently the author of Hyperobjects: Philosophy and Ecology after the End of the World (2013), and Realist Magic: Objects, Ontology, Causality (2013). He blogs at www.ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com Melka Myers is an illustrator and decorative painter based in Oakland, California. César Reyes Nájera is an architect and holds a PhD in Bio-climatic Construction Systems and Materials. His work seeks a thermodynamic approach to architecture and the city focusing on social issues and new developments in materials. He is also co-founder dpr-barcelona. Kas Oosterhuis is professor at the Faculty of Architecture, TU Delft, as well as director of Hyperbody and the Protospace Laboratory for Collaborative Design and Engineering. Since 1990 he has been the director of ONL [Oosterhuis_Lénárd] in Rotterdam. Simon Park is a Senior Lecturer in Molecular Microbiology at the Uni versity of Surrey. He champions the Earth’s smallest but most important life forms, its bacteria using a unique blend of art and science. Virgil Rerimassie is junior researcher at the Technology Assessment department of the Rathenau Instituut. He has a background in Law and Science & Technology Studies. Adam Rutherford is a geneticist, author and broadcaster. He is an editor for the journal Nature, a writer for The Guardian and science presenter on the BBC. Etienne Turpin is a teacher, writer, editor and curator. He is a Research Fellow at the University of Michigan, and lectures at Taubman College and the University of Toronto. His public work and writing are collected at www.ANEXACT.org. Liam Young is founder of Tomorrows Thoughts Today. He also runs the ‘Unknown Fields Division’, a nomadic studio that travels to the ends of the earth to investigate unreal and forgotten landscapes, alien terrains and industrial ecologies. Disclaimer The editors of Volume have been careful to contact all copyright holders of the images used. If you claim ownership of any of the images presented here and have not been properly identified, please contact Volume and we will be happy to make a formal acknowledgement in a future issue.
Volume 35
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