BURNING DOWN THE HOUSE II

Michelle Howard Antje Lehn 11

CMT CONSTRUCTION MATERIAL TECHNOLOGY ESC ECOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY CULTURAL HERITAGE

Paradise is shut and locked, barred by angels; so now we must go forward, around the world, and see if somehow, somewhere there is a back-way in. Heinrich von Kleist, 1881

Our house is burning down, HITZE has been un- bridled. While both burning and fire produce HITZE, they are different chemical processes. Burning occurs when two atoms or molecules combine with each other to release heat and often light; hydrogen, for example, burns with oxygen to produce water.

Contrary to Western theories on the origins of architecture, the first large human societies arose in arid and treeless climates where water could only be extracted from under the ground. In the 11 th century Persian geologist Al Kharaji wrote the first text de- voted solely to hydrogeology, which was called ‘The Extraction of Hidden Waters’. 1 Hydrogeology shaped the Persian landscape and provided the basis for in- habitation, construction and prosperity. The Persians devised methods of enclosure on a climatic scale and constructed spaces that not only coped with stressed places but transformed them into what has often been described as an earthly paradise. 2

The word ‘Paradise’, which is Persian in origin (pairi-daêzã), refers to the enclosed garden and, con- sequently, the ideal city. In the 4 th century BCE, the Spartan General Lysander recounted how Persian kings ‘excelled not only in war but also in gardening’. Surviving descriptions consistently emphasize the gardens’ exquisite beauty, their abundance of trees, water, plants and animals. The city and the garden were cultivated with equal care, employing great feats of engineering to enclose and irrigate, provide shelter, sustenance and places of respite from the blazing heat. Water was used as a cooling agent by creating air currents through alternating sun and shadow, with the air passing over moving and spraying water, and exuberant perfumed plants, whose primary purpose was to induce a sense of well-being. Paradise was built on extremely sensitively constructed wall and hydraulic systems, which activated materials whose seeming impermanence was countered through careful awareness and protection from the elements. Similarly, in northern climates in the 1600s, fruit walls such as the peach orchards of Montreuil allowed people to taste the fruit and experience the paradise of stewarded HITZE.

This semester we will extract knowledge of hidden gardens and waters in Vienna to propose an alternative basis for inhabitation, construction and prosperity. The biochar 3 we made last semester could constitute our secret weapon.

Michelle Howard

1 ‘The Extraction of Hidden Waters’ by Abubakr Mohammad Ebn Al-Hassan Al-Haseb Al-Karaji, is a pioneering text on hydrogeology. The book is in Arabic, the scholarly language of Persia in the medieval Islamic civilization era. 2 Athanasius Kircher’s ‘Topographia Paradisi Terrestris 1675’ – an earthly image of Paradise illustrated as a walled domain located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Persian territory. 3 Biochar, a super soil made by construction and combustion: Forest clearings are central to European theories on the origins of architecture: a primitive tribe arriving in such a clearing finds fallen trees scattered there. The parable invariably describes only two possible outcomes, the tribe members use the wood to construct a shelter or to build a bonfire. Last semester we looked at other possibilities and took an unbiased journey through the phenomena of the wildfire, following its lead in the forest and in the city. In a conscious effort of calibration between con- jecture and activism, we embarked upon the step-by-step construction of soil using traceable and low impact production processes. Together with a collier family we selectively felled trees, cut split and stacked wood, covered it with evergreen branches, charcoal dust and earth, carried flames up to activate the process of pyrolysis and transform wood into charcoal. We created a new home for worms and microorganisms in a composter, which we maintained and nurtured in the studio. Together, charcoal and compost made the enriched soil that is the primordial tool for this semester’s undertaking. 1 ‘The Extraction of Hidden Waters’ by Abubakr Mohammad Ebn Al-Hassan Al-Haseb Al-Karaji, is a pioneering text on hydrogeology. The book is in Arabic, the scholarly language of Persia in the medieval Islamic civilization era. 2 Athanasius Kircher’s ‘Topographia Paradisi Terrestris 1675’ – an earthly image of Paradise illustrated as a walled domain located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, in Persian territory. 3 Biochar, a super soil made by construction and combustion: Forest clearings are central to European theories on the origins of architecture: a primitive tribe arriving in such a clearing finds fallen trees scattered there. The parable invariably describes only two possible outcomes, the tribe members use the wood to construct a shelter or to build a bonfire. Last semester we looked at other possibilities and took an unbiased journey through the phenomena of the wildfire, following its lead in the forest and in the city. In a conscious effort of calibration between con- jecture and activism, we embarked upon the step-by-step construction of soil using traceable and low impact production processes. Together with a collier family we selectively felled trees, cut split and stacked wood, covered it with evergreen branches, charcoal dust and earth, carried flames up to activate the process of pyrolysis and transform wood into charcoal. We created a new home for worms and microorganisms in a composter, which we maintained and nurtured in the studio. Together, charcoal and compost made the enriched soil that is the primordial tool for this semester’s undertaking.