Understanding Our Future With Biophilia by JacobPBlankenship

Understanding Our Future with Biophilia by Jacob Blankenship ARCH | 7100

Where Does Biophilia Sit Within Our Future?

Introduction The research conducted and sources cited in this curation of biophilic design is organized in a manner that begins with the understanding of where nature and architecture started beginning with Ă&#x2030;tienne-Louis BoullĂŠe and his amazing drawings of revolutionary and enlightening designs and how they had influenced ideals and movements in the world of Modern architecture. Continuing on this path of historical landmarks in architectural history will be some of the most prominent names of the twentieth-century such as superstudio and archigram and there radical designs for future cities that are completely separate from nature and inevitable continuing into contemporary proposals for radical designs from the likes of TomĂĄs Saraceno and Argentinian artist and Vincent Callebaut a Belgian architect who have visions for the future as radical as those of the Modern era architects on they see the future through a biophilc lense. From these precedents the research turns towards more feasible designs for biophilia by looking at what exists today and ending with a proposal for biophilic design and understanding through a design projection.

Table of Contents

Boullee..........................................................................................................................................6

Cenotaph for Newton.....................................................................................................10 Boullee and Death...........................................................................................................12

Radical Modern Proposals............................................................................................16

Lebbeus Woods...............................................................................................................20 Radiant City.......................................................................................................................24 SuperStudio.......................................................................................................................30 Archigram...........................................................................................................................38 Constantâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s New Babylon.................................................................................................46

Radical Contemporary Proposals............................................................................56 Tomas Saraceno...............................................................................................................58 Vincent Callebaut.............................................................................................................76

Understanding Biophilic Design..............................................................................86

14 Patterns of Biophilic Design......................................................................................88

Design Projection...............................................................................................................116

Grading Biophilic Design...............................................................................................118

Bibliography............................................................................................................................132

This chapter explores the beautiful drawings produces by Etienne-Louis BoullĂŠe and his contribution to the architecture of the 20th century.

Etienne-Louis Boullee by Samuel Boswell BE1057

Claude Nicolas Ledoux was an architect and theoretician, Boullée and Ledoux were of similar back grounds and shared the French revolutionary view of Liberté, égalité, fraternité, and both came to the same conclusion of what architectural design should be - symmetrical, geometric and of enormous scale. They were both considered the pioneers of these ideals. Some of his most noteworthy work was done towards the end of his life 1778 and 1788 yet remained unpublished until 1953. This was a magnificent series of ink and wash illustrations displaying the artistic talent of his youth, where he used excellent effects of light and shadow. However, despite Boullée’s noitarity and respect I feel a lot of his work is very simplistic and hasn’t moved that far away from anything that had previously been done. Personally I struggled to see where he has derived aspects of nature into his work, which is 8

commonly mentioned, what I see is an expression of grandeur and concepts of buildings that were not possible to build, I struggle to see how that is revolutionary as the concepts could not come to fruition. I also don’t agree with the fact that he sees grandeur as something being a necessity of the future of architecture. I fully agree with the idea of abstract, geometric forms being used for the basis of beauty through their regularity, symmetry, and variety. Alternatively I do think these display certain power in human elements because as orderly as nature is, you rarely see perfect geometric forms in perpendicular fashion. What I see in nature are curves, movement, transition, and growth - irregularities built from regularities that nature is constantly changing. A rock that is completely flat its always slightly jagged, leaves on a tree are never square, they are always curved and moving. If you study the structure of the leaf you clearly see that its construction is very symmetrical and geometrical but to look at the tree as a whole with true definition it doesn’t reflect any kind of perpendicularity, it is constant movement in the wind, change of colours with the seasons

it has freedom its not rigid and angular. Examples of where Boullée legacy lives on are Lebbeus Woods’ design of a cenotaph for Einstein in 1980 which he took direct inspiration from him. Also Nazi architecture by Albert Speer who reflects the Grandeur and scale and geometrical forms. “Replicas of his buildings now occurring in every city around the world”(4) If there is one thing i take away from Boullée’s writings it is “In order to execute, it is first necessary to conceive, it is this product of the mind, this process of creation, that constitutes architecture.”(14) - I view to be a good architect it is a necessity to have the ability to be in the space before it is built to see it and feel it, by understanding it.

Lebbeus Woods’ design of a cenotaph for Einstein.

-Samuel Boswell

Cenotaph for Newton

Boullée created architecture that had never been seen before. His ability to see architecture as separate from nature is what made it so revolutionary at the time. His drawings are beautifull, sublime, and awe-inspiring and will continue to be throughout the continuation of time. For it was partially because of him that modern architecture took the course it did. He proposed that architecture was a machine rather than a part of nature. Boullée was a visionary of the time with his ideas of symmetry , regularity, and scale. His drawings are situated in this research because his drawings where among the first to begin to separate nature and architecture. To understand how, we must first look at these three characteristics of his work: Symmetry, regularity, scale. In order for a machine to work efficiently and effectively, Boullee believed that it needed to be symmetric and regular and the immense scale of his designs was meant to inspire the viewers curiosity. He believed that architecture should reflect its purpose as described in this passage of his cenotaph for Newton.

Étienne-Louis Boullée archINFORM

Boullée promoted the idea of making architecture expres sive of its purpose, a doctrine that his detractors termed architecture parlante (»talking architecture«), which was an essential element in Beaux-Arts architectural training in the later 19th century. His style was most notably exemplified in his proposal for a cenotaph for the English scientist Isaac Newton,[1] who 50 years after his death be came a symbol of Enlightenment ideas.[2] The building itself was a 150 m (500 ft) tall sphere, taller than the Great Pyramids of Giza,[3] encompassed by two large barri ers circled by hundreds of cypress trees. The massive and spheric shape of the building was inspired by Boullée’s own study called »the ory of bodies« where he claims that the most beautiful and perfect natural body is the sphere, which is the most prominent element of the Newton Memorial.[4] Though the structure was never built,[5] Boullée had many ink and wash drawings engraved and circulated widely in the professional circles in 1784.[6]A cenotaph is a funerary monument celebrating a figure interred else where.

The small sarcophagus for Newton is placed at the lower pole of the sphere. The design of the memorial creates the effect of day and night. The night effect oc curs when the sarcophagus is illuminated by the sunlight coming through the holes in the vaulting. This gives the illusion of stars in the night sky. The day effect is an armillary sphere hanging in the center that gives off a mysterious glow. Thus, the use of light in the building’s design causes the building’s interior to change its appear ance.[7]

Cenotaph for Newton | Etienne-Louis Boullee

-archINFORM

Cenotaph for Newton Daytime Section | Etienne-Louis Boullee

Cenotaph for Newton Nighttime Section | Etienne-Louis Boullee

Boullée and the Dead

Many of the great drawings produced by Boullée paid homage to the dead. His most famous works include Cenotaph for Newton, Chapel of the Dead, Entrance to a Cemetery, and lastly his death pyramids. "Boullée established this fetish for the dead during his personal internal exile during the mid 1790" written in a collection essays curated by Anthony Vidler. Boullée proclaims his introduction into the sublime with, Finding myself in the countryside, I skirted a wood by the light of the moon. My effigy produced by its light excited my attention (assuredly this was not a novelty for me). By a particular disposition of the mind, the effect of this simulacrum seemed to me to be of an extreme sadness. The trees drawn on the ground by their shadows made the moist profound impression on me. This picture grew in my imagination. I then saw everything that was most somber in nature. What did I see? The mass of objects standing out in the black against a light of extreme pallor. Nature seemed to offer itself, in mourning, to my sight. Struck by the sentiments I felt, I occupied myself, from this moment on, in making its particular application to architecture.

through this experience Boullée describes formed a notion of an architecture that would "speak" of death, a true, funereal monumentality, as written in the "Transparency and Utopia" collected by Anthony Vidler. Where does this situate Boullée within biophilia you may be asking. The underlying beliefs that lie within these drawings from Boullée stem from that of nature. He may have influenced so many Modern architects but for Boullée, his drawings where a reflection of nature from his own experience. They may seem as far from biophilic as possible but these drawings where a direct representation of Boullées' own personal notion of biophilia.

Death Pyramid | Etienne-Louis Boullee

In this chapter we will explore the ground breaking proposals and criticisms of cities in the 20th century and what social political issues these proposals were focused on.

Lebbeus Woods: The Architect Who Dared to Ask 'What If?' Wired Lewis Wallace 15 February 2013

He envisioned underground cities, floating buildings and an eternal space tomb for Albert Einstein worthy of the great physicist's expansive intellect. With such grand designs, perhaps it's not too surprising that the late Lebbeus Woods, one of the most influential conceptual architects ever to walk the earth, had only one of his wildly imaginative designs become a permanent structure. Instead of working with construction and engineering firms, Woods dreamed up provocative creations that weren't bound by the rules of society or even nature, according to Joseph Becker and Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, co-curators of a new exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art titled Lebbeus Woods, Architect. "It was almost a badge of honor to never have anything built, because you were not a victim of the client," Becker told Wired 20

during a preview of the fascinating show, which opens Saturday and runs through June 2. While not a full retrospective of Woods' career, the exhibit shows off three decades of his work in the form of drawings, paintings, models and sketchbooks filled with bold ideas, raw concepts and cryptic inscriptions. (See several examples of Woods' work in the gallery above.) As the curators discussed Woods' work and his impact on the world of architecture, they talked of a brilliant mind consumed with disruption, with confronting the boring, repetitive spaces humans have become accustomed to living in by challenging the "omnipresence of the Cartesian grid." Woods' fantastic visions included buildings designed for seismic hot zones that might move in response to earthquakes, or a sprawling city that would exist underneath a divided Berlin, providing a sort of subterranean salon where individuals from the East and West might mingle, free from the conflicting ideologies of their governments. "He was very focused, I think, in all of his work, in what he said was 'architecture for its own sake,'" Becker said. "Not architecture for clients, not architecture that is diluted, and not architecture that really had to be held up

against certain primary factors, including gravity or government." Woods found his place in the conceptual architecture movement that sprang from the 1960s and '70s, when firms like Superstudio and Archigram presented a radical peek into a possible â&#x20AC;&#x201D; if improbable â&#x20AC;&#x201D; future. Casting a skeptical eye on the way humans lived in cities, these conceptual architects were more interested in raising questions than in crafting blueprints for buildings that would actually be built of concrete, steel and glass. In fact, only one of the nearly 200 fascinating drawings and other works on display in Lebbeus Woods, Architect was ever meant to be built, said Dunlop Fletcher. Instead of the archetypical architect's detailed plans and models, carefully calibrated to produce a road map to a finished structure, Woods' drawings are whimsical and thought-provoking, with radical new ideas being the intended result of his efforts. "No project is fully designed," she said. "This is intentional â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Woods allows the viewer to complete the project in his or her mind." Woods' ideas started in his sketchbooks, which he crammed with detailed drawings. "He was extremely gifted with the pen,"

said Becker, adding that many of the pieces are notated in a strange hybrid language that could be part Latin, part invented. The curators likened it to a kind of code that connected the conceptual fragments that run through Woods' highly theoretical work. "It could mean something, it could be that he's creating almost these fictional artifacts of these supporting elements to engage with the larger drawings that he would do later," Becker said. "They're almost Da Vinci-like in their illegibility." "It could mean something, it could be that he's creating almost these fictional artifacts of these supporting elements to engage with the larger drawings that he would do later," Becker said. "They're almost Da Vinci-like in their illegibility." "It could be an inhabitable space," Becker said. "It could be small, it could be large. Often these things don't have clear scale, but we do know that the point of Centricity was to invite a question of 'what if?'"

An obituary on the Architectural Record website dubbed Woods "the last of the great paper architects" and said he "achieved cult-idol status among architects for his post-apocalyptic landscapes of dense lines and plunging perspectives. Deconstructivist in the most literal of ways, they were never formalist exercises. Instead, they conveyed the architect’s deep reservations as to the nature of contemporary society, and particularly its penchant for violence. He eschewed practice, claiming an interest in architectural ideas rather than the quotidian challenges of commercial building." If It Looks Like Sci-Fi ... ————— -Lewis Wallace Wired

Lebbeus Woods’ design of a cenotaph for Einstein.

AD Classics: Ville Radieuse / Le Corbusier arch daily Gili Merin 31 March 2003

Ville Radieuse (The Radiant City) is an unrealized urban masterplan by Le Corbusier, first presented in 1924 and published in a book of the same name in 1933. Designed to contain effective means of transportation, as well as an abundance of green space and sunlight, Le Corbusier’s city of the future would not only provide residents with a better lifestyle, but would contribute to creating a better society. Though radical, strict and nearly totalitarian in its order, symmetry and standardization, Le Corbusier’s proposed principles had an extensive influence on modern urban planning and led to the development of new high-density housing typologies. In accordance with modernist ideals of progress (which encouraged the annihilation of tradition), The Radiant City was to emerge from a tabula rasa: it was to be built on nothing less than the grounds of demolished vernacular 26

European cities. The new city would contain prefabricated and identical high-density skyscrapers, spread across a vast green area and arranged in a Cartesian grid, allowing the city to function as a “living machine.” Le Corbusier explains: “The city of today is a dying thing because its planning is not in the proportion of geometrical one fourth. The result of a true geometrical lay-out is repetition, The result of repetition is a standard. The perfect form.” At the core of Le Corbusier’s plan stood the notion of zoning: a strict division of the city into segregated commercial, business, entertainment and residential areas. The business district was located in the center, and contained monolithic mega-skyscrapers, each reaching a height of 200 meters and accommodating five to eight hundred thousand people. Located in the center of this civic district was the main transportation deck, from which a vast underground system of trains would transport citizens to and from the surrounding housing districts. The housing districts would contain pre-fabricated apartment buildings, known as “Unités.” Reaching a height of fifty meters, a single Unité could accommodate

2,700 inhabitants and function as a vertical village: catering and laundry facilities would be on the ground floor, a kindergarden and a pool on the roof. Parks would exist between the Unités, allowing residents with a maximum of natural daylight, a minimum of noise and recreational facilities at their doorsteps. These radical ideas were further developed by Le Corbusier in his drafts for various schemes for cities such as Paris, Antwerp, Moscow, Algiers and Morocco. Finally, in 1949 he found a state authority that provided him with a “free hand” - The Indian capital of Punjab. In Chandigarh, the first planned city in liberated India, Le Corbusier applied his strict zoning system and designed the central Capitol Complex, consisting of the High Court, the Legislative Assembly, and the Secretariat. Perhaps the largest realization of Le Corbusier’s ideas can be witnessed in the conception of Brazil’s capital, Brasilia, which was constructed on a vacant site provided by the President of Brasil. Upon this tabula rasa (which Le Corbusier would have coveted), Lúcio Costa and Oscar Niemeyer designed a perfectly geometrically ordered city that segregated the

monumental administration zones and the identical housing districts, owned entirely by the government. By implementing Le Corbusier’s principles, Costa and Niemeyer hoped to create a city that materialized equality and justice. The Radiant City’s influence was not exclusive to the world of urban planning. In 1947, Le Corbusier designed the Unité d'Habitation in Marseille, which - inspired by The Radiant City’s Unités - contained 337 apartments in a single building, along with public facilities on the roof and ground floor. Due to the costs of steel production in the post-War economy, the Unité d'Habitation was constructed of exposed concrete and heralded the arrival of brutalist architecture. In the years that followed, four similar buildings were erected in France and Germany. This typology, which provided an answer to the Post-War housing shortage, was further adapted around the world in countless housing projects.

Perspective view of Le orbusiers' Radial City

Birds Eye view of Le Corbusiers' Radial City

Today, in the aftermath of Modernism, Le Corbusierâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s built cities are hardly ever described as Utopias. Brasilia, for example, has been harshly criticized for ignoring residents' habits or desires and for not providing public spaces for urban encounters. In addition to this, the UnitĂŠ-inspired apartment blocks, which lie on the outskirts of nearly every major city today, have become incubators of poverty and crime; most have been thoroughly remodeled or demolished. Nevertheless, the idea of proposing order through careful planning is as relevant now as when Le Corbusier first published The Radiant City. Issues of healthy living, traffic, noise, public space and transportation, which Le Corbusier - unlike any architect before him - addressed holistically, continue to be a major concern of city planners today. -Gili Merin arch daily

Anti-matter The Guardian Roawn Moore 18 November 2018

Italy's Superstudio hated both the bland future and the twee past. Jonathan Glancey on a timeless vision. Some 30 years ago, Superstudio, a group of radical Florentine architects, proposed a gridded superstructure that would wrap around the world. Eventually, this structure, Il Monumento Continuo, would cover the entire surface of the planet, leaving the Earth as featureless as the smoothest desert, or, more to the point, as a wilfully low-brow, suburban-style western city. The point was exaggerated but well made: Superstudio were commenting on the way globalisation was swamping the world. Given the way the world was developing, we might as well all live in one anonymous megastructure, with local cultures stripped away. Il Monumento Continuo was also a playful, if telling, attack on the way international modern architecture had become so very bland by the mid-1960s, 32

a thing of obvious and unlovable steel-framed and concrete boxes dropped like cluster bombs across the globe, damaging historic cities and blanking out veteran cultures. As for contemporary urban planning, no attack on the new orthodoxy turning our city centres into glorified motorway intersections could be strong enough. Superstudio's continuous monument seems as relevant today as it did when first unveiled in a sequence of clever photo-collages in 1969. These show, among other related images, a pre-twin tower Manhattan enveloped in the uniform megastructure as it rolls across the Atlantic. These images retain their power to hold the imagination; they are slick, clever, funny and make a telling point. Superstudio was formed by Adolfo Natalini and Cristiano Torelado di Francia in Florence in 1966. Over the next dozen years, these thoughtful, good-time young radicals set out to undermine the certainties of modern movement architecture and design. They did not build - although they did design furniture - but made their case through provocative and amusing photo-collages, films, furniture and exhibitions. "In the beginning," said Natalini this week, "we designed

Furniture designed by Superstudio

rather fantastic objects for production in wood, steel, glass, brick or plastic. That was at the beginning, in 1966. Then we turned to the production of usable objects like chairs, tables and cabinets, but these were designed in a deliberately neutral way, a criticism of consumer culture and the continuous drive for novelty. Finally, in 1969, we started designing negative utopias like Il Monumento Continuo, images warning of the horrors architecture had in store with its scientific methods for perpetuating standard models worldwide. Of course, we were also having fun."

Furniture designed by Superstudio the cxritics modern beliefs

Collage of Superstudio ideas placed within the desert

Collage of Superstudio ideas placed within a city

Of course they were. Natalini, Torelado di Francia and their Superstudio team-mates, Alessandro and Roberto Magris and Piero Frassinelli, were of a generation in love with radical-chic, protest and the power of love. They supported feminism and gay rights. They believed in Chairman Mao and his little red book. Superficially, Mao's cultural revolution in China offered the chance to sweep clean the stables of decadent western culture. Brutal, negative and, despite its impact, nothing really to do with the rest of the world, it did no such thing. What it did do was encourage artists, like the architects of Superstudio, to make work of a political nature, even though Natalini was soon to reject all political creeds and posturing. In the meantime, Superstudio announced a campaign of "Anti-Design". Just as pop design, with all its curvy, colourful forms was reaching its whimsical zenith, Superstudio attempted to knock it down with a range of office furniture, Quaderna, for Zanotta in 1970. Designed in stern, geometric forms and covered in a grid-pattern plastic laminate normally found in the street-corner cafes of provincial towns, the Quaderna range was a comment on the excesses of Pop design, and the genesis of an

anti-design movement that accelerated through Milan in the 1970s, culminating in the wilfully banal design of groups like Alessandro Mendini's Studio Alchymia and Ettorre Sottsass's Memphis in the early 1980s. Quaderna was also basic and practical furniture. The Design Museum commentary goes, perhaps, a little too far - or simply loses its sense of the ridiculous - when it describes Quaderna tables, benches and seats as "a wry, but functional commentary on political disillusionment". Looking at them, you would never really know. What Quaderna and Il Monumento Continuo did suggest, however, was that the way global design, planning and construction was going, we might as well all live in sparse, functional spaces, free of local colour and individual expression: everything could be replaced by the continuous, global grid. Unlike Archigram, the British pop architecture group who saw new technology, when applied with wit, as a positive way into a hedonistic future, Superstudio saw 1960s technologia as a malevolent force. Although radicals rather than conservatives, they turned their back on the burgeoning conservation movement, too.

Conservation was one of the key reactions to 1960s utopian technologia. The desire to preserve what we were losing grew exponentially, to the point in the 1980s when any building more than 20 years old was considered to be worth pickling in aspic. Superstudio disagreed. In 1972 it took a neat potshot at the new obsession with heritage, and specifically with the Italian "Save the Historic Centres" campaign. The team unveiled a proposal to flood the centre of Florence by blocking the river Arno. Only Brunelleschi's radical dome would rise above the deluge. Given that Venice was still recovering from the great flood of 1966, this provocation did little to endear Superstudio to the public. Yet, as the Design Museum commentary points out: "The central theme of Superstudio's agenda was its disillusionment with the modernist ideals that had dominated architectural and design thinking since the early 1920s. Once fresh and dynamic, by the late 1960s, modernism had hit intellectual stasis." Whether attacking the new global blandness or the new cliches of conservation - everything old is good - Superstudio lashed out entertainingly on all fronts. Its job, in fact, was to question the very nature of architectural design. 35

It certainly got its message across. Superstudio's work starred in many international exhibitions and was a notable hit in "Italy: The New Domestic Landscape", a major and popular show of contemporary Italian design held in the Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, in 1972. Superstudio disbanded six years later. Its members went on to teach, write and draw, if rarely to build. Perhaps there was already enough architecture in the world. The group's thinking, however, has endured, and, in today's climate, it has taken on a fresh lease of life. Quaderna tables, meanwhile, are still in production at Zanotta, while Superstudio's collages and drawings have been acquired for the permanent collections of the Pompidou Centre in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In a world in which so many of our cities are singing from the same design guide, Superstudio has something relevant to say. As Torelado di Francia said 30 years ago, "it is the designer who must attempt to re-evaluate his role in the nightmare he has helped to conceive." Âˇ Superstudio: Life Without Objects is at Design Museum, London SE1 (020-7940 8790) until June 8. www.designmuseum.org

-Jonthathan Glancey The Guardian

More often then not, the radical proposals in any time period are often a critique of current events. Superstudio had seen enough of the "Bland" modern techniques used over and over again with no regard to its surroundings. Superstudio cared about the context. Their proposals where one of disgust. They were warning the people of the future they were heading towards if they did not change their ways. These collages of a single unit being repeated that were materialness and mechanical where meant to show people how ugly their future looked.

The world according to Archigram The Guardian Jonathan Glancey 31 March 2003

I am holding in my hand a single sheet of paper, wrapped in protective plastic, with words and drawings wriggling all over the available space, on both sides. The possibilities of offset litho printing in the year of its making, 1961, are fully explored. A pinkish splodge decorates one edge – “a potato print”, explains one of its authors now, Professor Sir Peter Cook, “to add a bit of colour”. “The poetry of bricks is gone,” intones some of the original scrawled text, “we want to drag into building som [sic] of the poetry of countdown, orbital helmets, Discord of mechanical body transportation methods.” This document was Archigram 1, the first issue of a magazine – if a single sheet can be called that – that was to grow in pagination and significance. Its price was sixpence, in old money. “You couldn’t give it away,” says Cook, “only friends and numbskulls would buy it.” 40

Now, it will be literally worth its (small) weight in gold, or more, for this flimsy tablet of stone, this home-made harbinger of a technological future, is rare and collectible. It gave its name to the group of young architects who made it, a loose bunch whose interests ranged from the everyday to the extraterrestrial, who sometimes collaborated and sometimes didn’t, but the magazine gave them a common identity. They, people and publication together, would be some of the most influential of the second half of the 20th century. Architecture proceeds by drawing and writing as well as building – Piranesi’s engravings of imaginary prisons and actual ruins, for example, or the visions of future cities conceived by Antonio Sant’Elia, before he was killed in 1916 in the first world war, aged 28. Similarly with Archigram, whose vivid collages gave form and voice to a generation impatient with the dry prescriptions of mainstream modernists. Like pop artists at around the same time, they wanted their art form to draw energy from the explosions of technology and consumer culture that were happening all around them. “Form follows function,” wrote another Archigrammer, David Greene, repeating a modernist

slogan in order to knock it down, “no it doesn’t it follows idea, it follows a desire for architecture to be cheerful.” Three of Archigram’s key figures – Cook, Greene and Dennis Crompton – are sitting with me in Crompton’s house in north London. Two, Warren Chalk and Ron Herron, died too young. Another, Michael Webb, is now based in New York. The occasion of this gathering is Archigram: The Book, a 300-page compendium of the magazines and related works, assembled and edited by Crompton. There will also be events to go with the publication. Cook does most of the talking, even when questions are directed at others. He has always been the most loquacious and media-friendly member of the group: “If we were all like Peter it would be unthinkable,” say his quieter friends. “The period,” says Cook, “was joyfully acquisitive. Someone might be talking about powder puffs, or cranes, or enviro-pills. It was all interesting.” And so, for example, Webb came up with the “cushicle” and the “suitaloon”, fusions of shelter, vehicle and clothing, which would allow their wearers to travel around in comfortable personalised environments. Archigram wanted architecture to be as

mobile, dynamic and “pulsating”, to use one of their favourite words, as the society they saw around them. They proposed buildings that moved, that shone in the dark, that could be changed at their users’ will. Archigram’s fascination with the technology of the moment, mostly from the US, is obvious. They loved the capsules and spacesuits that went with the Apollo moonshots, and wanted to transfer them to Earth-bound buildings. Their best-known projects – such as Ron Herron’s insect-like “Walking Cities” – look like sci-fi. Their interest in consumer culture came without the distancing irony of artists like Richard Hamilton; they were more interested in what it could achieve. “In the 1960s,” says Crompton, “self-determination became an important thing. We were interested in how the consumer could be part of the design process, not a recipient.” At the same time they brought a British mindset to their creations, which owed as much to seaside piers as to Cape Canaveral. They drew on traditions of garden-shed tinkering and inventing, Cook says, “old gadgets, the boffin thing, Heath Robinson, bouncing bombs, funny cars”. They had a “shared sense of humour, which 41

is a British thing. The world is so absurd, you can only make a joke or you’d collapse. You’re never as serious as when you poke fun at something.” Cook also sees precedents in 19th-century Britain: “The Victorians were doing a lot of Archigram”, he says, in the way they combined new inventions with stylistic borrowings from wherever they fancied. 42

More specifically, Archigram’s was a provincial British attitude, as Cook likes to reiterate. He was born in Southend-on-Sea and studied in Bournemouth; Crompton was born in Blackpool and studied in Manchester; Greene was raised and educated in Nottingham. Cook describes how, “as a spotty boy up from the provinces”, he encountered in London the establishment culture of “English chaps… even if you were a Marxist you were an

Etonian Marxist”. But “the spotties were more hungry”. They were more open-minded, more willing to learn from, for example, the lesser-known expressionist architects of 1920s Germany, rather than the canonical works of Bauhaus. Archigram, then, is partly a rebellion of the spotties against the “drearies”, as Cook and co called them, who were running the show.

The three men resist the most common charge against Archigram, that they dealt in unbuildable fantasies. “There’s nothing we couldn’t have done,” says Cook. For Greene, “We were trying to bridge the gap between what was built and what might be built.” Crompton, perhaps the most pragmatic of the gang, points to their proposals for applying light industrial techniques to building homes 43

more efficiently, of which then, as now, there was a dire shortage. He challenges me to name an unbuildable Archigram project. Walking Cities, I venture. If you can build an ocean liner, he says, why not them? What is the case is that there are few identifiable Archigram buildings. The Southbank Centre in London, on which Crompton, Herron and Chalk played leading roles, embodies many of their ideas. A swimming pool enclosure and kitchen addition to Rod Stewart’s country house was built. The translucent, tent-like roof of Herron’s 1990 Imagination building in London was a late flowering of Archigram’s love of lightweight structures. Cook has delivered buildings, such as a bright blue blob of a drawing school in Bournemouth, in which the curvy, organic shapes from the pages of the Archigram magazine become reality. More significant is their influence, which has filtered through their teaching into generations of students, and through their publications and exhibitions into the practice of architecture. Architects such as Nick Grimshaw (for example with his Eden Project), Rem Koolhaas and the late Will Alsop all owed something to Archigram. Their influence is most famously 44

evident in Piano and Rogers’s Centre Pompidou, whose visible pipework and promises of dynamic change owe much to Archigram, even if Greene, for one, is ambivalent about the Parisian landmark. “They stole the look without the content,” he says. “It looks as if it could move, but it doesn’t.” Perhaps their biggest gift to architecture is an attitude. You can pick holes in Archigram’s thinking, in particular the assumption that dynamic, free lifestyles would be best served by buildings with lots of moving parts. Some of their contraptions look like terribly contrived and complicated ways to achieve their stated ends. Greene, a quieter and more subtle thinker than Cook, realises this well himself: “The question is not ‘Can you do it?’ but ‘Why would you want to do it?’” But running through Archigram is the essential insight that buildings should respond to the lives that go on in and around them, and that when those lives change they should be able to change too. Also the belief that, whatever you do, you should do it with zest. It was a baggy enough group to contain differences of opinion. If Greene is “less and less interested in what things look like, compared

to what lies behind”, Cook is eternally enthralled by appearance. This diversity is also one of their strengths: “so our contributors aren’t taking the same line”, it says in Archigram 2, “but they’re each taking some sort of line.”

-Rowam Moore The Guardian

In the 1960s, an Artist Imagined an Ever-Changing City That Feels a Lot Like Today Atlas Obscura Cara Giaimo 23 March 2017

In the winter of 1956, the Dutch artist Constant Nieuwenhuys went to visit his friend, the painter Pinot Gallizio, in his hometown of Alba, Italy. When he got there, though, he found that Gallizio had some other guests. A community of Roma people, who for years had camped out in the town square when they passed through, had been forced by the local government to move their caravans, and had ended up on Gallizio’s property. They had set up camp on a muddy bit of grassland next to a river—in Nieuwenhuys’s words, “the most miserable of patches”—and, in the absence of the city pillars where they normally hung their tents, had built some temporary shelters out of petrol cans and planks. 48

During his trip, Nieuwenhuys spent a lot of time with the Roma, talking with them and playing flamenco guitar. Seeing the adversity the group faced stirred something in him. As he later recalled, “That was the day I conceived the scheme for a permanent encampment for the [Roma people] of Alba.” As he pursued this idea— and learned more about the ways in which the Roma themselves approached life—his goal slowly expanded. What if, rather than sheltering one group of people in one static structure, all people pursued a mobile, itinerant, interconnected way of living, and all structures reflected that? What would a city designed for such a lifestyle look like? Nieuwenhuys wanted to find out. For the next 15 years, the artist dropped everything to work on a set of far-out, multimedia plans for what he called New Babylon, which he described as “a camp for nomads on a planetary scale.” After sitting in storage for decades, the artworks resurfaced last fall in an exhibition at the Gemeentemuseum Den Haag, in the Netherlands. According to Laura Stamps, the curator of the exhibition, it was right on time: “What he called [nomadism] has, in a way, become a reality for a number of groups of people,”

from freelancers to refugees, she says. “The world is struggling to deal with this.” In her view, Nieuwenhuys’s work can help us explore the consequences and possibilities of our ultra-mobile, connected world.1 When he started work on New Babylon, Nieuwenhuys was already a renowned painter and sculptor. He had spent his early career as a founding member of the COBRA collective, a European avant-garde movement inspired chiefly by children’s drawings. “The child knows no other law than their spontaneous zest for life, and has no other need than to express this,” Nieuwenhuys wrote in the group’s manifesto. He saw this attitude as a good counterpoint to his experiences of the adult world, which, he wrote, had “a morbid atmosphere of inauthenticity, lies and barrenness.”

If modern cities were built to exclude certain lifestyles, perhaps the key to bringing back playfulness lay not in art, but in architecture.

In 1953, Nieuwenhuys left COBRA and took up with the New Situationists, a posse of artists and activists convinced that those two pursuits were intertwined. With the help of this interdisciplinary group, he further explored his ideas about contemporary life, and began to think about ways to change it. After a brief stint in London, during which he walked through the recently bombed city every day, he found himself fixated on how urban environments constrain the lifestyles of their citizens. As the curator Mark Wigley later wrote, Nieuwenhuys eventually came to see the modern city as “a thinly disguised mechanism for extracting productivity,” where everything from the overall layout to the structure of individual buildings encouraged particular behavior from people living there. It was his visit to Alba that brought all of these disparate threads together. If modern cities were built to exclude certain lifestyles, perhaps the key to bringing back the playfulness and freedom of childhood lay not in art, but in architecture. As Nieuwenhuys’s original plan for a permanent Roma encampment became something further-reaching, he quickly abandoned all of his other work, selling his old COBRA paintings to fund 49

this new endeavor. After his friend, the theorist and filmmaker Guy Debord, called the emerging project “Babylon,” Nieuwenhuys stuck a “New” in front of it, in homage to three exciting cities that already existed— New York, New Delhi, and New Orleans. Then he got to work bringing it to life. In Nieuwenhuys’s vision, New Babylon was a city built for a specific aspect of the human personality: what he called Homo ludens, or “the playful man.” After automation took care of production, he thought, people would be free to be purely creative, and would embrace an environment that enabled this. To that end, every single structure in New Babylon would be made from interconnected units called “sectors.” The citizens of New Babylon could rearrange these sectors at will to create different types of space, and customize the aesthetic environment within each sector—color, temperature, light, texture—with the help of “technical implements” they carried around. Nieuwenhuys believed that creating these spaces, and exploring those made by others, would scratch a long-dormant itch in the human psyche. In New Babylon, “life is an endless journey across a world that is changing so rapid 50

ly that it seems forever other,” he wrote. “Competition disappears… barriers and frontiers also disappear.” When getting these ideas across proved tricky, Nieuwenhuys marshalled a number of different media types. “He tried a lot of ways to communicate his message—everything that was within his reach,” says Stamps. He constructed miniatures out of steel and plexiglass, so as to reveal layer upon layer of customized city architecture, and placed them over maps of the Netherlands, Europe, and the world. He wrote a detailed manifesto, complete with definitions of relevant terms, and profiles of the city’s ideal citizens. He made collages, paintings, drawings, and models of everything he thought the city’s citizens might eventually build: huge helix-shaped towers, graceful atria with circular roofs, precarious stacks of boxy sectors connected by ladders. In 1960, in a speech to a full house at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk Museum, he outlined his plan in what Wigley calls a “militant tone,” sharing perhaps the most complete iteration of his plans. The interconnected sectors of New Babylon would rest above existing cities, suspended on columns like those

the Roma lost when they were kicked out of Alba’s town square. Cars would be relegated to the earth below, left to drive on roads that had been paved atop the ruins of what once were factories, and farms and nature preserves would also dot that lower landscape. All roofs would serve as open-air terraces. Eventually, Nieuwenhuys even built some immersive environments, which he unveiled at different museum exhibitions. Inside, “you could experience a bit what it was like to be a New Babylonian,” says Stamps. One example, put up again for last year’s Gemeentemuseum exhibition, is “Playful Stairs,”

a 1968 work in which thin wooden platforms are suspended from the gallery ceiling by thin black chains. Each hangs at a different level, so as to enable a kind of three-dimensional climbing. While Nieuwenhuys’s individual architectural decisions may not have held water—many have since come up again, and been roundly critiqued by urban design professionals—their motivating ideas were potent, and by the late 1960s and early 1970s, at least some of his general spirit had rubbed off on the larger populace. Other cultural movements began citing New Babylon as an influence. 51

experiential installations and aren’t afraid of political expression. “A lot of artists today feel strong because of a project like this,” she says. Strong—and, Nieuwenhuys would hope, playful, too. -Cara Giaimo Atlas Obscura Constant Nieuwenhuys, like many courageous architects of that time was trying to design a world that bettered human life based on the conditions of that era. With the war Cold War at its height and European cities being rebuilt from WWII Constant sought out to create a world that demolished the existing notion of society. He desired a Utopia in which people no longer had to work towards goals that were determined by your career path. Different eras have different visions of what makes day to day life better. In the mid 20th century, it happened to be freedom from Capitalism and the day to day monotony of a job that led to nowhere. Much different from the current desires for a better future.

Now we look at the proposals of today and the global issues they are commenting on. These projects are responding to the most talked about issues of our time in the realm of architecture, urban planning, and environmental awareness.

Tomás Saraceno Background Information Ted Talk Acount : Tomás Saraceno

Tomás Saraceno’s oeuvre could be seen as an ongoing research informed by the worlds of art, architecture, natural sciences, astrophysics and engineering. His floating sculptures, community projects and interactive installations propose and explore new, sustainable ways of inhabiting and sensing the environment. Aerocene, an open-source community project for artistic and scientific exploration initiated from Saraceno's vision, becomes buoyant only by the heat of the sun and infrared radiation from the surface 60

of earth. In 2015, Saraceno achieved the world record for the first and longest certified fully-solar manned flight. During the past decade, he has initiated collaborations with renowned scientific institutions including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Max Planck Institute, the Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, and institutions of the Exhibition Road Cultural Group, among them Imperial College and the Natural History Museum London. Saraceno lectures in institutions worldwide and directed the Institute of Architecture-related Art(IAK) at Braunschweig University of Technology, Germany (2014– 2016). He was the first person to scan, reconstruct and re-imagine

spiders' weaved spatial habitats, and he possesses the only three-dimensional spider web collection to existence. He has held residencies at Centre National d’Études Spatiales (2014–2015), MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (2012– ongoing) and Atelier Calder (2010), among others. In 2009, Saraceno attended the International Space Studies Program at NASA Ames. The same year he presented a major installation at the 53rd Venice Biennale, and was later awarded the prestigious Calder Prize. Saraceno's work is included in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, New York; SFMOMA, San Francisco; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Berlin; among others.

Tomás Saraceno Launches Albedo With Audemars Piguet During Art Basel In Miami Beach ForbesLife Ann Binlot 21 December 2018

How could a world exist that is free from fossil fuels and borders? That’s the question that the Berlin-based, Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno—who currently has an exhibition at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris—pondered in “Albedo,” the debut of the artist’s collaboration with Swiss watchmaker Audemars Piguet with the newest iteration of his project, Aerocene, which took place along the oceanfront of Miami Beach from December 6 to 10. “Aerocene,” as Saraceno describes in a statement, “is about opening up and lifting up through, just as Félix Guarttari said, the unraveling of three ecologies: environmental, social and mental, in order to start to imagine together 62

a future free of borders and free of fossil fuels: a new ethical commitment to the atmosphere, a new epoch that we call Aerocene. In Miami, everyone is welcome to join the Aerocene community as we learn to cook, fly and cool the planet using only the power of the Sun and by attuning to the Earth’s natural planetary rhythms.” Saraceno and his team created a “temporal pavilion,” made from 40 turned-out, reflective umbrellas of various sizes that created a hemispherical sundial that provided power to the daily solar flight performances by the Aerocene Explorer, a flying sculpture that looks like an enormous air-filled bag. Visitors also had the opportunity to borrow an Aerocene Explorer backpack that contained a tethered-flight starter kit that was powered by the sun. The afternoon that Audemars Piguet invited a group of journalists to chat with Saraceno, the weather wasn’t cooperating. It was too windy to demonstrate the moving sculpture. “This weather condition is more like an opportunity,” said the artist. “What I don’t want is to force to do a performance for you.” During Albedo’s five days, visitors, could partake in a number of activities. There were talks that

pondered over a world without fossil fuels, with luminaries like artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rebecca Lamarche Vadel of Palais de Tokyo, chef Antto Melas niemi, Eva Diaz of the Pratt Institute, Denis Maksimov of the Avenir Institute,, Elvia Wilk from the New School, and Olivier Audemars, vice chairman of Audemars Piguet Board of Directors. Visitors could even enjoy food slow-cooked in solar-powered cooking vessels. “Can we serve food that is not cooked in the moment there is no sun?” asked Saraceno. At the end of the day, it became apparent that “Albedo” was a number of a things: immersive art, a social experiment, and exploration of a new way of living “I try to discover every day,” said Saraceno. “I try to push the borders of what art could be and what I can do.” -Ann Binlot ForbesLife

Tomas Saraceno seeks symbiosis with spiders Lifestyle Kwoin Mee-yoo 17 November 2019

Argentinian-born artist Tomas Saraceno learned how to have a symbiotic relationship with nature through spiders. "I always think of the spiders collaborating with me, not me collaborating with them," Saraceno said during a short visit to Seoul to open his solo exhibition at Gallery Hyundai, which runs through Dec. 8. "They have lived on the planet Earth longer than humans â&#x20AC;&#x2022; over 140 million years. I think they know better than us and can teach us something." The exhibit features a wide range of Saraceno's works from his collaborations with spiders to utopian visions inspired by clouds. "Arachno Concert With Arachne (Nephila senegalensis), CosmicDust (Porus Chondrite) and the Breathing Ensemble" on the second floor invites visitors to take a step into a dark corridor and then a universe of spiders, spider webs, cosmic dust and sonic waves. 64

The centerpiece of the installation is a web built by three different species of spider and now occupied by another species. Some are weaved in a day, while others take weeks. "Each species weaves at a different speed," Saraceno explained. For the Seoul exhibit, Saraceno liaised with a Korean entomologist to find a nephila clavata to live in the web created by the other spiders. While the intricate structure of the web immediately catches the eye, the installation also captures movements of dust and transforms the movements into sound, playing from the speaker installed behind the web. As the temperature and the amount of light in the room influence the artwork, visitors are also a component of the installation. This is the reason why Saraceno calls the piece a concert, comparing it to an orchestra.

The artist suggested taking one's eyes off bright smartphone screens and let them adapt to the darkness. The artist suggested taking one's eyes off bright smartphone screens and let them adapt to the darkness. "Try to perceive the darkness, the sound of breathing and the movement of dust â&#x20AC;&#x2022; try to attune to other rhythms," Saraceno said of the work which opens up the awareness of species other than people living on Earth. "The longer your eyes adjust to the dark, the more you will start to see." Saraceno's obsession with spiders began when he was a child at his grandparents' home in Argentina. While most people try to sweep away cobwebs as soon as they see them, Saraceno was fascinated by the arachnids living in the attic and the light shining on the dust and the spider webs. According to the artist, even now there are 150 spiders in his studio in Berlin, living in every corner. His affection for spiders has gone beyond the gallery. He launched a mobile application "Arachnomancy Cards," as part of "Spider/Web Pavilion 7" at the 2019 Venice Biennale. Users can have their fortunes told if they submit photos of spiders and spider webs, which will go into Saraceno's re

search archive. The deck of 33 cards will give insights taken from spiders and cobwebs. "This app makes people recognize cobwebs around them," the artist said. "A Thermodynamic Imaginary" on the first floor consists of hand blown glass spheres suspended from the ceiling. The whimsical installation of light and shadow resembles constellations, the moon or bubbles floating in the sky. Using thermodynamic imagery, Saraceno invites visitors to "the blurred figure of space, nudging and blending the texture of time." Saraceno also presents his idea of utopia in "Cloud Cities" and "Cloud Constellations" in the basement. He created "Seoul/Cloud Cities" for this exhibition, combining landmark images of Seoul with geometrical shapes taken from clouds, universes, foam and neural communication networks. The artist studied architecture and the idea of architecture is reflected in most of his work, including the modules of "Cloud Constellations."

These futuristic installations are based on the artist's long-term research project on an alternative form of urbanism and habitats. Saraceno suggests airborne dwellings, only using environment-friendly energy such as air and solar power. -Kwan Mee-yoo Lifestyle

Tomás Saraceno Deploys Installation Made of Recycled Plastic Bags Hi Fructose Caro 9 July 2015

Ever wonder what happened to those plastic bags you recycled? Some of them may have ended up in Argentine artist Tomás Saraceno’s latest installation. “Becoming Aerosolar” is Saraceno’s debut exhibition in Austria, currently on view at the 21er Haus art museum in Vienna through August 30th. The exhibit highlights a series of sculptures and objects inspired by how we experience our environment – but it is Saraceno’s “flying museum” on display that takes this exploration to new heights. This is not the first time that the artist’s work has gone aerial. He is well known for his otherworldly environments that imagine sustainable models for future habitats. Saraceno’s tent-like inflated installations have allowed people to walk on air and wander into magical, 72

opalescent domes. In 2006, he presented an idea for floating “Cloud Cities,” large interconnected stainless steel pods that contemplated mid-air living. The artist’s latest work was created out of thousands of recycled plastic bags that float upwards like a hot-air balloon when heated by the sun. Saraceno’s main endeavour is to speculate how we can incorporate knowledge into living choices that don’t hurt our planet. Here, he presents a unique way for homes to harness the sun’s light for energy. Although his proposal is a conceptual one and doesn’t address functionality, it does make one think about how our energy resources circulate.

-Caro Hi Fructose

Would You Live in a Floating City in the Sky? During a TEDtalk given by Tomรกs Saraceno in April of 2017, Saraceno speaks on his devotion to bettering the world by entering a new era in human existence, what he calls the Aeroscene. The subject of this talk is of his work of finding ways to live and travel in structures that require no use of fossil fuels. His research explores the possibilities offered by simply using the power of the Earths natural wind currents and the power of the Sun. He begins with his project of a floating museum using only recycled plastic bags that had to be cleaned. With these bags, he and his team cleaned them and stitched them together, turning the discarded plastic bags as a balloon that would eventually begin to lift into the air using only the heat from the sun. The same idea that made this installation float is the same thermodynamic property that allows hot air balloons to float, except, his work uses no fossil fuels. It was the first step in a long journey towards 74

a society free from fossil fuels. He goes on to explain the logistics behind making human travel a via balloons that only use the power of the sun. He partnered with MIT to create a program that uses the natural wind patterns of the Earth to show that with the right wind patterns you would be able to get from one side of the planet to another. The draw back from this is that the program uses only the passive abilities of the

Earth and therefore the appropriate time to travel may be a week from when you first decide to travel this way. The other problem is actually being able to lift a human being with only the power of the sun. Next, Saraceno goes into the science and mathematics behind lifting specific weights and the size of balloons needed. With his formula he explains the theoretically, with a balloon large enough you would be able to float an entire

city. To end the TEDtalk, Saraceno reminds us of when the age of the anthropocentric begain, which was in the deserts of Nevada with the detonation of the first atomic bomb in 1945. The last thing he leaves us with from his speech is that in that same desert on November 8th, 2015 marked a new era, the era of the Aerocene, marked by success of actually lifting a human using only the power of the Sun. 75

HYDROGENASE Vincent Callebaut Architects Vincent Callebaut

ALGAE FARM TO RECYCLE CO2 FOR BIO-HYDROGEN AIRSHIP Between engineering and biology, Hydrogenase is one of the first projects of bio-mimicry which draws its inspiration from the beauty and the shapes of the nature, but also and especially from the qualities of its materials and its self-manufacturing processes. The new green revolution is really in progress and enables us to design the air mobility of the foil after shock, 100% self-sufficient in energy and zero carbon emission! This inhabitated vertical aircraft inaugures a clean and ethic mobility to meet the needs of the population en distress touched by the natural and sanitary catastrophes, and all that without any runway! Its architecture is subversive and fundamentally critic towards the ways of living of our contemporary society that we have to reinvent totally! Let’s take off thanks to biofuels and let’s propel to the eco-responsible transport of the future!

2015: Biofuels of the 3rd generation, the challenge of a sustainable mobility ! : The price of the fuel has just reached a new historical record by passing 75 dollars the barrel in 2010. Within 10 years, we could reach the famous "Hubbert Peak", the precise moment from which the worldwide fuel production will begin to decrease because of shortages. In such a context, the massive resort to renewable energies and nanotechnologies, that do not emit gas with greenhouse effect, is becoming an absolute economical, technological and political priority! From Queensland’s university to the Karlsruhe’s one, going through Berkeley in California, the « third generation » biofuels are in gestation and will revolutionize our future sustainable land or air mobility. Their main strengths: they do not compete either with the food cultures nor with the forest spaces and can be developed naturally everywhere in the world even in arid territories, the whole tending to a targeted bio-remediation of the industrial CO2 ! Able to produce electricity and biofuel without emit CO2 or other polluting substances, the hydrogen especially is nowadays such as a very promising clean energy source. Therefore (its production that respects the environment and

in sufficient quantity) is a study theme that interests the biggest scientific international groups. Actually, at the end of the 90s it has been discovered that the private sulphur micro-seaweeds go from the oxygen production (classical photosynthesis) to the hydrogen production. Such as a growing tree uses the solar radiance to manufacture organic material, we aim today at producing by photosynthesis some dihydrogen (i.e. gaseous hydrogen) from living micro-organisms as seaweeds from the ÂŤ Chlamydomonas reinhardtii Âť family that owns enzyme of hydrogenase type. According to biologists, the output obtained by a farm with micro-seaweeds would be superior to those made currently with farming means to produce biodiesel or bioethanol. This could be estimated at 1000 litres of hydrogen for 330 grams of chlorophyll per day whereas for example colza produces roughly only 1000 litres of oil per hectare. According to industrials a hectare of seaweeds could thus produce organically 120 times more biofuels than a hectare of colza, soya or sunflower. Moreover, a farm with seaweeds is a true miniature biochemical power station able to absorb CO2 as main nutrient by 80

photosynthesis accelerated by producing hydrogen in vitro or in bioreactors. This natural process, nourishing itself with our waste enables thus to recycle under the effect of the sun, in seaweeds or sea water baths, up to 80% of carbonic gas and NOx (nitrogen oxides also very impacting on the greenhouse effect). The global organic cycle enables therefore to revaluate our carboned rejections such as for example those are coming from filters with particles of our cars, reactors of our airplanes or also our rockets coming from thermal power stations with coal or gas. 2020: Towards an aerial revolution and agree generation of airships ? : The builders of airplanes get involved at maxima until 2020 according to an international agreement to be less polluting (reduction by 80% of their rejection in nitrogen oxides), to be thriftier in fuel (reduction of 20% of the fuel quantity by carried passenger) and finally to be more silent (reduction of 10 decibels, i.e. twice less noise). But what will happen when there will be no more fuel? The end of air freight in 2030 ? According to forecasts, every year from 2010, 200 billion of Chinese people will

fly to spend holidays abroad. After the last born A380 of Airbus and the 777-200LR of Boeing, the airplanes of the future will not have such as their previous energy-consumers to be designed without taking into account the notions of sustainable development and the respect of the environment. A theme totally ignored fifteen years ago in this sector! This transport must be eco-designed from renewable energies and present a statement of carbon emission equal to zero! No airplane, no helicopter, no aircraft, the project ÂŤ Hydrogenase Âť marks a new generation of state-of-the-art hybrid airships. It is dedicated to humanitarian missions, rescue operations, installation of platforms for scientific studies, and of course to air freight. Then, complementary activities could be entertainment, eco-tourism, hotel, human transports, air media coverage and territorial waters surveillance. This mode of transport is certainly less interesting than the piggyback or sea freight and slower than airplane; however it needs less infrastructure and multimodal platforms (runway, freeways, ship/truck alternationâ&#x20AC;Ś). It consumes thus less territory and will progressively enable to heal our landscapes slashed

by the transport network leading to a massive deforestation. Therefore, it costs 10 times less for the carriage of heavy loads as well as traveller transport, and everything without damaging the planet! For the specialists of logistical transport facing the long lasting absence of appropriated road or airport infrastructures in many parts of the world (desert and oceans), this new generation is also very expected to link production sites and using sites. Moreover, flying free health care centres or even country hospitals could also interfere during natural catastrophes, where lives could be in danger. It could also explore and help underprivileged territories of the third world by carrying the raw materials of our globalised alimentation to those who are hungry in remote places! Hydrogenase is thus a jumbo jet vessel (DGP) that flies at an average of 2 000 meters high. This cargo measures almost 400 meters high for 250 000m3. It can carry up to 200 tons of freight at 175 km/h (i.e. twice the speed of a ship and more than one and a half time than the one of a truck). Seven times slower than an airplane, it has an action potential between 5 and 10 000km and re-teach our contemporary travellers the long time of sea cruises and the praise of the 81

slowness. The history of the transports which was until now summarized in a study that reveals to always go faster, is soon finished for the benefit of “better travel” in airship! 2030: Hydrogenase, the 100% self-sufficient organic airship of the future The project Hydrogenase brings to question the « always faster » of our frenetic society and thinks differently to the mobility and services. With bionic look, this inhabited vertical airship sets in the heart of a floating farm of seaweeds that reload it directly with bio-hydrogen. These two interdependent entities are both nomad and organic, the first one flies in the sky and the second one on the seas and oceans. The proactive ship flourishing in the air : The semi-rigid not pressurised airship stretches vertically around an arborescent spine that air-dynamically twists on more than 400 meters high and 180 meters of diameter. Forming a big flower ready to open, the spaces divide in cross under the shape of petals that welcome respectively the main

sectors of activities: housing, offices, scientific laboratories and entertainment. The stem around the one these functional petals structure themselves, welcome the vertical circulations, the technical premises and the goods warehouses for the freight. These 4 inhabited spaces are included between 4 great bubbles inflated with bio-hydrogen, a renewable energy. These bubbles are made with a rigid hull in light alloy shaped with twisted longitudinal beams linked together by wide sinusoidal rings. Every end is finished by a cone, and the one at the bottom, the most sharpened one carries the stabilizers and the rudders of deepness and of direction. This framework is covered by a double layer of waterproof, fireproof, glazed canvas to reduce the resistance to advancement. The in-between is divided into slices in which there are small balloons full of helium. The helium mattress in periphery enables to protect the balloons of bio-hydrogen and helium, the remaining 30% are provided by the aerodynamic of the airship twisted fuselage with the speed, as for an airplane.

This type of airship is of course heavier than a flexible aerostat of same cubing because of the weight of the structure, but it can reach higher speeds, thanks to the solidity of its hull in titan, and carry more tons thanks to the ability to build always bigger layers (10000 m3 in 1900, 70 000 m3 in 1924 and 200 000m3 in 1938, 250 000 m3 in 2010). What distinguishes also such a machine from classical aircrafts from the past is that this one is heavier than the air and flies thanks to the Archimedes’ thrust (that does every balloon or aircraft), to helixes or at its subtle twisted aerodynamic that enables to reduce the oscillations of the limited layer. The fact that it is heavier than the air enables actually descents faster without having especially to eject gas. Moreover, the sustentation is based on the compression and the decompression of the biogas. Hydrogenase can thus be lighter or heavier according to the wished needs and the height. In order to build a proactive airship with positive energy, we also have integrated all the renewable energies. Actually, whereas the inflatable bubbles are glue-backed with flexible photovoltaic cells the four wings of the vessel are each of them inlayed with turbo-propellers with recuperation of energy. These

20 wind propellers are articulated around orbital rings which enable them to go from the horizontal position at the take-off to the vertical position assuring the vessel a navigation speed of 175km/h. The inhabited spaces integrate by steps vegetable gardens photopurifyng the used waters, the biomasses damaging the organic waters and loaded fuel cells. Nothing is lost, everything is recycled and transformed ! On top of absorbing the solar energy, this flying castle draws its inspiration from the biomimicry technologies and is built in lighter and more resistant composite materials (fibreglass and carbon fibre) in order to reduce the weight of its structure at the maximum. The fitting is thus self cleaning, in nanostructured glass inspired from the lotus leave that does not get wet. The vessel is thus made of « intelligent layers » avoiding for example the accumulation of ice or snow and « self-separable ceramics » offering a bigger resistance to the split and that fill the cracks. This bionic coating draws also its inspiration from shark skin that enables without being toxic to avoid the adhesion of bacteria whereas the four wings present irregularities of surface, as the finely beaded whale fins do, in order to reduce the tur 85

bulences. The green industry meets thus through this bionic prototype the expectations of the consumption, the always more demanding antipollution regulation and the rarefaction of resources. The floating organic farm on seas and oceans :

The floating farm is a true organic purifying station composed of 4 carbon wells in which the green seaweeds recycle our carbonated waste brought by ships. This is directly dedicated to feed organically in biohydrogen the proactive airship. It replaces thus the petrol station as the runway for traditional airplanes and looks like a weaving of fine amphibian laces! Actually, it sets up as much underneath as on top of the sea surface and respects the quadripartite sharing out in petals of the whole Hydrogenase project. Continuing the 4 wings of the pneumatic tower, 4 great arches structure this circular platform and distribute vertically all the levels of the central ring inhabited by the scientists. At the surface, these arches are covered by thermal and photovoltaic solar shields whereas under the water they are set with 32 hydro-turbines transforming the tidal energy of the sea streams into

electricity. Energically self-sufficient, this farm organises on a radiant plan, the seaweed bioreactors exposed to the zenith sun under the lenticular accelerators for a better photochemical output. The whole set forms four gardens dedicated to the accelerated photosynthesis where we access through marinas setting the exchanges between this true new floating city and the surrounding coasts. On top of producing clean energy, this floating purifying station is also an incredible observatory of the sea fauna and flora that fight for the protection of ecosystems and for the revitalization of the beds of corals and of endangered species. It is a true cleaner of seas and oceans by skimming and damaging as main nutrient the floating waste banks of our energy-consuming civilisation. Hydrogenase is thus a project of environmental resiliency that will enable to invent a clean mobility according to a « cradle to cradle » cycle respecting our planet by assuring also the technological evolution of the human adventure ! As biotechnological prototype, it aims at being the symbiosis of men actions and their positive impacts on the nature. By imitating the processes of natural ecosystems, it deals with reinventing the

industrial, town-planning and architectural processes to produce clean solutions and create an industry where everything is reused, either back to the ground under the shape of not toxic « organic nutrients », or back to the industry under the shape of “technical nutrients” able to be indefinitely recycled.

-Vincent Callebaut Vincent Callebaut Architects

Abstract Interface is an interior design firm that focuses on the products and development of biophilic and sustainable design. In their book â&#x20AC;&#x153;14 Patterns of Biophilic Designâ&#x20AC;? they investigate and produces a series of typologies of biophilic design. In their endeavor they have been able to clearly articulate these typologies. In my research I will be using these typologies to re-evaluate projects I have done in order to understand the practical application of these typologies.

This model allows the author of a piece of work to gauge a level of biophilia within a project, whether these decisions were made passively or consciously such as in the case of my past projects that were largely made passively.

In order to understand the application of these typologies I have placed a selection of my previous projects within the context. From this, I have been able to make a chart for Biophilic Design to allow any project to be analyzed accordingly. Additionally, this model could be used in the production of many possibilities of design projection: Architecture Urban Planning Interior Design Collage Painting

Nature In the Space Nature in the Space describes the direct, physical and transient presence of nature in a space or place. Visual Connection with Nature Non-Visual Connection with Nature Non-Rhythmic Sensual Stimuli Thermal / Airflow Variability Presence of Water Dynamic and Diffused Light Connection to Natural Systems

Visual Connection With Nature A view to elements of nature, living systems & natural processes. • Feels whole • Grabs one’s attention • Stimulating or calming • Conveys a sense of time, weather and other living things

Envirohome This project was the result of a 3-day competition for an environmentally friendly home located in Tampa, Florida. This project uses many passive systems to reduce its ecological footprint on the world. It takes advantage of solar panels and a passive system that allows air to flow through the home such as pivoting ground-to-ceiling windows. It is connected to nature via a fence of nature that creates its own ecosystem in the back yard that is separate from surrounding neighbors.

Non-Visual Connection with Nature Other senses than seeing - hearing, feeling, smelling, tasting that cause an intended and positive reference to nature, living systems or processes. â&#x20AC;˘ Feels fresh & well-balanced â&#x20AC;˘ Ambient conditions are perceived as complex & variable but also familiar & comfortable â&#x20AC;˘ Sounds, aromas, and textures are reminiscent of being outdoors in nature

Ringos Mill CSA This projects was a farm building located near a historic covered bridge in Eastern Kentucky. The project asked to design a farm building that uses only material that is local and available, there were no mechanical systems and no lighting. To create passive systems the design uses spaced 2x4 wood paneling to reflect the experience within the bridge as well as allow light and air to infiltrate the space. To the right is a model built to show this condition. The experience within the space is one that is non-visual because it relies entirely on the feel of flowing air and light entering.

Non-Rhythmic Sensual Stimuli Random & temporary connections with nature that may be analyzed but not predicted precisely. â&#x20AC;˘ Feels as if you are suddenly exposed to something special, something fresh. Interesting, stimulating and energizing â&#x20AC;˘ A brief but welcome distraction

Re-Engagement Center This program of this project is a re-engagement center which is a school for children that have fallen out of school as a result to illness, constant travel, or troubles in relation to home life. The design creates an environment that focuses on education. The design is onward looking with views of the landscape being limited and specifically determined. Showing this is a rendering of the education level of this building. Using channel glass to obscure the information coming from outside of the building except in a location that looks out towards the nearby hill of trees.

Thermal / Airflow Variability Subtle changes in air temperature, relative humidity, airflow across the skin, and surface temperatures that mimic natural environments. â&#x20AC;˘ Feels refreshing, active, alive, invigorating and comfortable. â&#x20AC;˘ Feeling of both flexibility and a sense of control

Ringos Mill CSA This projects was a farm building located near a historic covered bridge in Eastern Kentucky. The project asked to design a farm building that uses only material that is local and available, there were no mechanical systems and no lighting. This idea focuses on the infiltration of natural phenomenon such as air and light To the right is a diagram of light infiltration and a rendering of its exposure to the elements.

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Presence of Water A condition that enhances the experience of a place through the seeing, hearing or touching of water. â&#x20AC;˘ Feels powerful, fascinating and attractive â&#x20AC;˘ Fluidity, sound, lighting, closeness, and accessibility each contribute to whether a space is calming, stimulating or both

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Dynamic and Diffused Light Provide varying intensities of light & shadow that change over time to create conditions that appear in nature. â&#x20AC;˘ Shows signs of time and movement â&#x20AC;˘ Causes feelings of drama and intrigue â&#x20AC;˘ Buffered with a sense of time

Urban Monastery The Urban Monastery uses a brise soleil system of aluminum panels to limit the amount of light that may enter the building as well as having a large light well in the center to bring light into every level of the building. The image of the model to the right shows the result of this design decision.

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Connection to Natural Systems Awareness of natural processes, especially seasonal and temporal changes characteristics of a healthy ecosystem. • Evokes a relationship to a greater whole • Makes one aware of seasonality and cycles of life • Relaxing, nostalgic, profound or enlightening, and frequently anticipated

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Nature of the Space The strongest experiences are achieved through the creation of obscured views and revelatory moments; co-mingled with patterns of Nature in the Space and Natural Analogues Prospect Refuge Mystery Risk / Peril

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Prospect An unblocked view over a distance for surveillance & planning. â&#x20AC;˘ Feels open and freeing â&#x20AC;˘ Gives a sense of safety and control, particularly alone or when in unfamiliar environments

House of Culture This project is a large multi-program building that takes advantage of its surroundings. Situated in a rural part of Eastern Kentucky, this project has a 360 degree view of the terrain which includes: Streams and Creeks Open Fields Pockets of forestry Varying heights of hills

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Refuge A place for withdrawal, from environmental conditions or the main flow of activity, in which the individual is protected from behind and overhead. • Feels safe & provides a sense of retreat & withdrawal – for work, protection, rest or healing • Feels separate or unique from surroundings • Spatial characteristics can be thoughtful, embracing & protective but not necessarily disconnected

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Mystery hidden views or other sensory devices that stimulate the individual to travel deeper into the environment. â&#x20AC;˘ Tangible sense of anticipation, or of being teased â&#x20AC;˘ Offers the senses a kind of denial and reward that make one want to investigate further â&#x20AC;˘ Makes one want to understand and / or explore

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Risk / Peril An identifiable threat coupled with a reliable safeguard. â&#x20AC;˘ Feels exciting, and with an suggested threat, maybe even a little harmful or negative â&#x20AC;˘ Feeling of danger, but intriguing all the same, worth exploring and possibly even irresistible

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Understanding My Projects After understanding the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design, I then chose to create a chart that grades architectural designs. I first started with grading past projects that I have done to see where there exist within the world of biophilia. It was interesting to see how biophilia can passively make its way into design, at least in my case. In some of these projects they hit more marks than many of the top biophilic projects shown on the page 125. But does this make your building more biophilic? It is hard to synthesis a solution to biophilic design since there are many ways to create an effect using the ideas layed out in the 14 Patterns of Biophilic Design. The question goes from "Is this a biophilic design?" to "How do we design these types of patterns to create a higher tier of biophilic design?" As I went through the nostalgia of my previous projects, it was great to revisit old projects and think about how they could have been re-designed to create a building that responds and is more involved with nature. Which brings me to the design projection. 120

In a series of collages shown ahead, I decided to take the project of mine that recieved the least amount of ticks on the chart and "return it to nature." It is meant to pay homage to nature and allow it to take control of something that never really cared about the existence of nature. It is able to show the contradiction that exists within the project and its capability of being biophilic. The series of collages show the same project in different landscapes, that project being "Prytaneum." A project eith the program of a civic center and place for celebration. It was a response to the ancient Geek prytaneum that held the eternal flame for the city and acted as a place of celebration after a Victory of battle. If a project was made based off the research I have done, I believe that a great start to a semester long project of biophilic design would be to do as I did and return your least biophilic design back to nature. Understand what you had missed out on in your project in order to inform future decisions on a semester long journey of biophilic design.

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