A HISTORY OF THE INTERIOR A HISTORY OF THE INTERIOR004
The New College in Oxford is anything but ‘New’. Founded in 1379, it is one of the oldest buildings on the Oxford campus. And like most other colleges built at that time, it has a Great Dining Hall, and it’s story goes something like this.
It was discovered in the early 1900’s by an inquisitive Entomologist with a pen-knife, that it’s massive Oak beams ( some measured an astonishing 45’ in length, and almost 2’ square in section ) were suffering some sort of Beetle infestation. While this excited the Entomologist, it positively dismayed the College council. Where would they find such massive beams? How would they repair this incredible structure?
Most colleges like Oxford are endowed with lands scattered across the country. One of the Junior fellows then tentatively suggested, it maybe possible that there be some Oak trees on the extensive grounds that the College owned? So the College council called in the College Forester, who himself hadn’t visited the campus in quite a few years.
“Well sirs, we was wonderin’ when you’d be askin’ . ”
The College Forester pulled at his forelock, and said,
Upon further inquiry it was discovered that when the College was founded, a grove of oaks had been planted to replace the beams in the dining hall when they became Becausebeetly. oak beams always become beetly in the end.
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This plan had been passed down from one Forester to the next for over five hundred years saying “You don’t cut them oaks. Them’s for the College Hall.
This myth of the Oak Beams of New College has been retold multiple times, and many versions exist. It’s incredible today though, that acts of intergenerational kindness can exist within the building trade. What mechanisms can ensure the safe-guarding of a valuable resource for over 5 centuries?
It is also comforting that somewhere on the land owned by the College are Oaks that will one day, be ready to use in the great hall, assuming of course that the Institution and it’s symbiosis with a sensitive Forestry endures.
What planning processes in Design and Architecture can create these symbioses between the Environment, growing resources and planning for 100 year futures? What does the Nature of our knowledge systems need to be so that we can document, transit and then be stewards of these knowledge systems? How can the growing of Future resources benefit Future cities and create valuable resources and banks of experience for everyone in the ecosystem?
What aspects of Design and Architecture code practices of inter-generational kindness How does Kindness occur in our minds how can designed environments stimulate this urge
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The Neurology of Kindness is truly Altruisticallyfascinating.inclinedpersons demonstrate significantly more activity in the posterior superior temporal cortex (when compared with less altruistic individuals). Individual acts of kindness release both endorphins and oxytocin, and create new neural connections. The implications for such plasticity of the brain are that altruism and kindness become self-authenticating.
Indeed, data from FMR Brain scans show that even the act of imagining compassion and kindness activates the soothing and affiliation component of the emotional regulation system of the brain.
This myth of the Oak Beams of New College has been retold multiple times, and many versions exist. It’s incredible today though, that acts of intergenerational kindness can exist within the building trade. What mechanisms can ensure the safe-guarding of a valuable resource for over 5 centuries?
It is also comforting that somewhere on the land owned by the College are Oaks that will one day, be ready to use in the great hall, assuming of course that the Institution and it’s symbiosis with a sensitive Forestry endures.
What are the Sacred duties that the trade of Design and Architecture must perform to responsibly engage with the Future
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Where can we look for clues to the kind KindnessInter-generationalofthatmaymakeusGoodAncestors ?
To build a city where it is impossible to build a city is madness in itself, but to build there one of the most elegant and grandest of cities is the madness of genius.
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Alexander Herzen
The Floating city of Venice is one of the singularly most extraordinary cities in the World. Built across 118 individual islands, it magically floats on a base of mud, water and reeds.
The City of Venice has waged one of the longest, most energetic battles with it’s context, and in sustaining a thriving urban centre, may well hold keys to our own response to rampant Climate change.
Venice may well be a poster-girl for the kind of city environment we will be faced with across a variety of coastal zones. The sea reclaiming much of the edge, a constant negotiation between land and water, uncertain tides and massive variations. How would we build future cities on uncertain landscapes? What are the materials we need to conceive of today that will be used in those future cities, and what would their ecological footprint be? Can we afford to again pour insane amounts of concrete in a future which is already heated up beyond control?
The Venetian settlers pounded thousands of wooden piles into the mud, so close together that they almost touched. Naturally water-resistant timbers from the mainland such as elm, oak, poplar, and mainly alder formed the material of the piles. The tops were then cut off to create solid platforms for the foundations of the City. Many structures of the City still stand on 1000 year old wooden piles.
Closer to home, 388 year old Ponte de Linhares Causeway along the flood plains of the Mandovi was considered to be the longest in the world ( at 3.2 Km ) when it was completed in 1634. Designed and built by the Jesuits of the College of St.Paul in Old Goa, it was built on shifting alluvial soil and stabilised with the trunk of the Zambo tree. The planting of Mangroves along the road edge in the 1980s added an extra buffer to delay the ravages of time.
Modern Architecture in Venice also builds on and expands these ancient foundations. It is a precarious new way of building, and requires a fundamentally different understanding of structure. For us to be Good Ancestors, research must begin NOW into how these floating cities can be made in sustainable, even celebratory ways.
Somewhere there is a forest of Zambo trees waiting to be planted to service the needs of our flooded cities in 50 years. Large-scale Mangrove plantations may protect us from the worst tidal variations, and they may serve our Future generations with some welcome respite.
In a generation where we get an instant dopamine rush with a barrage of “likes” on our feeds, how can we sow the seeds of projects that are sure to outlive us. What pleasure can we gain from setting into motion events that will only see fruition a century from now? What kind of mind is rewarded by a 100 year project?
Projects of this kind benefit from a few values that are denied to the purely short-term conceptions of Architecture and Design. They need to create enthusiasm and patronage models that outlive the ‘conception’ phase of Theyprojects.are by nature promiscuously collaborative, since a single vision will not see them through till completion. Multiple voices get added on, artists add embellishments, patrons come and go and the building gets an energy that it has accumulated over generations.
The Milan Cathedral took nearly six centuries to complete: construction began in 1386, and the final details were completed in 1965.
The Generation that lays the Foundations deep in the Earth is acutely aware that it will be their descendants who raise the Spires on the top.
