Objects: Architecture and Nature

Objects: Architecture and Nature

Within the Object-Oriented Ontology (OOO), we can think of architecture and nature as equal objects. In this case, there is no hierarchy between them but instead they have an equal value. Looking deeper into how each object works, we find that they are constantly interconnected, but that they also coexist one inside the other. There is a series of affiliations between these objects, and the more we understand them the more we know they are connected. They exist in way that they have a gap between what they are and how they appear, and are constant footprints of hyperobjects. For this book, architecture, urbanization, cities, nature, and global warming are all hyperobjects. These hyperobjects magnify the wierdness of things for our inspection, and are not simply mental constructs but real entities whose reality is withdrawn from humans. As these hyperobjects are interconnected and correlated, they remain without any hierarchy inbetween.

Figure 7: Chunk model of “Urban Catalyst” Fall Studio 2019 Project by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Oliver Schaper and Emilija Landsbergis. Pratt GAUD 2019.

Figure 8: Chunk model from Material Urbanism Summer Studio 2019 Project by Valeria Cedillos and Victoria Tsukerman. Instructor: Jonas Coersmeier. Pratt GAUD 2019.

Since there is no nature to which one must cling, what matters is not the anesthetized experience of feeling part of something bigger but establishing bonds of intimacy between beings and objects. The city and global warming are hyperobjects, in which their internal and external operations and relations within the environment are also objects. Every decision we as humans make is directly related with them, and we are glued to this phenomenological situation. These hyperobjects are there, no matter what we are aware of. They are present and impossible to shake off, like a viscous material that is all around us. We can’t get rid of neither of them, and they do not manifest at a specific time and place but rather are stretched out in such a way as to challenge the idea that a thing must occupy a specific place and time. These hyperobjects seem to inhabit a human casual system in which association, correlation, and probability are the only things we have to go on.

Figure 9: Pedestrian activity map.

Figure 10: Pedestrian activity map

Both hyperobjects, cities and global warming, have challenged and generated certain conflicts within them and around them on our planet. Because of this, the idea of interplanetary urbanization gives us the change to replace those objects with external ones, such as life on Mars. We are exerting our efforts to ease conflicts on earth while we still need expand our living space. We need to find a place to take our problems “away” Fortunately, the great progress of technology in various fields is bringing about new possibilities for interplanetary urbanization. People had left footprint on the moon fifty years ago. Now, landing on the Mars is appealing and it could be the “away” we are searching for. Even though It would make more sense to design in a dark ecological way, admitting our coexistences with toxic substances that we have created and exploited, we need to find solutions for future apocalyptic conditions in the present “here”.

Ecology means thinking of home, hence world. Eco = oikos = home

Home is unstable: who knows where it ends and where it starts?

In urban design the term “away” is constantly used. What we need to understand is that there is no “away” in our same planet. The word “away” just generates confusion since it implies that there is some mysterious dimension to which we can send all our mistakes or problems. Instead, we should understand that away is here and how they are interconnected. In another way, we could create a new “away”, but designing it to be the correct escape and the opportunity to do things right. What if this “away” can be found in our same planet.

Urban hyperobjects are impossible to handle right, and we have little time to learn them. The actions we retrieve from them is what makes events stay in sync. Their future is somehow beamed onto our present. By dismantling the traditional hierarchies of urbanism into urban hyperobjects, we can then learn their different levels and scales weaving information, program, and form.