Michael Hensel: Morpho-Ecologies
A new discourse of heterogenous space and performance-oriented design
A new biological approach to design challenges the current mechanistic paradigm for (architectural) design and engineering. What are the consequences of committing to and developing an operative discourse of heterogeneous space, of fusing Robin Evans discussion of the relations between spatial arrangements and social formations with Rayner Banham’s reflections on non-substantial architectures, the spaces defined by gradient thresholds, and infusing this by lessons learned from nature? What are the potentials that arise from this fusion in terms of a spatial politic, for a model of democratic space and ultimately for social interactions and formations, as well as social and environmental sustainability? These questions will be discussed and examined with regards to an instrumental framework for design.
Defne Sunguroglu: Complex Brick Assemblies
Rethinking everyday elementary building components as highly performative material systems
Bricks have been used for millennia in many inventive ways. Can anything be added to the existing repertoire? Can we rethink the way in which elementary components such as bricks may be assembled to achieve unprecedented performative capacity? Can a design approach towards such assemblies inform an entire methodological revision of standard design procedure and lead to new methods and techniques that underlie a new paradigm of performance-oriented design? The research into Complex Brick Assemblies raises these and many more questions and demonstrates that a bottom-up approach to design holds the potential for entirely revising our view of apparently mundane everyday materials that facilitate the making of the built environment that result in spatial arrangements and micro-climates that may either be monotonous and/or prohibiting or, in turn, immensely rich in making provision for human inhabitation.
Aleksandra Jaeschke: Continuous Laminae
High-Performance biodegradable material systems made from laminated timber
While learning from existing timber laminate structures, Continuous Laminae aims at a much greater performative capacity and a higher level of sustainability. It proposes a self-supporting material system made of continuously laminated wood that is capable of bearing wind loads, coping with abrasion and utilizing changes in relative humidity, while simultaneously modulating air flow, light intensities and potential interaction with aggregates such as sand accumulation in coastal locations. In order to combine such a range of performance requirements in one sustainable and biodegradable system the research adopts two strategies: [i] continuous use of one material (laminated wood with no joints), and [ii] use of curved geometries (assuring structural and material integrity while allowing for control of environmental dynamics through local differentiations).
This brief presentation of the system logics, the development process, potential performative capacities and applications, seeks to demonstrate the tremendous potential of timber when assembled intelligently - considering both material characteristics and capacities on a micro-scale from a Biomimetic approach and at a macro-scale with respect to manufacturing and assembly logics.
Andrea Di Stefano: Material Expressionism
Ecological implications of non-authorial techniques and non-authoritarian technologies in design
Recalling the bare beauty of a settlement in the mountains, Adolf Loos notes the architect’s paradoxical incapacity to reach the aesthetic heights of the work of farmer builders and building engineers. The two extreme figures meet in a material domain where ethic and aesthetic coincide under the laws of nature.
Postulating a new paradigm for the 20th century he defines its limits and unconsciously predicts our present, when philosophy and science has rediscovered nature and is about to reconstruct it. Two apparently oppositional forces, economy driving technological advancements and ecology contrasting its wild applications, are called to forge a new alliance, under the laws of nature. Can architecture, literally the mastering of techniques and technologies, find its role in this game and become a driving force in the construction of our environment?
The work of OCEAN NORTH seeks to challenge the discipline beyond its closeted discourse by hacking the most advanced scientific modus operandi to tie again human and environmental becomings through a unique form of material expression. Banned any return to basic nostalgia or demagogical trust in the future, our research starts from bottom-up, aiming at affecting the whole.
Birger Sevaldson: Revisiting system thinking - beyond the object
Ecology is the ultimate product of system theory. Sustainable design should engage in the development of a new level of system thinking.
System thinking has become to a certain degree implicit in design thinking after its emergence in the 60ties. Hence it is on one hand taken for granted and has to a certain degree become implicit in design thinking, but on the other hand it has partly been given up because of the difficulties with analysing and managing ever more fuzzy information, complex scenarios and uncertain future implications.
If designers want to engage in a design paradigm that starts from bottom-up and aims to involve in the whole we need to engage in the construction of a next generation of system related thinking and action.