We need to accept that architecture should not define space, but is space and that space can be made of immaterials.
A related shift can be seen in the work of several artists and architects who have been turning to water as a “material” that brings them closer to the natural world as they create living environments which defy the rigidity of conventional architecture. Diller and Scofidio’s Blur Building in Switzerland is shrouded in a perpetual cloud of man-made fog. Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson used humidifiers to produce a fine mist in his Weather Project, which featured a huge artificial sun of pure yellow light. And in Dubai, where the natural environment and artifice spectacularly clash in underwater hotels and on a plethora of man-made islands, a massive entertainment complex is planned which will be “veiled by a puff of condensation that will hover in the air atop rain-like stilts.” Meanwhile, Ice Hotels, often featuring “ice art,” are constructed every winter in Norway, Sweden, Quebec, Finland and Romania, commenting like few other destinations on the appeal of the impermanence of nature’s suspended animation.
According to architect Quingyun Ma, a “sense of perpetuality is noble, but acting on permanence is criminal. Impermanence is the ultimate sustainability.”
Obvious quotes:
"Cities are no more artificial than Bee-hives. The internet is as natural as a spider's web...
It is possible to combine unapologetic biophilia with an equal measure of committed technophilia. The irony of this juxtaposition is that in the final analysis these two conditions do not a clash at all. To the contrary, architects are discovering that the computer is an evolution machine whose digital designs perfectly simulate nature’s mutational processes while helping to technically translate them into the tangible reality of the built environment. Ultimately, the computer will be capable to reinvent nature by insinuating itself in the molecular fabric of life on a nano level, realizing the dream of science fiction authors and many of today’s young architects to “grow” whatever structures they can imagine. Who knows some architecture of the future may even be subject to seasonal change.
Xarene says
A related shift can be seen in the work of several artists and architects who have been turning to water as a “material” that brings them closer to the natural world as they create living environments which defy the rigidity of conventional architecture. Diller and Scofidio’s Blur Building in Switzerland is shrouded in a perpetual cloud of man-made fog. Icelandic artist Olafur Eliasson used humidifiers to produce a fine mist in his Weather Project, which featured a huge artificial sun of pure yellow light. And in Dubai, where the natural environment and artifice spectacularly clash in underwater hotels and on a plethora of man-made islands, a massive entertainment complex is planned which will be “veiled by a puff of condensation that will hover in the air atop rain-like stilts.” Meanwhile, Ice Hotels, often featuring “ice art,” are constructed every winter in Norway, Sweden, Quebec, Finland and Romania, commenting like few other destinations on the appeal of the impermanence of nature’s suspended animation.
According to architect Quingyun Ma, a “sense of perpetuality is noble, but acting on permanence is criminal. Impermanence is the ultimate sustainability.”
Obvious quotes:
It is possible to combine unapologetic biophilia with an equal measure of committed technophilia. The irony of this juxtaposition is that in the final analysis these two conditions do not a clash at all. To the contrary, architects are discovering that the computer is an evolution machine whose digital designs perfectly simulate nature’s mutational processes while helping to technically translate them into the tangible reality of the built environment. Ultimately, the computer will be capable to reinvent nature by insinuating itself in the molecular fabric of life on a nano level, realizing the dream of science fiction authors and many of today’s young architects to “grow” whatever structures they can imagine. Who knows some architecture of the future may even be subject to seasonal change.