Editorial - John Wiley & Sonscatalogimages.wiley.com/images/db/pdf/9780470753637.excerpt.pdf ·...
Transcript of Editorial - John Wiley & Sonscatalogimages.wiley.com/images/db/pdf/9780470753637.excerpt.pdf ·...
Helen Castle
EditorialDominique Gonzalez-Foerster, p 38), material energies become the
raison d’être for social and spatial organisation of domestic space.
Temperature and climate might determine layout or the use of rooms,
as the occupants are encouraged to migrate seasonally from one space
to another. For Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda of AMID
(Cero9) energy becomes the inspiration and the fuel for a new formal
language and spatial understanding (see pp 76–83). The relationship
with energies does not have to be so immediate. In experiments with
biological form, the energy of the sun becomes the main life-giving
force (see pp 48–53).
This focus on energies requires a watershed in thinking. It is by
necessity a process of inversion of accepted architectural design
practices, requiring a new manner of conceiving space and its
organisation. The term ‘energies’ all too easily strikes up associations
with energy-efficient architecture. Lally and his contributors are wary
of this connotation and of its being mistaken as a further mutation of
green architecture. In her article, Penelope Dean explicitly distances
the approach from the well-trodden track of sustainability, as one that
is too embedded in matter and the gizmos of environmental techno-
science (pp 24–9). The quest is for a new conceptual model for
architecture. At only a nascent stage in its investigations, Energies
requires a leap into the dark, but it also proves wonderfully revitalising in
its explorations as it requires us to look at generative design afresh. 4
Text © 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 4 © Steve Gorton; p 5(tl and c) ©WEATHERS Environmental Design LLC; p 5(bl) © Ted Kinsman/Science Photo Library; p 5(r) © Science Photo Library
In this title of AD, guest-editor Sean Lally challenges our
preconceptions of what architecture might be. He
removes the walls from around us and the very roof from
above our heads by questioning the established
boundaries of architectural structure. He asks us to
suspend our belief in the concrete matter of building as
the foundation of architecture, whether it is the physical
qualities of glass and steel or the Modernist notion of
space, light and volume. Instead, he requires us to focus
on the invisible rather than the visible: on material
energies as the generative driver of design. Static
materiality is replaced by the dynamics of
thermodynamic exchange. The energy model or fluid
dynamic diagram usurps the place of structure or outer
shell; the impact is not unlike that of a Victorian seeing
an X-ray for the first time and experiencing the
revelation of looking beyond the exoskeleton.
For both Lally (see his Gradient Spatial Typologies
project, p 9) and Philippe Rahm (Research House for
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WEATHERS, Asplund Library Competition, Stockholm, 2006The proposed library addition operates beyond the envelope ofa building or site boundary and engages the surroundingenvironmental qualities and seasonal climatic conditions forprogrammatic and organisational strategies.
Wilhelm Röntgen, Hand mit Ringen (Hand with Rings), 1895This first ‘medical’ X-ray taken by Röntgen of his wife's hand.Seeing this view inside the human body for the first time musthave been a revelation.
A thermogram of an apartment building This thermogram highlights which apartments have their heatturned up, and which have their windows open; thetemperature ranges from hot (white) to cold (blue). Generallyused to express heat radiation in built or designed projects, theEnergies approach enables us to consider the possibilities ofthermodynamics for generative design.
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