18.3.09

Collapses can be seen as momentary, somehow unpredictable disruptions or, else inversions of a established direction in the evolution of any system, whether a simple social and spontaneous biological model (a community of insects, by instance) or a complex game played by different parties. At some point the previous conditions turn out to be no longer tenable. A sort of chaotic, non-linear development bursts out, sometimes with devastating effects. After it takes place, the old picture must be disposed of. The order, no longer existing, might be restored or just retained in some local portions of the system.

This text was the central offering statement from a conference called Collapse(s) as part of an architectural festival in Barcelona. I went to one of the three days of the conference last week. It was very interesting, and also quite hard to grasp what some of the speakers were trying to express, particularly in a technical sense. There is a lot to think about in this idea of Collapse. The concern of the conference was to talk about the theoretical and very real nature of part and full collapse of our current structure of living. There was a particular focus on architecture, but some very interesting definitions and ideas of architecture were discussed, and at the end, even i felt like an architect. a very simple one.
Architecture is no longer merely devoted to designing buildings or drawing urban plans. In our days, it is also an attempt of giving feasible responses, both theoretical and practical, to problems arising from our lifestyle and connected to our multi=faceted social interaction in an urban overpopulated environment. It is not a mere academic exertion on the infinite possibilities of spatial shaping and surface modeling. It is not simply baroque vs minimalism...architecture demands that we take our own responsibilities in planning bio-ecologically balanced, energetically recycling and socially comfortable living structures... reflexive and fully self-critical architectural work is something to be necessarily...it cannot possibly be exempted from addressing the emergency which neatly stands before us.

things i wrote down in my notebook, that i heard speakers say:
bitruncated cubic honeycomb///subsystem transactions
(We need to move) from an ethic of conservation to an ethic of transformation - a dialogue with nature. ecologicstudio.con
what happens when disused materials become operative to the design?
question the heroic approach
discard an axiom*
(*a statement or proposition that is regarded as being established, accepted, or self-evidently true)

reality isnt built by designers.
thermal leakage
non-formal architecture??
50% of the population live in cities,
and 90% of people in cities live in slums.
collapsing lightness
simplicity
the tree circus - axel erlandson

No comments: