Material Matters by Mariza Daouti

24 April 2017 Marisa Daouti MA Architectural History History and Theory of digital design

MATERIAL MATTERS Investigating material agency in contemporary architectural research

Materiality is the necessary condition of architecture1. In order to realise a design idea but also in order to be able to conceive and develop this idea2, the architect relies on the non-human agency of materials. New developments in science and processing of materials have historically determined architectural design and construction and even gave rise to architectural movements and their attendant ideologies; the invention of reinforced concrete and the innovations in glass production and aluminum for example, are the raison d’être for the constitution of the modernist narrative. Architecture in this sense is rendered as an essentially material practice, which historically can provide ‘a testament to cultural production and a protocol of the way in which humans have interacted with their environment in their search for shelter, habitation and well-being’3. However, since the Renaissance, the prevailing attitude towards material matters has been an instrumental one, which considers architecture as the materialisation of a formal idea produced by the intellect, independent of

Alejandro Zaera, The Sniper's Log, 1st ed. (Barcelona: Actar, 2012), p.189 ‘Architects are ‘materially interesting’ because ‘they can hardly conceive a building without being consisted and amplified by the motor potential of many thinking, drawing or foam-cutting hands’ in Bruno Latour, Albena Yaneva, ‘Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move: an ANT’s view on architecture’, in Geiser, Reto (ed.), Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008 (with Albena Yaneva) pp. 80-89. 3 Ashby, M. F., G. L. J. W. U. and Olive, R., “The mechanical properties of natural materials. I. Material property charts,” Proc. Lond. AR. Soc., Vol. 1, 1995, pp. 123–140. 2

sources of material knowledge. Along with the emergence of architectural theory and the establishment of the architect’s profession as allographic by Alberti4, a critical split between materiality and architectural creation occurred. Until recently, this modern conception of materiality has been the preponderant methodological approach to architectural practice and has led to ‘the secularization and debasement of the material realm’5. Material matters are discussed in the final stages of a design and only serve for supplementary purposes. This is a process of ‘material selection’6, which means that there is a range of available standard materials, on which the designer applies a form. On the other hand, in theoretical or historical works, formal and idealist concerns predominate in contrast with material matters, which remain elusive. Moreover, the standard representation techniques, such as 2D and 3D drawing, fail to incorporate matter that ‘is too multidimensional, much too active, complex, surprising and counter-intuitive’ to be simply represented with Euclidian geometry.7 The prevalence of formalism is characteristic of architectural production particularly after the industrial revolution. Mass-production, which required the componentisation of structures so that they can be easily produced and replicated, has played a critical role in the artificial dichotomy of form and function, that was suggested by the modernists, that acclaimed functionality as the leading standard and the principle ontology8 In this respect, we can observe that the predominance of form over materiality, is not merely a stylistic choice, but depends on the production methods and fabrication tools that have been available so far. In architectural discourse it was interpreted as a call for a certain truth to materials and to related fixed and singular structural typologies. The popular quote of an imaginary conversation between Luis Kahn and a brick, where a brick wants to become a form, indicates the formalist understanding of architecture and the delegated or embedded human intention that architects tend to project on materials. ''If you think of Brick, you say to Brick, ‘What do you want, Brick?’ And Brick says to you, ‘I like an Arch.’ And if you say to Brick, ‘Look, arches are expensive, and I can use a concrete lintel over you. What do you think of that, Brick?’ Brick says, ‘I like an Arch.’ And it’s important, you see, that you honour the material that you use. [..] You can only do it if you honour the brick and glorify the brick instead of shortchanging it.9'

Mario Carpo, The Alphabet And The Algorithm, 1st ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2011). Neri Oxmanl, Material based design computation, AA Diploma 2004, p.27 6 Term adopted by the use in Neri Oxman’s texts 7 Bruno Latour, Albena Yaneva, ‘Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move: an ANT’s view on architecture’, in Geiser, Reto (ed.), Explorations in Architecture: Teaching, Design, Research, Basel: Birkhäuser, 2008 (with Albena Yaneva) pp. 80-89. 8 Jencks, C., The language of post-modern architecture, Rizzoli Intl Pubns, 1984, in Neri Oxman, Material based design computation, p.27 9 Louis Kahn. Transcribed from the 2003 documentary 'My Architect: A Son’s Journey by Nathaniel Kahn'. Master class at Penn, 1971. 5

If we consider materiality to lead back to the conception of ‘matter’ we can understand the philosophical and scientific implications that have shaped the modern understanding of architecture as a formal and not a material practice. The notion of matter can be reasonably said to be the oldest conceptual tool in the Western speculative tradition10. The interpretation of matter has been, in many instances, fundamental for the orientation of philosophical thought, so that, ‘to trace the concept of matter is almost to trace the history of philosophy itself11’. In addition, the concept of matter has been critical in all theologies; either perceived as the negation of the spiritual (from Plotinus to Hegel) or ‘as a falling away from the perfections of spiritual order’12, theology has ab initio centred upon the critique of materiality and the implications of mind versus matter. The prevailing understanding of the concept of matter in western culture, has been, that it is essentially ‘passive stuff’, set in motion by human agency as a means of survival or aesthetic expression13. Although the first accounts on matter as the substance that constitutes our world originate in the preSocratics, the first who described matter and engaged it in a philosophy of being, that was later described as ‘hylomorphism’, was Aristotle. Aristotle attempted to explain existence through the composition of form and matter or ‘hyle’ (ύλη), a term that he introduced in the philosophical vocabulary in order to talk about the opposite of ‘form’ (µορφή), and originally meant ‘wood’14. ‘Hyle’ was employed to serve as an anchor for his complex analysis of change and was conceived as a passive possibility – a substratum for change – which could be actualized by a substantial form. This conception of form inherits the __ of Platonic essences, which are internal ideal forms residing in the immutable domain of ideas that resides in some other world which is untainted by matter. In Plato’s theory, the material realization of forms is essentially imperfect and degraded15. Hylomorphism entails a similar principle of defect, although it does not imply privation, but latent potency. Matter is itself inert and undifferentiated, whereas form is that which differentiates16. In other words, the source of intelligibility is attributed to the formal factor, in Aristotle’s principle of change. Although Aristotelianism attributes a degree of generative immanence to nature, this is largely saturated in teleological assumptions. In the 17th century René Descartes, to whom the modern conception of ‘materiality’ remains indebted, described matter as an abstract mathematical substance in his analysis of the world, which was based on a model of

Ernan MacMullin, The Concept Of Matter, 1st ed. (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1963), p.1 ibid., 12 ibid., p.16 13 Diana H Coole, ‘The inertia of matter’, Diana H Coole and Samantha Frost, New Materialisms, 1st ed. (Durham [NC]: Duke University Press, 2010), p.92 14 ‘Matter’ actually, derives from the Latin ‘materia’ which is the Roman interpretation of ‘hyle’ 15 Katie Lloyd Thomas, Material Matters, 1st ed. (London: Routledge, 2007), p.4 16 ibid., 11

geometry. He defined matter extended17, uniform and inert, namely as a corporeal substance that was constituted of length, breadth and thickness. The thinking subject was bequeathed with a sense of mastery, while ‘matter has disappeared and there is nothing left but equations’18. Along with the physics that were developed by Newton, who reduced matter to ‘mass’ overlooking the complex behaviour of materials, Cartesian space based on Euclidian geometry has constituted the basis of modern science. Recently, a new tradition of thought that follows on post-classical physics and has grounds on the accounts of philosophers like Spinoza and Deleuze who have put forward a conception of matter that possesses its own modes of self-transformation and self-organization, has provided an account of matter as not simply passive and inert. Manuel De Landa, who along with Rosi Braidoti, introduced the term ‘new materialism’, has advocated against the linear causality and essentialism that have constructed the ‘old view’ of materiality, and instead suggests a conception of matter as having morphogenetic powers of its own. ‘New materialism’ is located against the notions that it is ideas, languages or texts that construct reality19 and describes active processes of materialisation ‘where humans are an integral part, rather than monotonous repetitions of dead matter from which human subjects apart’20. The consequences of such a mode of thought denote not just that the resources involved in the genesis of form are immanent to matter itself21, but also diminish the presumption of the superiority of human agency and in turn suggest that agency is a property less of individual entities, but of assemblages of humans and non-humans22. At the same time, our environment has become materially and conceptually reconstituted in ways that pose unprecedented and profound questions, which proceed from the advancements in technologyand material science. Architecture not only has embraced this mode of thought, but actively participates in the formation of the new consciousness around material matters. Due to the capacities of digital computation to simulate and calculate complex material behaviours, the architects can deal with the unpredictability, complexity, indeterminacy and randomness of materials ‘as found’23. This has brought about a reversal in the traditional design process. The last fifteen years, a new body of knowledge has emerged in architecture that investigates the technological potential of innovative material usage and fabrication as a source for design generation. The contemporary architectural avant-garde, that has inherited the consequences of the destructive logic that

extension was indeed the primary characteristic of matter (res extensa), contrary to mind (res cogitans) A. G Spirkin, Dialectical Materialism, 1st ed. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1983). 19 Claire Colebrooke, ‘Materiality’, published on www.academia.edu 20 Diana H Coole and Samantha Frost, ‘Introduction’., Coole and Frost, New Materialisms, p.8 21 Manuel DeLanda, ‘Philosophies of Design: the Case of Modelling Software.’ In Verb: Architecture Bookazine. Actar, 2002, p.134 22 Deleuze and Guattari locate humanity within a single cosmic, autopoetic flow of ‘matter-movement’ and ‘matter in variation that enters assemblages and leaves them’ in Jane Bennet, ‘The Force of Things: Steps toward an Ecology of Matter’ Political Theory, Vol. 32, No. 3 (June, 2004), p.354 23 Mario Carpo in conversation with Jenny Sabin, in Achim Menges, Bob Sheil, Ruairi Glynn, Marilena Skavara (eds.), Fabricate, (UCL Press, 2017) pp.150-151 18

‘all that is imaginable is buildable’, claims a new materiality informed by the developments in science and technology, that can provide a more sustainable built environment. These developments have constructed a philosophy of design which largely reflects the pre-allographic architectural production and ‘in which materials are not inert receptacles for a cerebral form imposed from the outside, but active participants in the genesis of form. This implies the existence of heterogeneous materials, with variable properties and idiosyncrasies which the designer must respect and make an integral part of the design which, it follows, cannot be routinized’24. In this regard, material systems are increasingly considered not just by their properties, but also by their capacities. The new question for architecture is not what is material, but when is material. In order to further elaborate on the implications of the ‘new materiality’ as a philosophy of design, I will proceed to investigate the material agent in three projects that represent the shift of thought from static materiality, to the study of material behaviour, but have diverse different means to address it. These projects are inherently interdisciplinary, involving material science, engineering and digital computation and form a diverse response towards nature and natural morphogenetic processes as paradigms for architectural creation. They can be considered as examples of ‘natural computing’25, which means they are either inspired by natural organisations to develop new problem-solving techniques, they use computation to synthesize natural phenomena, or they employ natural materials to compute. Lastly, they are pavilions which means that they welcome public engagements, which further complicates the conversation about the implications of novel material techniques.

DeLanda, ‘Philosophies of Design: the Case of Modelling Software, p.134 Terminology coined by De Castro in Leandro Nunes de Castro, Fundamentals Of Natural Computing, 1st ed. (Boca Raton: Chapman & Hall/CRC, 2006). 25

ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2015 Aggregates are loose agglomerations of particles and granules. Conventionally they are used in their bound form, and in fact, comprise the largest amount in volume of construction material today. They belong to ‘random heterogeneous materials’, which means that they are either composed of different materials such as composite, or the same material in different states, such as a polycrystal.26 The morphology of a granular structure stems from both the geometry and material composition of the individual grain and its effect on the behaviour of the aggregate system. Hence, it needs to be understood in its entirety ‘as a mass’, or better as a cumulative behaviour of individual same or similar particles.

Fig.1, View of the granular structure. courtesy of ICD University of Stuttgart 2015

Project by Achim Menges and Karola Dierichs

Natural aggregates such as sand and snow, have the capacity to enter continuous cycles of erosion and accretion. One of their most distinctive characteristics is the capacity to shift between solid and liquid states: ‘when submitted to small mean stresses the shear strength is also very small and the granular material can flow almost like liquid… on the other hand, when the mean stress is high the granular material will be able to bear high loading.’27 Moreover, granular materials display anisotropic characteristics – geometrical and consequently mechanical anisotropy28- and ‘self-organized criticality’29, which is an intrinsic critical limit of the assembly, that leads to a sudden catastrophic change.30 Within architecture granular structures are still a quite novel branch of research. The ICD Aggregate Pavilion is a project by Achim Menges and Karola Dierichs, that was constructed and exhibited at the University of Stuttgart in the summer of 2015. The pavilion, that demonstrates the practical applications of a designed granular system, is the first ‘aggregate architecture’ to be publicly realised. Designed granular matter is defined as an artificial aggregate system of large numbers, in which the individual particles are artificially made – synthetically constructed and geometrically defined - and calibrated to fulfil certain performance criteria31. Just like in sand or gravel, or in any other naturally occurring aggregate, the grains are not embedded in a permanent binding matrix, but lie in a loose frictional contact.

S. Torquato, Random Heterogeneous materials, vol:16 Mechanics and Materials (New York: Springer, 2002) In Michael Hensel, Achim Menges and Michael Weinstock, Emergent Technologies and design (Routledge, 2010). p.229 27 P.Y. Hicher, ‘Experimental Behaviour of Granular materials in Hensel, Menges, Weinstock. Emergent Technologies and design, p.230 28 ‘their response to a given stress depends on the orientation of that stress’ 29 Per Bak, Chao Tang and Kurt Wiesenfeld, "Self-Organized Criticality: An Explanation Of The 1/Fnoise", Physical Review Letters 59, no. 4 (1987): 381-384, doi:10.1103/physrevlett.59.381. in Hensel, Menges, Weinstock. Emergent Technologies and design, p.235 30 ‘There is something very peculiar about the sand pile that displays this behaviour: it is constantly seeking the least stable state… States like this, which are susceptible to fluctuations on all scales at the slightest provocation, had been known to physicists for a long time. They are called critical states’ in Hensel, Menges, Weinstock. Emergent Technologies and design, p.235 31 Karola Dierichs, Achim Menges, ‘Towards an aggregate architecture: designed granular systems as programmable matter in architecture’, published online 6 April 2016

Fig.2, View of the Aggregate pavilion, courtesy of ICD University of Stuttgart 2015

The pavilion was comprised of 30.000 individual designed granules that were injection-moulded using plastics sourced from the local recycling industry. Grain morphology serves as an input for physically computing the overall system formation in space and time in interaction with gravity and specific boundary conditions. In order to accommodate for diverse structural requirements, such as the need for a load transfer that increases from top to bottom, three granule types were used, all of which derived from a single parametric model. For the fabrication, a cable robot coupled with a clustering effector, that could provide high precision in a relatively large working space and adjust to changing site conditions, was custom-designed. The robotic system was then placed on site and fixed on four surrounding trees. The entire structure was constructed in situ in a few hours by a custom-designed robot, without the need of a formwork. During the exhibition period, the pavilion was re-configured through the same process multiple times. Initially, the design team experimented on the structures themselves as well as on various construction and grading techniques physically, with scale models and one-to-one prototyping in a factory setting. This process was supported by Distinct-Element Modelling (DEM) simulations, which serve to model the motion of a large number of particles or granules, even with nonspherical geometry, and other complimentary digital tools. Computation was intended to recognise and exploit the material systemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s behaviour, not predefine its shape. The focus of this bifurcated strategy of observing and interacting with matter, was the exploration of programmed verticality, a feature that does not occur in natural aggregate systems.

Aggregate architecture, as a material system, a perpetual mode of (re)construction where stability is an intrinsic part of, rather opposed to destabilization’32. The term ‘material system’ goes back to the 19th century physicist and theoretician James Clerk Maxwell and describes according to Menges ‘the complex reciprocity between materiality, form, structure and space, the related processes of production and assembly and the multitude of performative effects that emanate from the interaction with environmental influences and forces’33. Relying on entropic configuration in the absence of discernible logic or intent, they are intrinsically opposed to the standard practice of material formation, which is basically a history of imposing form on material with a high degree of control. The level of control shifts from the overall geometry of a structure to that of the individual grain; ‘the highly controlled individual grain in its amassing, leads to a statistical entity which allows for the prediction of behaviours and performances, but out of the exact geometry of the system’.34 In other words, the monad is known and clearly defined, yet the overall formations that unfold from its multiplication are emergent and manifold. Aggregative practices in general, attempt to bring an increased intelligence regarding material agency by evoking the inherent self-organisation of inorganic assemblages, where computation can tap directly into their latent potential; ‘when put together, these forms of spontaneous structural generation suggest that inorganic matter is much more variable and creative than we ever imagined’35 Architecture aided by computation, manages to actively engage with the The employment of granular systems in architecture manifests not only a disregard about precision in form, but more importantly considers design as an impetus towards the activation of a certain material behaviour that is unprecedented, yet not unanticipated. Thus, the designed granular system becomes ‘programmable macro-matter’, namely a material that is specifically designed to behave in a distinct manner.36

Hensel, Menges, Weinstock. Emergent Technologies and design, p.235 ibid, p.15 34 Dierichs, K. and Menges, A. (2015), Granular Morphologies: Programming Material Behaviour with Designed Aggregates. Archit. Design, 85: 86–91. doi:10.1002/ad.1959, p.87 35 Manuel De Landa, A Thousand Years of Nonlinear History (New York: Swerve Editions, 2000), p.16. 36 Dierichs, Menges, ‘Towards an aggregate architecture: designed granular systems as programmable matter in architecture’ 33

Silk Pavilion The work of Neri Oxman investigates the computational agency in the creation of ‘an approach to a mediated materialism in architecture’37. Her work, which is mainly what she describes as Material Ecology, ‘is an emerging field in design denoting informed relations between products, buildings, systems and their environment’38. Inspired by optimization processes in nature, which has the ability to simultaneously model, simulate and fabricate, the Silk Pavilion, a flimsy dome-like hanging structure that was exhibited at the lobby space of the MIT Media Lab in 2013, was the product of the creative mixture of computer-controlled and biological fibre composite fabrication. The main goal was to deliver ‘a holistic and sustainable design approach in the production of non-woven fibre based constructions’.39 Fibre-based 3D constructions with spatially varying composition, microstructure and fibre orientation are omnipresent in nature. The creation of silk thread by silkworms, the species Bombyx Mori, is long-known and has been intensely appropriated for the production of fabric. The silkworm Fig.3, Video still, Mediated Matter Group

constructs its cocoon, which will serve as a shelter during its transitional stage of pupation, by one single thread of raw silk, which is approximately 1km in length. It starts by spinning a three-dimensional tensile structure by attaching its fibres parasitically to its immediate environment and eventually will build the cocoon inside this scaffolding and enclose itself. The methods used for silk production in the textile industry are mostly unsustainable, because it typically requires the spinning of the full cocoon and a shortened life cycle for the silkworm. For the pavilion, the process of silk deposition was examined empirically with the aid of digital tools. Basic research experiments were conducted with the aim to observe, understand and predict the formation of non-woven fibre structures generated by the silkworm. The aim was to translate this process into a computational schema that could be utilized to determine the shape and optimize the material of the fibre-based surface structures.

Research and Design by the Mediated Matter Research Group at the MIT Media Lab in collaboration with Prof. Fiorenzo Omenetto (TUFTS University) and Dr. James Weaver (WYSS Institute, Harvard University)

The installation was designed and constructed in two phases, that can be roughly considered as the digital and the biological fabrication system and are complementary. During the first phase, a scaffolding envelope made of silk fibres was laid by a CNC machine on 26 polygonal metal panels that were later assembled and suspended from the ceiling of the atrium. The

Neri Oxman, ‘Per formative: towards a post formal paradigm in architecture’ published online on www.materialecology.com/, p.12 Neri Oxman, ‘Material ecology’ published online on www.materialecology.com/, p.12 39 Neri Oxman, Silk Pavilion: A case study in fibre-based digital fabrication; in Fabio Gramazio, Matthias Kohler, Silke Lan2enber2 (eds.), Fabricate (2ta Verla2, 2014), p.248 38

Fig.4, View through pavilion apertures as the silkworms skin the structure. Image: Steven Keating.

second phase consisted of deploying 6.500 silkworms that were positioned at the bottom rim of the scaffolding, in order to spin a secondary silk envelope. The distribution of the silkworms on the structure was regulated by a set of openings on the first envelope, that were designed to capture light and heat. After the pupation stage the silkworms were removed. The pavilion proposes the development of a design that is based upon the analysis of material performance, which in this case is the silk thread, that can offer empirical knowledge regarding material creation in nature, but also result in more sustainable strategies in architecture, so that matter can distributed where needed. Fibre-based structures typically require ‘the balancing of force-and-response in order to achieve material morphologies that are structurally efficient and environmentally effective’40. However, in this approach, the process was intrinsically optimized by the intelligence of organic matter to produce material, under the guiding assumption that ‘the silkworm’s ability to generate fibre structures with varying degrees of density based on its environment has been perfected through evolutionary pressure’41. This biological form of computation was supported and enhanced by digital design modelling resulting in a high degree of integration of form

N. Oxman, M. Kayser, J. Laucks and M. Firstenberg, Robotically Controlled Fiber-based Manufacturing as Case Study for Biomimetic Digital Fabrication, published online on www.materialecology.com/ 41 Neri Oxman, Jared Laucks, Markus Kayser, Carlos David Gonzalez Uribe, Jorge Duro-Royo, Biological Computation for Digital Design and Fabrication, , published online on www.materialecology.com/

and material constituents in the design development, that distances itself from the traditional sequential and hierarchical methodologies. Material is thus, not considered or treated as the progenitor of form, but as in the morphogenetic processes in nature, material informs structure, then structure informs shape. This view pronounces the need to pay attention to the modes of production of matter and considers the silkworm, as a non-human agent with embedded intelligence, which can be analysed, in order to achieve more sustainable structures. Finally, it offers an alternative to the logic of material assemblies, that still remains the principle, if not single mode of construction in architecture which, particularly after the industrial revolution, led to componentisation as the logic for mass-produced products.

Urban Algae Folly The Urban Algae Folly, which is the product of a six-year long research by EcoLogic Studio, is the ‘first living edible architecture integrating microalgal cultures and digital design protocols’. It is based upon a conception of ‘bio-digital materialism that emerges from an abstract reading of nature thought the lens of computation’. The idea emerged, after the visit to the irrigation networks and canals in Milan, while developing the large-scale operational field maps for a related project, the Metropolitan Proto-Garden. The studio has an extended research in physical prototypes that converge information and biological technologies, with a particular focus in the urban environment, where they aim to shift the discourse towards the territory of pure simulation. The system was presented for the first time in ExpoMilan 2015 and in the autumn of the same year a Folly was installed in Praça de República in Braga, Portugal, where it remained for a year. It is a digitally augmented habitat for micro-algae organisms –chlorella and spirulina – which have the capacity to multiply rapidly because of their high photosynthetic efficiency; a kind of biological computing, aided by design. Fig.5, View of the Urban Algae Folly from MilanExpo 2015, courtesy of EcoLogic Studio, ecologicstudio.com

Project by Ecologic Studio

Micro-algae, which typically grow in marine and freshwater systems, are unicellular species that exist individual, in chains or in groups. Due to the lack of a structure that would organize their anatomy, they behave more like a material in a liquid state than a plant. They are primary producers, which means that in the presence of sunlight they convert inorganic compounds – water and CO2 - to biomass and oxygen. As a potential source of food and energy, they have been studied since the middle of the 20th century. However, only recently architectural projects began to explore the possibility of the digital and spatial augmentation of these micro-organisms, so that their products – protein and oxygen – can be harvested. In the Folly, the micro-algae are sheltered in a custom-designed ETFE cladding system42 that enhances their cultivation because it offers the opportunity to control the cushions under stress and consequently, the flow of the micro-algae. All the material components are designed in order to facilitate the spatial computation to take place and unfold in the urban realm; ‘the structure and membranes collaborate structurally and morphologically to its stability, as well as its adaptability and overall performance in time. The metal folds are not only inspired by the cellular structure of algae but also perform as an aggregate of tetrahedron cells with one side as living membrane of microalgae’. Digital technology serves as a means of communication and control43 influencing the flow and the growth of the micro-algae. The visitors’ movements cause the speed of the algal flow to

Ethylene Tetra Fluoro Ethylene (ETFE) is a clear polymer that is extruded into a thin film (or foil) which is used to form either a single layer membrane or multi-layer cushions supported in an aluminium perimeter extrusion. 43 Marco Poletto, Claudia Pasquero, personal communication, April 2017

Fig.6, View of the Urban Algae Folly from Braga, courtesy of EcoLogic Studio, ecologicstudio.com

alter, whereas the sun affects naturally the flows of solar energy, water and oxygen, both provoking a constant and emergent differentiation in the appearance of the Folly. By experimenting with biological organism, the designed prototype becomes a way ‘to address a problem in an inhuman way’44. Due to the digital mediation, algae become a computable living matter that is integrated symbiotically in the architectural environment and transforms it into an augmented substratum; as the architects indicate, ‘algae are living systems of nature, but in our project, they become an index of multiple environmental, urban and architectural forces that they negotiate. We treat them as biological computers and their appearance is the output of the process of computation.’45 The project brings together agents that ‘do not pre-exist as such but materialize into ‘intra-action’46 exploring a new relationship between living matter and the built environment. Materiality in this case does not constitute the built environment, but inhabits it, in order to participate in the production, management and distribution of energy. The material stratum is perceived ‘not as a means to provide thresholds… but instead serve as an active agent in the orchestration of flows’ affecting the urban realm in a heterogeneous

Claudia Pasquero, Emmanouil Zaroukas, ‘Design Prototype’ Marco Poletto, Claudia Pasquero, personal communication, April 2017 46 Karen Barad’s term: ‘By contrast, the notion of intra-action queers familiar sense of causality… and more generally unsettles the metaphysics of dualism’ in Pasquero, Zaroukas ‘Design Prototype’ 45

and dynamic way47’. In this regard, the idea of architecture as frozen music is long gone, and in its place, there is instability and reconfiguration, where ‘functionality and form do not converge to a single optimal solution, but rather they encourage a dynamic exchange and a continuous process of biodigital computation. Flow regimes, membrane morphology, colour, transparency, CO2 absorption and other parameters change continuously and multiple states of equilibrium can be found and then lost again’48. The Folly does not only affect the visual experience of urban space, but interacts directly with the urban metabolism promoting architecture as a participatory framework where biologic, chemical, technological and digital systems can interact and evolve. Bruno Latour’s view that we should abandon the static view of buildings in order to capture them as a flow of transformations49 becomes reality in the Urban Algae Folly which functions as ‘a materialised datascape’.

Michael Hensel, Performance-oriented Architecture Towards a Biological Paradigm for Architectural Design and the Built Environment, published online on open access journals at HiOA, https://journals.hioa.no/, p.46 48 Marco Poletto, Claudia Pasquero, personal communication, April 2017 49 Latour, Yaneva, ‘Give me a gun and I will make all buildings move: an ANT’s view on architecture’

The three case-studies certainly break away from idealist and formal expressions of architecture and invest in a materialist approach that puts forward the idea of materials as active agents, not a passive context. Yet, the innovation in material logic lies in distinct particularities: the ICD Pavilion is comprised of designed synthetic matter which adopts the characteristics and behavior of a complicated natural inorganic material; the Silk Pavilion employs living organisms as fabrication technology along with digital tools and although it makes use of a traditional material and structural technique, marks an unprecedented use of them in architectural practice; and in the Algae Folly the convergence of digital computation and living matter produce a techno-natural universe, that resembles the Deleuzean concept of milieu, therefore, eliminates the notion of material as a threshold, and establishes it as flows of energy and information. With the aid of digital tools, the architect can now find value in materials when there was none, a fact that has caused a reversal of traditional science of materials, since we do not need to take them as standards, but ‘as found’50. This offers the opportunity to provide tailored architectural experiences and develop anti-essentialist and multiple meanings of materiality. Sanford Kwinter accentuates that what is taking place today is the systematic formation of a new subjectivity – a new type of man to use Nietzche’s expression – whose matter/intelligence variable is being re-engineered and calibrated to fit those of a new machinic workplace society in which s/he is to be seamlessly integrated51’. It is evident that the new materiality, that prioritizes sustainability, energy efficiency and prolongation of the material life-cycles, entails a higher degree of awareness about the implications of design, particularly around environmental responsibility. The interpretation of matter through architectural practices has an ontological and epistemological implication; Antoine Picon confirms that ‘materiality is not only about materials and their use. It encompasses the way we relate to the world; how we construct the perpetually shifting boundary between the subjective and the objective realms’52. Inevitably, architectural material practices evoke as well a social and a political model. So far, the idea of active agency of materials has only been explored in design. Can these material practices, that engage organic and inorganic mater provide a new account on biopolitics? What are the implications in the society of the interconnectedness of humans and non-humans that proceeds novel material practices? Architectural theory’s role needs to be informed in order to encompass the new knowledge that is already emerging from the practice and make sense of matter as denaturalised, destabilised and contingent and the implications of the ‘new consciousness’ that is being established.

Carpo in Fabricate, p.150-151 Sanford Kwinter, ‘The computational fallacy’ in Achim Menges and Sean Ahlquist, Computational design thinking, (John Wiley and sons, London 2012) 52 Antoine Picon, ‘Technology, Virtuality, Materiality’, in C. Greig Crysler, Stephen Cairns & Hilde Heynen(eds) The SAGE Handbook of architectural theory, (SAGE Publications Ltd, London, 2012) 51

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*I would like to thank Marco Poletto and Claudia Pasquero for their eagerness and good will, to provide me with further insight about the project.