weather-arium exploiting the weather of every day
from the schools | weather research by jürgen mayer h . and neeraj bhatia
shelter interface green economy everyday weather exposure/enclosure
‘Arium’: a 2008 M.Arc Level III architectural design studio at the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape and Design, University of Toronto, instructed by Jürgen Mayer H. and Neeraj Bhatia. The research (the weather report) and design work (the weather forecast) from this studio provide the basis for a forthcoming book: -arium: Weather and Architecture , edited by Jürgen Mayer H. and Neeraj Bhatia; graphic design by Eric Bury; published as a Daniels Faculty Publication.
project | thermarium daniel rabin and annie ritz rain beach sediment water purification
Technology In contemporary society, an intuitive reading of everyday weather has been replaced by scientific prediction. At the same time, weather remains one of the most difficult phenomena to forecast in its constantly changing local and global atmospheric patterns. Attempts to tame this chaotic system through rigorous and meticulous prediction has created a prosperous commercial market, detaching us even further from nature. Paradoxically, in urban metropoli weather is often cited as the last form of ‘uncontrollable nature’ that persists within the city. This relationship to weather – the need to control it versus the only uncontrolled condition in everyday life – determines how weather is perceived, commodified and potentially harnessed. Weather is a natural phenomenon that impacts our health, economics, infrastructure, media and architecture. Comprised of large and turbulent forces, weather could potentially be harnessed to be a productive and sustainable element in everyday life. From hermetic to atmospheric architecture In its simplest terms, architecture is born from a protective need to shelter from the weather. Beyond bestowing this primary responsibility on architecture, weather symbolises everything architecture is not but continually wishes to be: ephemeral, formless, dynamic and immaterial. Instead architecture is forced into a physical state of stasis . The tension between architecture’s responsibilities and secret yearnings, between interior and exterior environments and between the artificial and the natural culminates at the interface that is the building skin. Here, layers of enclosure are each systematically designed to control an atmospheric condition – humidity, moisture, wind, rain – creating hermetic boxes that contain the ‘ideal’ climates manufactured by mechanical systems. Patterns of global climate change suggest an amplification of weather extremes in the next century. It is not a coincidence that there has been a rise in millennial floods, hurricanes and the ‘coldest’ or ‘hottest’ days since records began. As weather patterns continue to polarise, architecture is forced to further seal itself.
The 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report attributed approximately 27 percent of all fossil fuel usage to buildings. 1 Of this, air and water heating and cooling account for an estimated 12 percent of all carbon emissions. 2 CO 2 emissions from buildings is rising at an average of 2.7 percent per year, due to the continual development of the built environment. 3 The increasing carbon footprint of buildings can be attributed to this man-made interior weather suggesting that the hermetic quality of architecture is no longer tenable. While architecture can be designed for the extremes, those days that linger within these limits – the everyday – is of particular interest. It is these moments that both effect how we perceive nature and have a potential for new types of permeability that is yet to be exploited. As ‘green’ architecture is offered a more substantial role in contemporary society, a new relationship must be developed between architecture and weather that engages the productive aspects of the atmosphere. _ _ _ _ _ arium The complex interplay of architecture, economics, new media and social relevance guides our understanding of weather and climate change as a driving productive force at this moment in time. We have called the design project to test this newly formed relationship between architecture and weather, an _ _ _ _ arium . An -arium is typically associated with a controlled artificial environment with a specific atmospheric condition, whether it be for plants, animals or planets. Not only does an -arium question the relationship between architecture and weather, it invites an architecture that uses, frames, mines and capitalises on the external atmosphere to create a productive relationship with weather. By rethinking conventions and climatic effects, a new set of atmospheric and informational spaces can occur.
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On Site review 21: stormy weather
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