Tutorial 29 Jan 2010

Reconnecting with Nature
Why: Since the Machine Age, Le Corbusier has declared that “The House is a machine for living in” which mean architects should make the house as well suited to its purpose as a machine was because house is one of the primary living unit of the city. On the other hand, greenhouse gas has emitted since the creation of steam engine, it dichotomized the interrelationship between the natural and artificial worlds. Annihilative natural cycles affected on the global climate change, by consequence, the situations are more detrimental to particular landscapes, geophysical and economic conditions. Contemporary architecture is attempting to deal with global climate change by constructing and using inert, industrial era construction materials to solve this problem, but it’s not enough to manipulate the flow and transfer of energy from the biosphere to the built environment.
What: This architectural project proposes to reconnect with nature by investigating the relationship between the primary living units of the city and microcosm of organism to allow the possibility of self-generating and environmental responsive materials. This might rephrase the declaration from Le Corbusier in the biological context, as “The House is an organism for living”, which mean architects should make the house as well suited to its purpose as an organism was to create a genuine sustainable cycle, which can possibly consume greenhouse gas and become a part of the nature.
How: To reconstruct an existing house in term of mass, surface and plan to replace the new context from the Machine Age in biological context by using a transdisciplinary approach of biotechnology, nanotechnology, geoengineering and architecture to manipulate the real environment that responds to the city.