Richard Barnes, Academy Animals with Painter, from the Animal Logic series, 2004

ARC3020Y F
Instructor(s): Laura Miller | Laura.Miller@daniels.utoronto.ca
Meeting Section: L0103
Tuesday, 9:00am - 1:00pm, 2:00pm - 6:00pm

SUPERNATURAL will explore, research, and develop architectural propositions that manifest complex relationships between the constructed environment and various natural phenomena.

When we make architecture – or any material artifact large or small – we alter the given, physical environment and its natural phenomena in many ways, adding to what Hannah Arendt called the “thing-character” of the world. Writing in the late 1950’s, Arendt argued that the human-made artifact serves to stabilize human existence, through its physical form and material continuity. This quality – duration – stands in contrast to human being’s fleeting mortality and subjectivity on the one hand, and the seemingly “sublime indifference of untouched nature” on the other. When we include the duration of other non-human life forms to this equation (i.e. becoming, evolution and extinction), the picture becomes more complex.

It is important to say that natural phenomena and the physical environment are not the same thing as ‘Nature,’ a conceptual category which is itself an artifact of culture, and one that has had many different characterisations over time, and in distinct cultures. While a dichotomy between Nature and Artifice – and by extension, between ‘Nature’ and ‘Architecture’ –may have once seemed rational, or even productive, such a schema is no longer possible today.

Theoretical propositions such as the Era of the Anthropocene argue that there has been an irrevocable transformation of what was once imagined to be a more ‘natural,’ past form of the earth – a state if not ‘original,’ at least “untouched” by human alteration. While in such accounts, the Industrial Revolution and modernity may have been ‘tipping points’ in an acceleration towards what is now clearly a new epoch of plant, animal and human relations, we are also gaining an increasingly detailed understanding of how humans have tried to work, shape, and transform the environment to suit their needs and desires for millennia.

With a consciousness of this shift in understanding, which imbricates architecture in everything from climate change and global warming to plant/animal/human archeology, the SUPERNATURAL Studio will critically examine architecture's relationship with the natural, physical environment –including its geographies, sites, landscapes, and typological forms. We will examine the different ways that the natural realm has been defined historically, and how it is being reconsidered and reconstructed through various analytical, conceptual and practice-based frameworks today.

We will ask: what are the ways that we, as architects, define, represent, and ultimately, choose to alter the physical environments in which we project our design ideas and constructions? Further, how can we approach the question of architecture’s relation to the natural realm in a more deliberate, informed, and conscious manner as designers today?

SUPERNATURAL Studio Process:

SUPERNATURAL will be structured to move from collaborative research to independent research over the course of the term.

Collaboration is an important part of SUPERNATURAL. I am interested in – and will ask you to bring – your design interests, personal experiences, and research questions to the studio, and consider these to be essential contributions to our shared work. The structure of the studio research is based upon this precept.

Below are brief descriptions of the components of the studio work.

1. Catalog

To begin, we will collectively identify a number of working categories cataloging the ways that architecture and building does – or does not – relate to the physical environment and natural phenomena. These (overlapping) categories, will be interrogated, suggesting further research: for example, a comparison of different cultural or historical ideas about a natural phenomenon (such as lightning); a focus on particular kind of site (such as extraction sites); a certain kind of program (such as exhibition of artifacts from the natural world); a formal approach (such as a study of the structure of ornament based in natural life forms); a particular operation (such as cloning); an ethical position (such as stewardship); to name but a few possibilities. Hopefully, some combination or mutation of categories will occur. It is important to note that all the categories listed can represent multiple and differing cultural perspectives; part of our work will be to identify these possible perspectives. While we will work collectively as a studio to generate our final selection of research categories, some possible categories to begin with might include:

(Incomplete list, in alpha order)

Classification (Natural History)

Colonization (territory, settlement)

Composition (picturesque)

Conservation (parks and preserves; energy)

Duration (materiality, temporality)

Ecological (wholistic, systemic relations)

Emulation (biomorphism)

Encapsulation (Biosphere, greenhouse)

Entropic (dissipation, disorder)

Exploitation (extraction of resources; Eco-Tourism)

Opposition (endogenous, exogenous)

Ornamentation (source of embellishment, pattern and form)

Phenomenalization (atmosphere, weather, land art)

Remediation (repair)

Reproduction (cloning, 3D printing organic matter)

Simulation (virtual phenomena, artificial intelligence)

Stabilization (suspending time, nature)

Transformation (solar/wind power)

2. Readings

In addition to a series of suggested readings, we will work together to collectively determine a group of readings to undertake in our first few sessions, following our initial work on cataloging/categories.

3. Precedents/Exemplars

We will also generate a group of precedents to study and analyze that embody these categories in some way, examining how architecture situates itself within constructs of the natural realm and physical environment. Each student will select 5 precedents to investigate further, presenting to others in the studio, and forming a collective set of references.

4. Experimental Artifacts

Each student will independently define and conduct an independent form/materials-based research (pursued through drawing, construction, modelling) throughout the course of the term, based on research interests identified in the early part of the term. The Experimental Artifacts may be a series of smaller investigations, such as series of related studies, or they could be individual, unrelated studies; as well as a single form/material investigation that requires, due to its complexity or scale, a longer time frame to complete.

5. Keywords

Each student will identify and elaborate upon 5 keywords that characterize their research interests in a short exercise, approximately 2/3 in the term.

6. Three

Scenarios During the last part of the term (approximately the last 3 weeks), students will work independently to organize and synthesize their research, creating 3 scenarios for possible thesis projects. These scenarios may be quite diverse, or closely related, depending on the interests of each student. The 3 Scenarios will be presented in a book format, including text and images, and will incorporate research each student has created during the semester.

7. Travel

The studio will collectively develop a travel agenda and possible dates to travel (4-5 days). Possible destinations could include those in the US – Phoenix area (Biosphere 2, Arcosanti, Sonoran Desert, Meteor Crater; or Los Angeles area (many attractions, such as Griffith Observatory, Hollyhock House, Schindler House, Joshua Tree National Park, LACMA Natural History Museum); or domestic travel – Montreal (Biosphere (Expo 67 Grounds), Biodome, Redpath Museum), or other destinations