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SUMMARY:Radical Optimism: Architecture Beyond Biomimicry
DTSTART:20110303T141500
DTSTAMP:20260408T100038Z
UID:ce62b707ee704e28976ed92e0e3135d4b5a9779f27c278d704a99072
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Magnus Larsson\nDry areas cover more than one-third of the ear
 th's land surface\, and desertification - "the diminution or destruction o
 f the biological potential of the land" - is a major threat on all contine
 nts\, affecting more than 100 countries in the world. Some estimates sugge
 st that 35  percent of the Earth's land surface and the livelihoods of 850
  million people are at risk.\nIs there a way of taking statements such as 
 the one above around and turning them into positively charged design brief
 s?\nAll design is fundamentally about aggregation and erosion. We add and 
 we take away. The novel process of engineered architectural lithification 
 proposed by Magnus Larsson - essentially creating a solid sedimentary rock
  structure\, a sandstone building\, from a pile of loose sand - effectivel
 y involves gluing one grain of sand to the next on a microscopic level. \n
 The building speaks of the chronology of the sand\, the vast rhythms of ge
 ological history\, the evolution of villages and cities covered in shimmer
 ing grains\, forgotten in a sea of sand.\nIt is an example of architecture
  beyond biomimicry.\nIt is also an example of Radical Optimism in action\,
  a project that seeks to turn 6\,000 kilometres of sand into a pan-African
  sandstone city\, a habitable wall structure on an urban mega-scale\, stra
 ddling an entire continent\, binding villages\, people\, and countries tog
 ether.\n\nContext:\nThe lecture will be given within the framework of our 
 studio on the generative design of the EPFL Middle East campus in the dese
 rts of Ras Al Khaimah.\n\nBio:\nLondon-based Swedish architect Magnus Lars
 son graduated with a BA (hons) in Oxford\, then moved on to the Architectu
 ral Association where he designed with surface equations in Diploma Unit 5
  under the tutelage of George Legendre. In Diploma Unit 16 he proposed his
  6\,000km long habitable anti-desertification wall made of biologically so
 lidified bacterial sandstone. He is currently putting the finishing touche
 s to his first scientific chapter on the Dune process (the book will be pu
 blished by Birkhäuser)\, and using any spare time to probe deeper into th
 e topic of how architecture can be pushed into the realm of synthetic biol
 ogy and biotechnology - while simultaneously juggling a daytime job with a
 rchitects HOK and the setting up of his own studio.
LOCATION:AAC 114
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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