Radical Optimism: Architecture Beyond Biomimicry
Event details
| Date | 03.03.2011 |
| Hour | 14:15 |
| Speaker | Magnus Larsson |
| Location |
AAC 114
|
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
Dry areas cover more than one-third of the earth's land surface, and desertification - "the diminution or destruction of the biological potential of the land" - is a major threat on all continents, affecting more than 100 countries in the world. Some estimates suggest that 35 percent of the Earth's land surface and the livelihoods of 850 million people are at risk.
Is there a way of taking statements such as the one above around and turning them into positively charged design briefs?
All 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 - effectively involves gluing one grain of sand to the next on a microscopic level.
The building speaks of the chronology of the sand, the vast rhythms of geological history, the evolution of villages and cities covered in shimmering grains, forgotten in a sea of sand.
It is an example of architecture beyond biomimicry.
It 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, straddling an entire continent, binding villages, people, and countries together.
Context:
The lecture will be given within the framework of our studio on the generative design of the EPFL Middle East campus in the deserts of Ras Al Khaimah.
Bio:
London-based Swedish architect Magnus Larsson graduated with a BA (hons) in Oxford, then moved on to the Architectural 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 solidified bacterial sandstone. He is currently putting the finishing touches to his first scientific chapter on the Dune process (the book will be published by Birkhäuser), and using any spare time to probe deeper into the topic of how architecture can be pushed into the realm of synthetic biology and biotechnology - while simultaneously juggling a daytime job with architects HOK and the setting up of his own studio.
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Contact
- Prof. Jeffrey Huang