An interdisciplinary colloquium / EAST lab - ARCHIZOOM
Event details
| Date | 31.03.2025 |
| Hour | 13:00 › 18:00 |
| Speaker | Florencia Collo (Atmos lab), Christina Köchling (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar), Marco Merz and Christian Kahl (Clauss Kahl Merz Atelier für Architektur), Penny Sparke (Kingston University), Tiago Borges (EAST lab) |
| Location | |
| Category | Conferences - Seminars |
| Event Language | French, English |
GREENHOUSE STUDIES
Lectures by Florencia Collo (Atmos lab), Christina Köchling (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar), Marco Merz and Christian Kahl (Clauss Kahl Merz Atelier für Architektur), Penny Sparke (Kingston University)
Organised by Tiago Borges, with the design studio Greenhouse Studies, EAST lab
What is a greenhouse without greenery? Or a winter garden without winter? Greenhouses have long served a fundamental purpose: to create a controlled climate for plant life. From their origins as functional structures, greenhouses have evolved into different types of spaces, serving new purposes and opening up new possibilities in architecture. The late 20th century saw a resurgence in greenhouse innovation, influencing bioclimatic architecture, passive energy solutions and, more recently, as multi-purpose spaces.
This colloquium brings together voices from botany, history, architecture and engineering to explore a variety of themes related to this architectural milieu. The colloquium reconsiders greenhouses as responsive, inhabitable environments and seeks to rethink greenhouses as a dynamic interface between the natural and built environment. In the background, thirty-four case studies of greenhouses and wintergardens from the last century illustrate one of architecture’s most fascinating artefacts.
Colloquium happening in the exhibition Sun Shines on Architecture at ARCHIZOOM in the context of the Solar Biennale
———
PENNY SPARKE
Plant-filled winter gardens in nineteenth-century British curative spaces
This lecture will examine the ways in which plant-filled winter gardens were integrated into a range of nineteenth-century British curative spaces - those of hydropathic hotels, convalescent homes and, what were then called, lunatic asylums, in particular. They functioned as important aspects of a therapeutic regime which involved bringing together the comforting role of domesticity with the calming effect of nature, both of which the designers of those spaces, together with their medical collaborators, believed to have strong curative qualities. Situated to benefit from what were believed to be the healing effects of light and inspiring views of the natural world, they also protected guests/patients from adverse weather conditions. The gardens acted as intermediate spaces, bringing the inside out and the outside in, and, along with open verandas, terraces and balconies, were thought to play a key environmental role in the physical and mental recovery of the inhabitants of the buildings in question.
CHRISTINA KÖCHLING
Aesthetics of technology
Climate change and rising construction costs have reignited interest in low-tech approaches to architecture. Architects today are increasingly looking for simple, efficient solutions that can be realised in harmony with local conditions. The book “Ästhetik der Technik” (Aesthetics of technology) uses three experimental houses from the 1970-90s to show how building technology can be understood as an integral part of the design and the architectural concept. The ‘Tree House’ by Ot Hoffmann in Darmstadt, the ‘Solar House’ by Rolf Schoch in Zollikofen and the ‘Air House’, the International Meeting Centre for Science, IBZ, by Otto Steidle in Berlin, all focus on the potential of nature and use low-tech ideas such as water storage and reuse, passive cooling and the use of solar energy.
MARCO MERZ & CHRISTIAN KAHL
Lyse-Lotte, a house a city
The Lyse-Lotte project emerged from a cooperation model in which three different interest groups, two existing cooperatives, as well as a group of befriended families, joined forces to develop and realize a collective and unconventional housing project on a building lease plot owned by the Habitat Foundation. In addition to the overarching sustainability goals of the Habitat Foundation (affordable rents, density of use, energy-efficient, ecological and healthy construction), a collage-like architecture was created, the stacking of three different residential typologies, whose primary basic structure considers the different needs for spatial program, community, participation and changeability. The result is a house for about 40 residents in three individual communities with two-storey residential studios, family flats with a shared entrance area, small flats and a cluster flat with a large balcony as well as communal rooms, joker rooms, a guest room, a guest flat and a greenhouse on the roof. The collage-like result shows the utilization typologies and becomes a symbol of participatory architecture.
FLORENCIA COLLO
It’s nice today. On the climate, comfort, and pleasure of the winter gardens
The lecture will develop on the research project carried out with Lacaton & Vassal about the performance of their winter gardens, which is published on the book "It´s Nice Today". It will cover the methodology, four case studies and key findings.
———
More details on the program to come
Lectures by Florencia Collo (Atmos lab), Christina Köchling (Bauhaus-Universität Weimar), Marco Merz and Christian Kahl (Clauss Kahl Merz Atelier für Architektur), Penny Sparke (Kingston University)
Organised by Tiago Borges, with the design studio Greenhouse Studies, EAST lab
What is a greenhouse without greenery? Or a winter garden without winter? Greenhouses have long served a fundamental purpose: to create a controlled climate for plant life. From their origins as functional structures, greenhouses have evolved into different types of spaces, serving new purposes and opening up new possibilities in architecture. The late 20th century saw a resurgence in greenhouse innovation, influencing bioclimatic architecture, passive energy solutions and, more recently, as multi-purpose spaces.
This colloquium brings together voices from botany, history, architecture and engineering to explore a variety of themes related to this architectural milieu. The colloquium reconsiders greenhouses as responsive, inhabitable environments and seeks to rethink greenhouses as a dynamic interface between the natural and built environment. In the background, thirty-four case studies of greenhouses and wintergardens from the last century illustrate one of architecture’s most fascinating artefacts.
Colloquium happening in the exhibition Sun Shines on Architecture at ARCHIZOOM in the context of the Solar Biennale
———
PENNY SPARKE
Plant-filled winter gardens in nineteenth-century British curative spaces
This lecture will examine the ways in which plant-filled winter gardens were integrated into a range of nineteenth-century British curative spaces - those of hydropathic hotels, convalescent homes and, what were then called, lunatic asylums, in particular. They functioned as important aspects of a therapeutic regime which involved bringing together the comforting role of domesticity with the calming effect of nature, both of which the designers of those spaces, together with their medical collaborators, believed to have strong curative qualities. Situated to benefit from what were believed to be the healing effects of light and inspiring views of the natural world, they also protected guests/patients from adverse weather conditions. The gardens acted as intermediate spaces, bringing the inside out and the outside in, and, along with open verandas, terraces and balconies, were thought to play a key environmental role in the physical and mental recovery of the inhabitants of the buildings in question.
CHRISTINA KÖCHLING
Aesthetics of technology
Climate change and rising construction costs have reignited interest in low-tech approaches to architecture. Architects today are increasingly looking for simple, efficient solutions that can be realised in harmony with local conditions. The book “Ästhetik der Technik” (Aesthetics of technology) uses three experimental houses from the 1970-90s to show how building technology can be understood as an integral part of the design and the architectural concept. The ‘Tree House’ by Ot Hoffmann in Darmstadt, the ‘Solar House’ by Rolf Schoch in Zollikofen and the ‘Air House’, the International Meeting Centre for Science, IBZ, by Otto Steidle in Berlin, all focus on the potential of nature and use low-tech ideas such as water storage and reuse, passive cooling and the use of solar energy.
MARCO MERZ & CHRISTIAN KAHL
Lyse-Lotte, a house a city
The Lyse-Lotte project emerged from a cooperation model in which three different interest groups, two existing cooperatives, as well as a group of befriended families, joined forces to develop and realize a collective and unconventional housing project on a building lease plot owned by the Habitat Foundation. In addition to the overarching sustainability goals of the Habitat Foundation (affordable rents, density of use, energy-efficient, ecological and healthy construction), a collage-like architecture was created, the stacking of three different residential typologies, whose primary basic structure considers the different needs for spatial program, community, participation and changeability. The result is a house for about 40 residents in three individual communities with two-storey residential studios, family flats with a shared entrance area, small flats and a cluster flat with a large balcony as well as communal rooms, joker rooms, a guest room, a guest flat and a greenhouse on the roof. The collage-like result shows the utilization typologies and becomes a symbol of participatory architecture.
FLORENCIA COLLO
It’s nice today. On the climate, comfort, and pleasure of the winter gardens
The lecture will develop on the research project carried out with Lacaton & Vassal about the performance of their winter gardens, which is published on the book "It´s Nice Today". It will cover the methodology, four case studies and key findings.
———
More details on the program to come
Practical information
- General public
- Free
Organizer
- EAST, ARCHIZOOM
Contact
- Tiago Borges