THERMODYNAMIC

INTERACTIONS
An Exploration into Physiological,
Material and Territorial Atmospheres

Javier García-Germán
ETSAM Presentation
Luis Maldonado
Dean at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura de Madrid, ETSAM, UPM

Reyner Banham’s The Architecture of Well-Tempered Environment pioneered

the historical and comparative study of the way Modern architects incorpo-
rated design strategies to improve the relationship between architecture and
the environment. Nowadays these initial preoccupations have been amplified.
Matters of concern have departed from Victor Horta’s attainment of indoor
comfort with independence of outdoor weather or Le Corbusier’s respiration
exacte to embrace a set of radical global conflicts which force us to rethink
architecture’s role in the productive and urban contexts.
The energy and environmental crisis, the worldwide emergence and
growth of the megalopolis, and the ever-increasing obsolescence and
consumption urges architects to refocus the discipline in a significantly
different way. In a vast majority of cases, the complexity of challenges
limits the architect’s engagement to initial declarations of good intentions
which are nevertheless doomed to fail. However, the academic environ-
ment has the potential to correct this situation. As dean of UPM's architec-
ture school I am grateful to the director of the Master in Collective Housing
for considering an innovative approach to the Energy and Sustainability
module, and to the director of the module for engaging this field of enquiry
through the lens of the thermodynamic interactions between climate, ar-
chitecture and users, perspective which will certainly contribute to refocus
the architect’s understanding of sustainability.
The ideas and formal concepts that have underlay good architecture
continue having a strong influence on new proposals. This knowledge has
disseminated in a variety of ways, either through theoretical disquisitions,
through buildings and projects or even through the high visibility of architects
on the public arena. This wide influence ensures the architect’s role in society.
However, it is crucial to widen the architect’s field of action and consider his
commitment to the development of society, which is a requirement for future
generations this book will certainly contribute to strengthen.
MCH Presentation
José María de Lapuerta
Director of Master in Collective Housing, ETSAM, UPM

The students who have graduated during the last nine years from the Master
in Collective Housing had contradictory points of view regarding sustainabili-
ty. Some of them were interested in its quantitative perspective and deman-
ded engineering-based energy simulations to be taught; others thought that
this field of interest was connected to a return to traditional building techni-
ques; whilst other students felt that sustainability concerns were ephemeral,
and argued that good architecture has always been sustainable.
A very important module within the Master in Collective Housing since its
inception in 2006, during years it has reflected the contradictions students
manifested, reflecting on a wide array of interests which were nevertheless
difficult to explain in a coherent way.
During the last three editions the Energy and Sustainability module has
been directed by Javier García-Germán, experiencing a radical transforma-
tion. Javier García-Germán has managed to give to this wide field of enquiry
a coherent structure, explaining under a common framework distant and
contradictory situations. Three interacting realms —physiological atmos-
pheres, material atmospheres and territorial atmospheres— have defined
a theoretical basis where diverging points of view from an array of discipli-
nes —from architecture and physics to physiology— have been overlaid
in a productive manner. This approach has avoided worn-off design tech-
niques deploying a multiscalar approach which, going beyond the typical
limits of Energy and Sustainability modules, has managed to provide an
innovative understanding of architecture.
To conclude, the approach to the Energy and Sustainability module Javier
García-Germán has provided —and by extension this book—, approaches
this field of enquiry in a new and original way. Under this perspective, the field
of sustainability belongs simultaneously to the realm of architectural culture
and to the realm of science and technology. And conflating culture and scien-
ce makes this approach useful for architecture and by extension to society.
Contents

INTRODUCTION
07 Luis Fernández-Galiano:
“Shaping the Future with the Past”
11 Javier García-Germán:
“Thermodynamic Interactions”

PHYSIOLOGICAL ATMOSPHERES (co-edited with Philippe Rahm)

32 Javier García-Germán:
“Foreword”
39 Jonathan Hill:
“Weather Architecture: A Historical Perspective”
53 Philippe Rahm interviewed by Javier García-Germán:
“Thermodynamic Space”
69 Harry Francis Mallgrave:
“Architecture of the Senses”
77 Michelle Addington:
“The Unbounded Boundary”
86 Philippe Rahm architectes, Mosbach paysagistes, Ricky Liu & Associates
Jade Meteo Park

MATERIAL ATMOSPHERES (co-edited with Iñaki Ábalos)

108 Javier García-Germán:
“Foreword”
115 Iñaki Ábalos:
“Thermodynamic Materialism”
123 Toni Kotnik:
“Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow”
131 Juan José Castellon, Pierluigi D’Acunto:
“The Architectural and Performative
Potential of Porous Structures”
137 Kiel Moe:
“Cellular Solidarity: Matter, Energy, and Formation”
147 Iñaki Ábalos:
“Regaining Authority”
148 Iñaki Ábalos, GSD Harvard University
in collaboration with the ETH Zürich Chair of Structural Design
Thermodynamic Prototype

TERRITORIAL ATMOSPHERES (co-edited with Silvia Benedito)

168 Javier García-Germán:
“Foreword”
175 Silvia Benedito:
“Landscape and Atmosphere: Genealogies of Appearance”
189 Kathleen John-Alder:
“Equilibrated Exchange: an Exploration
of The Sea Ranch Bioclimatic Analysis”
201 Matthias Schüler interviewed
by Silvia Benedito & Javier García-Germán:
“Urban Meteorology”
217 Gërnot Böhme (translation by Axel Häusler):
“The Physiognomy of a Landscape”
232 OFICINAA architecture + urbanism
Campo Material
240 Foster and Partners + Transsolar
Masdar

248 AFTERWORD
254 Biographies
261 Image Credits
266 Acknowledgments
07 Shaping the Future with the Past

Shaping the Future with the Past

Luis Fernández-Galiano
Chair at Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura, ETSAM, UPM

The energy crises of the seventies left their mark on the generation which
entered architecture then, and the current climate crisis is having a similar
effect on the architects starting their practice in the first decade of the 21st
century. If the energy scares of 1973-74 and 1979 brought a sense of urgen-
cy and shaped the perception of the seventies, the scientifically grounded
alarm expressed by the climate change conferences – from Kyoto 1997 to
Montreal 2005 and beyond –, forced the architects of the noughties to look
again towards thermodynamics and atmospheres, rediscovering much of
the work carried out forty years before. Then as now, the economic and
technical shifts established the intellectual and aesthetic agenda of the ti-
mes, and architects tried to address the new challenges both learning from
the past and gaining access to contemporary tools.
I happened to graduate coinciding with the first energy crisis,
so during the seventies I wrote on energy and building, alternative
technology, self-build and solar energy, edited books and magazines
on energy, climate and design, gave my first public lecture on the
energy question and built a solar house with massive interseasonal
passive storage of heat: all rather predictable, being a blend of the
energy anxiety and the post-68 libertarian ethos. Shortly after I wrote
my thesis on these matters, hopefully trying to translate Leontief’s
input-output tables from monetary to energy units, and therefore apply
energy accounting to the building sector, so that technical decisions
about life-cycle costing could have a firmer basis. But the final result
– hundreds of tables and computer printouts – looked too econometric
for an architecture tribunal, so I wrote an essay-like introduction in the
summer of 1982, which years later would be published as a book, Fire
and Memory. There, ‘memory’ referred to the energy embodied in the
existing, which led to advocate both the renovation of the urban legacy
and the learning of adaptative lessons from the past.
 Introduction 08

In fact, humanity has lived without fossil fuels for most of its history,
so perhaps it is not so difficult to learn again the common sense methods
to build responding to climate and achieving thermal comfort with scarce
means – as indeed so many in emerging countries continue doing today.
Adequate orientation to sun and winds, thermal inertia, solar shading,
natural light and ventilation, together with appropriate clothing and less
demanding standards of temperature and humidity are sensible ways
of providing reasonable comfort, but also welcome reminders of our
symbiosis with nature and unexpected sources of physical pleasure. This
somehow postmodern, but ultimately phenomenological approach, was
coupled with a critical defense of the existing, as a rich deposit of human
and non-human energy, as a material record of building intelligence, and as
a psychological well of patterns and habits.
What was more evidently missing in this built-object approach was the
urban dimension, sketchedly suggested by the ecological descriptions
of Odum or Margalef, but in the end absent in its properly architectural
dimension. In any case, the prices of energy become more stable during the
first half of the eighties, the scare dissolved, and the conservative backlash
brought about by Reagan and Thatcher steered the architectural agenda
towards history, celebration and icons. After 1985, energy is absent from
debates or publications, and my own work as author or editor reflects this
swerve, eloquently showing to which extent we are children of our time and
how insightful was the now forgotten Marx when he wrote that “it is not
the consciousness of men that determines their existence but their social
existence that determines their consciousness.”
This sobering thought helps also to understand the material basis of
the current rekindling of energy research, essentially driven by a new
global crisis that is centered on climate, but also on the related concern
with the carbon emissions produced by the burning of fossil fuels, with
09 Shaping the Future with the Past

the risks associated with shale oil, with the geopolitical tensions created
by a convulse energy market, and – last but not least – with the social and
political demands for sustainability, transformed into the often empty
mantra of the times. As far as architecture is concerned, discussing again
thermodynamics and climate is of course to be welcomed – and more if
it is done with the intelligent discrimination of Javier García-Germán—,
but some of the mistakes of the seventies and eighties could perhaps
be avoided, and some of the subjects overlooked brought now under the
light. Of those, no one more important – I believe – than urban density,
because the sprawling city of detached houses (however much decorated
with energy-saving gadgets, and however wisely placed on the land) is
manifestly unsustainable, and this is a key issue that shadows any other:
the struggle for density is decidedly unglamourous, but perhaps architects
must become planners if they want to regain their soul.
11 Thermodynamic Interactions

Thermodynamic Interactions
Javier García-Germán

1. During the last decade design disciplines have evidenced a growing

interest in energy, which has motivated the gradual introduction of new
concepts and ideas from different disciplines to the fields of architecture,
landscape architecture and urban design. Ranging from scientific concepts
—e.g. energy efficiency or dissipative structures— to applied knowledge
—e.g. material logistics or human comfort— the range of energy-related
phenomena has opened an expanded domain of parallel fields of knowled-
ge which is disclosing new design potentials and opportunities,1 but is also
hindering its understanding and practical application.
In this context Thermodynamic Interactions aims to filter this expan-
ded domain, and presents a collection of original essays and projects
which intends to be comprehensive and synthetic, contributing to delimit
the field of action and to establish a set of specific ideas and concepts
on which designers need to take stock. Renouncing to explore the idea
that any construction is a material system nested in long-term ecological
energy hierarchies, 2 Thermodynamic Interactions concentrates on the
short-term atmospheric dimension of architecture, landscape architecture
and urban design, and focuses on its meteorological performance. In this

1_The potential thermodynamics opened to energy offers to design practices.

design practices caught my attention around 2_Together with atmospheric interactions,
year 2003-04 and was materialized in the ecological logistics stem from the introduc-
reader De lo Mecánico a lo Termodinámico. Por tion of far from equilibrium thermodynamics
una Definición Energética de la Arquitectura to architecture. Buildings, far from being
y del Territorio (Javier García-Germán editor. considered isolated objects, operate in an
Gustavo Gili, Barcelona published in 2010 but expanded field which links its structure to
completed in 2007.) which discussed energy’s distant ecosystems around the geo-bios-
expanded domain and ambitioned, not only to phere, where its material constituents come
announce the thermodynamic turn, but also from. This places buildings material logistics
to introduce the wide variety of potentials within the field of metabolic ecology.
 Introduction 12

regard this book ambitions to explore the contemporary role of thermody-

namics and atmosphere in architecture, landscape architecture and urban
design, discussing its status and potential to propel design practices
forward. Drawing on thermodynamics, this book focuses on the dissipa-
ting heat flows between outdoor climate, built form, interior atmosphere
and human bodies, aspiring to grasp not only the fluidity of atmospheric
processes but also the interactions with a physical, biological and senso-
rial reality which opens new design opportunities for architecture, lands-
cape architecture and urban design.

2. Thermodynamics as the field of physics which studies the energy inte-

ractions between systems, offers a basic understanding of heat dissipation
patterns, showing how energy is dissipated, transmitted and absorbed.
The current building energy model —as Kiel Moe3 has recently explai-
ned— conceptualizes its interior atmosphere as a closed energy system
with a steady-state behavior. However, the existence of transient non-linear
energy exchanges between climate, built form and human bodies poses
the idea that any construction is an open thermodynamic system in inte-
raction with a changing outdoor climate, which questions the steady-state
model and introduces design practices into the realm of non-equilibrium
thermodynamics. Thermodynamic Interactions aspires to frame the dis-
cussion on energy and atmosphere from this perspective, presenting a
collection of essays and projects which implicitly assume that a far from

3_Kiel Moe’s work is contributing to 27. January 2013. Pages 87-106) which
introduce with clarity and rigor non- anticipated the thesis of the book Insulating
equilibrium thermodynamics to architecture. Modernism. Isolated and Non-Isolated
See the article “Insulating North America” Thermodynamics in Architecture (2014.
(in Journal of Construction History, vol. Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel).
13 Thermodynamic Interactions

equilibrium perspective unfolds in the meteorological dimension of archi-

tecture, landscape architecture and urban design.
Contrary to the conservative insulated model, any built environment
is an open energy system which is immersed in a variety of dissipating
energy flows. Dissipation takes place spontaneously whenever there is
an energy gradient —for instance, a temperature, a pressure or a height
difference— between a source and a sink. Accepting dissipating flows
occur spontaneously and irreversibly, it is also true that these flows can
be intercepted by devices that either use them or block them, store them
or release them in doses. As a spatial and material construct built form
can capture, transport, store and release energy, and thus orchestrate the
flows of dissipating heat which traverse it. According to this idea Ther-
modynamic Interactions is divided in three parts —territorial atmosphe-
res, material atmospheres and physiological atmospheres—, presenting
a synthetic cross-section of the range of dissipating flows, sources and
sinks which are relevant for designers.
The built environment, as spatial and material construct is subject
to a continuous bidirectional flow with meteorological phenomena. This
defines a first domain of atmospheric design called territorial atmospheres
which explores the dissipating energy flows between outdoor climate and
built form. Inside buildings, the thermodynamic flow between architectu-
re and its indoor ambient defines a second thermodynamic environment
called material atmospheres, which explores the energy interactions be-
tween outdoor climate, architecture’s spatial and material systems and in-
door atmosphere. And finally, a third thermodynamic environment called
physiological atmospheres explores the energy exchanges between the
human body and the invisible environment which envelopes it, shifting
design drivers from space and matter to the interaction between atmos-
phere and the psychosomatic processes of users.
 Introduction 14

Identifying these situations not only enables to delineate particular

thermodynamic realms, but also to define the fields of knowledge which
pertain to each of them. In this regard, the chapter Territorial Atmosphe-
res deals with the interactions between outdoor climate and built form
and, as a result, brings forth the field of microclimatology. This subfield of
climatology studies the climatic effect of the thermodynamically active
boundary layer between regional climatic patterns and the surface near
the ground (see image mosaic in pages 24-25). Similarly, Material Atmos-
pheres studies the effect of material systems in interior climates and, as
a result, draws on materials science and materials engineering to better
orchestrate the dissipating flows of heat which flow throughout buildings
(see image mosaic in pages 26-27). And finally, Physiological Atmospheres
explores the interactions between non-visible atmospheric phenomena
and the human body, relying on the disciplines of physiology and neuro-
biology to understand how dissipating heat flows reach the human body
and how these stimuli are interpreted by the psyche (see image mosaic in
pages 28-29). As a result Thermodynamic Interactions not only recognizes
the plurality of related fields of knowledge, but also defines those ones
that are relevant to specific design situations.
Even though these three environments can be related to the traditional
scales and boundaries of design disciplines, they address questions which

4_Luis Fernández-Galiano’s book Fire as an open thermodynamic system

and Memory —written in the year 1982— interacting with building and outdoor climate.
introduced the idea that building and See Luis Fernández-Galiano’s Fire and
atmosphere form an open thermodynamic Memory. On Architecture and Energy. 2000.
system which exchanges energy and matter MIT Press: Cambridge, Massachusetts, pages
with outdoor climate. The chapter “Paradigms 100-126 (Fernández-Galiano, Luis. El Fuego
of Life and Thermodynamic Architectures” y la Memoria. Sobre Arquitectura y Energía.
explicitly presented the interior atmosphere 1991. Alianza Editorial S.A., Madrid).
15 Thermodynamic Interactions

transcend specific architectural scales and procedures, and which are

therefore relevant across a range of situations. From interior ambiences to
urban environments, the structure of the book aims to supersede autono-
mous design fields and to focus on the design potential of systems which
interact across distant environments. As a result Thermodynamic Interac-
tions recognizes the need for an interscalar approach which, transcending
disciplinary scales and divisions, speculates on the need to conflate the
territorial with the physiological in an all-encompassing design endeavor.

3. It is important to complement the current drive to ground design practi-

ces on a thermodynamic basis with a discussion of the cultural relevance
of atmosphere in architecture, landscape architecture and urban design. In
this regard Thermodynamic Interactions aspires to supplement the prevai-
ling quantitative techno-scientific discourse of thermodynamic design with
a qualitative one which enriches its scope and frames its field of action.
In this context it is important acknowledging the work developed in
the late 1970s and 1980s by pioneers such as Luis Fernández-Galiano4
or Sanford Kwinter5 to introduce far from equilibrium thermodynamics
into design practices. In recent years these early proposals have been
gradually assimilated and materialized in concrete projects, which are
arguably contributing to go beyond the green nightmare and restoring

5_Years after Fdez-Galiano’s reflections and 1989 (Architectures of Time. Toward a

critics such as Sanford Kwinter proposed, Modernist Theory of the Event in Modernist
with a more abstract formulation, the Culture. 2002. MIT Press: Cambridge,
need to introduce far from equilibrium Massachusetts; London, England) and
thermodynamics and the arrow of time in various articles such as “Landscapes
architecture. These ideas were introduced of Change: Boccioni's Stati d'animo as a
through the book Architectures of Time General Theory of Models” in Assemblage,
which was written between the years 1984 No. 19, Dec., 1992, pp. 50-65.
 Introduction 16

political agency to a discipline which has over the last decades surren-
dered to the impossibility of making any serious critique to the social,
political or economic status quo. In this context it can be argued that
thermodynamics is transcending previous technoscientific quantitative
abstract procedures and reinvigorating architecture’s engagement with
reality. Going beyond the performative control of atmospheric patterns
facilitated by digital tools, thermodynamics offers design practices the
opportunity to engage social and political issues. From public health
to low-cost passive measures, the wide range of atmospheric questions
constitute not only a thermodynamic endeavor but, more importantly, a
political project of utmost transcendence.
Interestingly thermodynamics offers the potential to engage these
questions not only introducing concepts from other disciplines such as
sociology or political ecology, but within core disciplinary debates.6 Revi-
sing the history of atmospheric design brings forth for instance climatic
typologies which, not catering for current comfort standards, nonetheless
introduce the idea that through material form or program —through archi-
tecture’s apparatus— buildings interact with climate to provide a variety of
microclimates. It is not only important to acknowledge the new processes
and scales that are being opened, but also to understand how these interact
with architectural, landscape and urban materials and forms. Compensa-
ting the predominant quantitative-performative atmospheric drive with a
culturally-inflected one, Thermodynamic Interactions explicitly recognizes
the need to overlay current digital analysis tools with other procedures
which incorporate core disciplinary values to dissipation design.

6_See Charles Waldheim’s article and Performance Turn” in Essays on

“Afterword: Ábalos Thermodynamic Thermodynamics, Architecture and Beauty.
17 Thermodynamic Interactions

Thermodynamic Interactions not only addresses the disciplinary di-

mension of atmospheric design but also the need to engage the intimate
relationship between the human body and its enveloping atmosphere.
Air-conditioning design articulated a physiological atmospheric model
which introduced health and comfort considerations into architecture.
Decades later this physiological model was overlaid with an experiential
and sensual dimension, which staged the potential of atmospheric design
to produce subjective effects. A given atmosphere onsets a succession of
neurobiological processes which induce a conscious psychological expe-
rience, introducing the potential of atmosphere to produce a multisensory
aesthetic environment. In this regard Thermodynamic Interactions advo-
cates to acquire the tools which make those chains of perception-reaction
available to the designer, making explicit the need for atmospheric toolkit
for the production of specific effects. This suggests the need to theorize on
aesthetics and atmosphere7 offering the opportunity to connect the —until
now— largely disconnected realms of science and art.

4. In this expanded domain the history of atmospheric design is instru-

mental to provide the historical depth thermodynamic design requires. As
a result this book compiles several essays which give a brief historical over-
view with the aim of situating its contents into perspective.
However the aim is not only to delineate its historical background but
also to acquire critical distance with modernity, bringing forward those
experiences which question modern univocal technoscientific approa-
ches. The history of architecture, landscape architecture and urban design

2016. ACTAR, Barcelona, New York. loped by Silvia Benedito who is to a large extent
7_This field of enquiry is currently being deve- responsible for its introduction in this book.
 Introduction 18

brings forth figures as diverse as Rudolph Geiger, Victor and Aladar Olg-
yay, Baruch Givoni or Lisa Heschong who, even though have had until now
a relative importance in architectural discussions, have played an essential
role when exploring the connections between architecture, atmosphere
and energy, contributing to introduce an alternative non-modern thermod-
ynamic understanding to the disciplines of architecture, landscape archi-
tecture and urban design. Retrieving these past experiences strengthens,
refocuses and sharpens the intellectual framework in which contemporary
architectural endeavors are unfolding.
Revising the history of atmospheric architecture unveils there is a
wide range of atmospheric experiments —from vernacular climatic typolo-
gies to mechanical climate control— which are relevant for current endea-
vors. Relying simultaneously on the archaic, the obsolete, the modern, the
contemporary and the futuristic this book presents a range of available
ideas and concepts out of which a meteorological approach to architec-
ture, landscape architecture and urban design can be framed. In this
regard Thermodynamic Interactions mediates between the historical and
the projective to disclose a variety of thermodynamic experiences which
critically recalibrated, pave the way for a renewed approach to energy,
atmosphere and design practices.

5. In pursuing these questions Thermodynamic Interactions complies

a collection of original and published essays, interviews and research
projects authored by architects, landscape architects and urban desig-
ners, philosophers, historians and engineers which show the wide ran-
ge of perspectives opened by thermodynamics and atmosphere. Com-
bining a scientific outlook with a historical or philosophical approach,
this book intends to integrate the technical and the cultural on poten-
tial projective paths for designers.
19 Thermodynamic Interactions

Territorial, Material and Physiological Atmospheres follow the same

pattern. Each part is preceded by a brief foreword written by myself on
the gradual empowerment of thermodynamics in architecture, landscape
architecture and urban design, discussing how the passage from an equi-
librium to a far from equilibrium thermodynamic model has transformed
modern energy models. This foreword is followed by an introductory es-
say which provides a historical contextualization, and then by other con-
tributions which introduce ideas and concepts from a range of disciplines
which are relevant for each thermodynamic environment. These essays are
complemented by a speculative essay which, reflecting on previous ideas,
explores the design potentials opened within each thermodynamic realm.
The written part is complemented by a selection of research projects
which show the projective dimension of the theoretical ideas previously
exposed. Projects have been curated to explore the range of thermody-
namic exchanges within each of the three thermodynamic realms. Even
though some of these projects have been built, its material outcomes have
been obviated to reinforce the theoretical ideas underpinning them, and
to underline the book’s academic character.
Physiological Atmospheres co-edited with Philippe Rahm explores
the thermodynamic interactions which exist between non-visible atmos-
pheric phenomena and the human body, studying not only its physiolo-
gical effects, but also its emotional ones. Jonathan’s Hill essay “Weather
Architecture: a Historical Perspective” goes over a set of century-long
references —from Evelyn’s 1661 Fumifugium to London’s 1957 Great
Smog— which connect urban atmosphere to human health. Philippe
Rahm’s interview “Thermodynamic Space” complements Hill’s historical
essay with a projective drive, discussing Rahm’s physiological architec-
ture in the context of science and architecture culture. Michelle Addin-
gton’s essay “The Unbounded Boundary” argues that the current trend
 Introduction 20

to connect the thermal environment to architecture’s physical structures

is preventing architects from designing “the engagement of the body
with its thermal surroundings,” introducing an idea which is critical with
the perspectives material atmospheres unfold in the following chapter.
Addington’s reflection on the need to design the body’s thermal environ-
ment is complemented by an essay by Harry Francis Mallgrave which dis-
cusses the possibilities neuroscience is opening for architects to unders-
tand the connections between the intellect, the senses and architecture.
Going beyond a purely thermo-scientific exploration, it aims to unveil
the sensorial implications these thermodynamic environments pose for
design practices. Physiological atmospheres is completed with a dossier
on the physiological strategies Rahm deploys in Taichung’s Jade Meteo
Park (Taiwan). Avoiding any reference to its built outcome, the project
has been curated to display the specific atmospheric, physiological and
neurological processes which are being targeted.
Material Atmospheres co-edited with Iñaki Ábalos explores the ener-
gy interactions between meteorological phenomena, buildings, ther-
modynamic devices and interior atmosphere. It recovers the idea that
architecture through its disciplinary apparatus —its material, spatial
or programmatic configuration— can modulate the dissipating flows
of energy to provide a healthy, comfortable and stimulating ambient.
Architecture, as a spatial and material construct interacts thermodyna-
mically with outdoor climate to provide a varied interior microclimate.
Iñaki Ábalos’ introductory essay, “Thermodynamic Materialism Project
(Site Plan),” contextualizes within architecture culture —and broader

8_See Iñaki Ábalos’ essay “Thermodynamic Material Atmospheres.

Materialism Project (Site Plan)” included in 9_This essay was originally published in
21 Thermodynamic Interactions

cultural trends— the urgency to deploy a thermodynamic approach

which grants architects the capacity “to operate technically and ima-
ginatively in the context of a technical and scientific model that is
different from the model it inherited from modernity.” 8 Ábalos essay is
followed Kotnik’s and Castellón-D’Acunto’s contributions which, under
the common title “Polyvalent Porosity,” explore the spatial and perfor-
mative potential of porous structures in architecture, speculating on
its capacity to integrate its structural and thermodynamic performance
with architectural space. This idea is pushed forward by Kiel Moe in
the essay “Cellular Solidarity: Matter, Energy, and Formation”, which
explores the self-similarity of porous structures in cellular solid mate-
rials and in buildings, arguing that its variable structural, thermal and
humidity-related performance are instrumental for a thermodynamic
approach to architecture. This section concludes with the research
project “THP (Thermodynamic Prototype)” which was developed at the
Harvard Graduate School of Design with the collaboration of the Chair
of Structural Design, ETH Zürich. Directed by Ábalos and developed by
the authors of the previous essays, this experiment presents a coherent
whole which materializes the preceding theoretical formulation. This
prototype aims to resolve its spatial, tectonic and thermodynamic orga-
nization with a single structure, “exploring the relationships between
form, material and energy” in three different climates.
Territorial Atmospheres co-edited with Silvia Benedito explores the
thermodynamic interactions which exist between meteorological pheno-
mena, landform and urban form. Silvia Benedito’s essay “Landscape and

German language in 1999. I would like to painstakingly translated this complex essay
express my gratitude to Axel Haüsler who from German to English.
 Introduction 22

Atmosphere – a Genealogy of Appearance” is a brief historical reflec-

tion which aims to recapitulate some experiments developed before the
20th century in which the role of the atmosphere for landscape archi-
tecture and urbanism has been considered not only physically, but also
qualitatively. Kathleen John-Alder’s essay “Equilibrated Exchange: an
Exploration of the Sea Ranch Bioclimatic Analysis” complements Bene-
dito’s historical account, presenting the climatic speculations modernity
brought forward through the influence of the Olgyay brothers, and this
is done analyzing Lawrence Halprin’s scheme for Sea Ranch. This cul-
tural analysis is followed by an interview to climate engineer Matthias
Schuler (Transsolar) which introduces a technical outlook, underlining
the fact that the thermodynamic turn has double-fold drive which mer-
ges a qualitative approach —form and matter, climatic typologies and
other disciplinary questions— with a quantitative one —thermodynamic
concepts, digital simulations and other technical issues—. The philoso-
pher Gernot Böhme’s contribution “The Physiognomy of a Landscape”9
speculates that the physiognomy of nature has a bodily-sensual presence
with objective, specific qualities which happen to constitute the basis of
atmosphere, introducing an aesthetic perspective to the discussion on
thermodynamics and atmosphere. Part one is closed with the climatic
analysis for Masdar City developed by Matthias Schuler and Transso-
lar —as part of the team led by Foster and Partners— and by the project
Campo Mineral developed by OFICINAA. These two examples show the
close connection existing between the meteorology of Abu Dhabi and
Lisbon and the proposed urban forms, evidencing that form, organic and
inorganic materials and local meteorology interact in a controlled way to
create comfortable and inspiring urban environments.
Even though Thermodynamic Interactions presents three indepen-
dent chapters to provide a clear and synthetic vision, it is important to
23 Thermodynamic Interactions

point out that far from being independent, these three thermodynamic
situations should be addressed in an integral manner. As a result it can
be argued that a committed approach to energy, atmosphere and design
practices needs to deploy a holistic vision which integrates its territo-
rial, material and physiological dimensions. An across-scales approach
involves devising cross-disciplinary integrative design protocols which,
mediating between the quantitative and the qualitative, the analogical
and the digital, and the techno-scientific and the cultural, engage simulta-
neously the climatic, infrastructural, material, spatial, social and political
thermodynamic implications of design.
 Introduction 24

Fig. 1 Fig. 4

Fig. 2 Fig. 5

Fig. 3
25 Thermodynamic Interactions

Fig. 6 Fig. 8

Fig. 7

Fig. 9
 Introduction 26

Fig. 10 Fig. 13

Fig. 11

Fig. 12
27 Thermodynamic Interactions

Fig. 14 Fig. 17

Fig. 15

Fig. 18

Fig. 16
 Introduction 28

Fig. 19 Fig. 21

Fig. 22

Fig. 20

Fig. 23
29 Thermodynamic Interactions

Fig. 24 Fig. 26

Fig. 25 Fig. 27
 Introduction 30

PHYSIOLOGICAL ATMOSPHERES Fig. 8, 9: Cumulus Cloud cooling device. Jade

Meteo Park, Philippe Rahm, Taiwan (2010).
Fig. 1: ASHVE Effective Temperature Comfort
Chart. Persons at rest, normally clothed in sti-
ll air (1932). ASHVE Guide 1955. Page 124. Fig 8. MATERIAL ATMOSPHERES

Fig. 2: Air-conditioning comfort model (circa 1950). Fig. 10: Interior office space. Note the low
thermal storage capacity of interior finishes:
Fig. 3: “Diagram showing the more important vinyl plastic flooring and lightweight fiber-
factors which increase heat production on glass and metacrylate suspended ceilings.
the one hand and heat loss on the other. The General Motors Technical Center, Warren,
diagram of the balance indicates that the MI. Saarinen, Swanson and Saarinen (1950).
heat production and heat loss are almost The Architecture of the Well-Tempered Envi-
always in equilibrium, so that a normal body ronment. Reyner Banham (1969).
temperature is maintained at 37ºC” as cited
in Lane Medical Lectures: The Mechanism Fig. 11: Vinyl plastic tile flooring advertise-
of Heat Loss and Temperature Regulation, ment. The U.S. Stoneware Co. Architectural
Eugene F. Dubois (1937). Forum (1953).

Fig. 4: Modern building acts as a selective Fig. 12: Origin of the differences between
filter which takes the load of the natural the magnitudes of the instantaneous
environment off man’s body and thus frees heat gain and instantaneous cooling load.
his energy for social productivity. American ASHVE GUIDE 1955.
Building: the Forces that Shaped It, James
Marshton Fitch (1948). Fig. 13: A Home is not a House, Reyner Ban-
ham with François Dallegret (1965). Art in
Fig. 5: Relation between the human body and the America (April 1965).
climatic elements. Application of Climate Data to
House Design. Aladar and Victor Olgyay (1953). Fig. 14: “Air flow studies in plan. 1) The air
forms an angle until it finds the exit. 2) Any
Fig. 6: LSD Art, front cover Life Magazine (1966). obstacle out of the air’s path will not interfere
in its flow. 3) Any obstacle placed in the air’s
Fig. 7: The body as a hydronic, thermally ac- path will reduce its speed, the room on top will
tive surface system. Note the integration of not have air movement and the room under
the body’s and architecture’s heat exchange will have very little flow. 4) When the airflow
mechanisms. Thermally Active Surfaces in intersects with subdivisions, its velocity de-
Architecture. Kiel Moe (2010). creases. 5) Parallel subdivisions to the air flow
31 Thermodynamic Interactions

divide the path but maintains the speed. 6) ground surface in the course of the day.
Obstacles reduce the cooling effect.” Quoted (Layer measurements of L. A. Ramdas and
from Design with Climate. Victor Olgyay (1963). W. S. Kati).” The Climate Near The Ground.
Rudolf Geiger (1950).
Fig. 15: Diagram showing the relative impor-
tance of the heat transmission coefficient Fig. 21: “The cold air from the high ground
versus the heat-storage capacity in different flows to the lower places and is replaced by
latitudes. Note the importance of material warmer air from above these lower places”
arrangements in interior space. Design with forming what is called cold islands or cold
Climate. Victor Olgyay (1963). lagoons. The Climate Near The Ground.
Rudolf Geiger (1950). Diagram included years
Fig. 16: Differences in the cellular structure later in Olgyay’s Design with Climate.
of soft wood and hard wood. The void-to-ma-
tter ratio affects the way in which wood Fig. 22: Shadow effect of the impact of
absorbs the air’s relative humidity. USDA wind with row houses. Wind protection
Forest Service, Forest Product Laboratory with a linear orientation of dwellings.
(www.samariwoodworks.com). Wind protection effect with an oblique
arrangement of dwellings. Taking advantage
Fig. 17: The cellular structure of wood. Note of summer breezes. Design with Climate.
the variable density cells found in wood. The Victor Olgyay (1963).
Cellular Structure of Wood (www.micromez-
zomacro.wordpress.com). Fig. 23: Airflow around two barriers in diffe-
rent ways according to parameters of verti-
Fig. 18: Thermodynamic Prototype. Graduate cal and horizontal distance barrier. Design
School of Design, Harvard University. 2010. with Climate. Victor Olgyay (1963).

Fig. 24: Different examples of brise-soleils.

TERRITORIAL ATMOSPHERES Design with Climate. Victor Olgyay (1963).

Fig. 19: “Heat exchange at noon for Fig. 25, 26: Performance-Oriented Architec-
a summer day (The width of arrows ture, Achim Menges (2014).
corresponds to the transferred heat
amounts).” The Climate Near The Ground. Fig. 27: Campo Mineral (Lisbon). OFICINAA
Rudolf Geiger (1950). Diagram included years architecture + urbanism. Interpreted simu-
later in Olgyay’s Design with Climate. lation (in summer) that intersects wind flow
with evaporative cooling provided by the
Fig. 20: “Temperature layers both of the existing and proposed tree canopy (2010).
 Cap

Physiological
Atmospheres

01
 Philippe Rahm and Javier García-Germán co-editors

39 Jonathan Hill:
“Weather Architecture:
A Historical Perspective”

53 Philippe Rahm interviewed

by Javier García-Germán:
“Thermodynamic Space”

69 Harry Francis Mallgrave:

“Architecture of the Senses”

77 Michelle Addington:
“The Unbounded Boundary”

86 Philippe Rahm architectes, Mosbach

paysagistes, Ricky Liu & Associates
Jade Meteo Park
EQUILIBRIUM COMFORT MODEL
Modernity established a new building paradigm which
was essentially formed by a lightweight sealed envelope
and a mechanically air-conditioned interior space.
Interestingly, this new paradigm was concomitant with
a physiological comfort model which has articulated
since the 1950s the understanding of the interactions
between interior atmosphere and the human body
—devoid of location, program, age, sex or race—
remaining largely unquestioned until present day.

Based on the psychrometric comfort standards

Willis H. Carrier’s had established years before,1 this
physiological model relied on the introduction of large
volumes of air at constant environmental conditions
and delivery rates throughout the building. Massive
air inputs provided so much thermal inertia to the
interior atmosphere that it neutralized existing energy
exchanges, reducing the variety of thermodynamic
interactions between interior environments and the body
to convective heat exchanges.2 In addition it provided
a homogeneous psychrometric environment at 21°C
and 50% humidity, reducing the variety of atmospheric
variables to the air’s temperature and relative humidity.

Not coincidentally this physiological model was

consistent with Eugene F. DuBois’3 thermodynamic
understanding of the body. When the human body
is blanketed in a mass of air at a temperature close
to the neutral point —DuBois argued— human-
to-atmosphere interactions form a steady-state
thermodynamic system in which the body is in thermal
equilibrium with its environment. At this temperature
the nude human body takes no particular action to
control its heat balance —the thermal conditions
felt as neither too cold nor too hot—, staging the first
scientific-based definition of comfort temperature.

In addition the air-conditioning physiological model

conceptualized users as thermodynamic passive
objects. Subject to a remote-controlled homogeneous
atmosphere, sealed envelopes prevented users from
opening windows, limiting the quality and variety of
its physiological and psychological interactions, and
impeding them to participate actively in the climatic
management of buildings.

CHANGING PHYSIOLOGIES. DESIGNING ENERGY FLOWS

Contrary to this comfort model, the thermal
experience within non air-conditioned buildings
provides a different perspective. Resulting from the
interaction between outdoor climate and interior
contingencies, non air-conditioned buildings induce
a wide range of thermodynamic exchanges which in
turn provide a heterogeneous and variable sensorial
experience. Under this perspective users are not mere
passive objects, but active systems affected by and
affecting climatic variability, and actively engaged
in its control and modulation. This vision poses an
alternative to the steady-state air-conditioning model,
introducing the idea that users and interior climate
form a self-regulating integral cybernetic system.4
 Cap 36

This alternative model was presented to architectural

discourse by the Olgyay brothers who re-introduced
in the 1950s5 the idea —largely overlooked by the
Modern Movement— that architecture, through its
spatial and material apparatus, could mediate between
outdoor climate and human physiology. Shifting from
mechanical to structural climate control expanded not
only the number of environmental techniques but, most
importantly, the variety and variability of atmospheric
variables air-conditioning had previously restricted to
psychrometrics. Even though the Olgyay’s physiological
understanding was indebted to the knowledge the
air-conditioning industry had generated since the
1920s, this new perspective enabled to engage human
thermoregulation mechanisms in new ways, opening
physiological interactions from convective exchanges to
a wider variety of energy exchanges as is, for instance,
the effect of solar radiation. The scope of physiological
interactions was further expanded in the 1960s by
Baruch Givoni, whose knowledge on environmental
physiology was instrumental to introduce a deeper
understanding of the somatic and neuronal processes
involved in these body-to-atmosphere exchanges.

THERMAL DELIGHT IN ARCHITECTURE

Up until the 1970s both the mechanical and bioclimatic
climate control models had focused primarily in health
and comfort questions. Even though both approaches
departed from opposite vantage points, they studied
body-to-atmosphere interactions in relation to air
temperature and relative humidity. This situation was
37 Sub

however questioned by Lisa Heschong’s Thermal Delight

in Architecture (1979) which, complementing the idea that
air-conditioning should cater for physiological needs,
explored the potential of thermal interactions to be used
as an expressive element in architecture. Heschong
considered that the homogeneous and constant
environment of sealed air-conditioning buildings was not
delightful, arguing that passive solar house inhabitants
“definitely seem to enjoy a range of temperatures,”6
finding pleasure in the wide variety of thermal
experiences non air-conditioned architecture offered.

Pushing forward Heschong’s ideas it can be argued that

the real opportunity for architecture does not lie in the
range of thermodynamic interactions present in passive
buildings, but in the potential these interactions
offer to induce a variety of perceptual experiences
and conscious mental reactions, broadening the —
until now— predominantly visual field of perception.
Interestingly these spontaneous dissipating energy
flows can be intentionally designed to address specific
somatic and neurological mechanisms, which in turn
can induce particular sensorial experiences.

NEW SOMATIC MULTISENSORY TOOLKIT

Heschong’s emphasis on architecture’s thermal
experience anticipated the contemporary interest
to understand the connections between a particular
atmosphere and the production of specific atmospheric
effects. How can this vaporous environment become
the object of architectural design brings forward
 Cap 38

two questions. First, the need to understand how

atmospheric phenomena seize the human nervous
system and induce a particular experience and behavior.
And second, the need to acquire the tools which
make those chains of perception-reaction available
to the designer. In this regard, the work of the French
neurobiologist Jean-Didier Vincent7 has shed light on
this question. Vincent has understood that environment,
soma and senses form a single entity, succeeding to
explain the connections between environmental stimuli
and, through neurobiological processes, the subsequent
unconscious human responses.

The steady-state physiological model considered

thermal comfort belongs to the blind, instinctive,
automatic physiological thermo-regulation systems,
with no possibilities for intellectual processing.
Subject to materialistic thermodynamic interactions
the body’s internal milieu struggles to achieve
thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment,
rendering a physiological conceptualization which
limits thermal interactions to the realm of passive

1_The early interest by Willis H. Carrier’s man body and the enveloping atmosphere.
in psychrometrics and the subsequent 3_Eugene F. DuBois was an environmental
invention of the psychrometric chart physiologist who laid in the 1930s
has determined body-to-atmosphere the foundations to understand the
relationships since the 1910s to present day. physiological interactions between the
2_It is important to note that in the early human body and the environment, probing
1930s Eugene F. DuBois had already disclo- that these have a thermodynamic basis.
sed the relationship between a particular See the Lane Medical Lectures: The
basal metabolic heat production and the Mechanism of Heat Loss and Temperature
proportion of radiant, convective and eva- Regulation. Eugene F. Dubois (1937).
porative heat dissipation between the hu- 4_This understanding was introduced
39 Sub

animal physiological homoeostatic mechanisms.

However according to Vincent this idea has been
rendered obsolete. Nowadays any living organism is
considered to be a far from equilibrium thermodynamic
system. Subject to a variety of atmospheric stimulus,
these interactions disrupt the body’s physiological
and psychological internal balance, making context,
organism, physiological reactions and mood a single
interacting system which offers new design potentials.

Physiological Atmospheres explores a design culture

which is interested in the connections between
the thermodynamic and phenomenal environment,
human physiological needs and its subjective sensory
responses. The aim of this chapter is to debunk the
former prevalence of visual aesthetics and to explore
a new a multisensory aesthetic awareness in which
user and environment are subject to continuous
interactions in both space and time, shifting design
agency to the production of somatic effects.

JGG

in the 1970s by Michael Humphreys where the Olgyay brothers created an

who defined the Adaptive Thermal exhibit called the “Temperate House”
Comfort Index. This index provided an which studied the connections between
alternative vision to the air-conditioning structural climate control, climatic
physiological comfort model which, even typologies and building techniques.
though it was established in the 1920s, 6_Heschong, Lisa. Thermal Delight in
surprisingly still forms the basis of the Architecture. 1979. MIT Press: Cambridge,
PMV-PPD currently in use. Massachusetts. Page 21.
5_This idea was first explored during 7_Vincent, Jean-Didier. The Biology of
the symposium “Space Heating with Emotions. 1990 (1986). Basil Blackwell:
Solar Energy” held at MIT in 1950, Oxford, Cambridge. Pages 123-127.
41 Weather Architecture

Weather Architecture:
A Historical Perspective
Jonathan Hill

Things of a Natural Kind

A ‘Hellish and dismall Cloud of SEA-COALE’ blankets London, complained
John Evelyn in 16611. Coals then had sulphur levels twice that of ones used
centuries later. On combustion, sulphur oxidised to introduce sulphur dioxi-
de into the air and a secondary oxidation created sulphuric acid2 . Fog, coal
smoke and industrial fumes turned the sky into a darkly odorous smog,
blackening buildings and skies, corroding metals, killing plants, lodging in
eyes, throats and lungs, and making streets and squares unbearable. A new
building had a shadow of soot even before the end of its construction3 .
Evelyn’s Fumifugium: or The Inconvenience of the Aer and Smoak of
London Dissipated, 1661, was the first book to consider the city’s polluted
atmosphere as a whole, as well as the first to recognise mitigation and adap-
tation as responses to human-induced—anthropogenic—climate change,
three centuries before these principles were widely accepted. Opening with
a dedication to King Charles II, Evelyn conceived Fumifugium in response
to a ‘pernicious Accident’ in the royal palace of Whitehall. A ‘presumptuous
Smoake … did so invade the Court’ that ‘Men could hardly discern one ano-
ther’ in the same room4 . Many of Evelyn’s acquaintances divided their year
between a country estate and a London residence:

But, it is manifest, that those who repair to London, no sooner enter

into it, but they find a universal alteration to their Bodies, which

1_John Evelyn, Fumifugium: Or, The Pollution Among the Early Fellows of the
Inconvenience of the Aer, and Smoake Royal Society’, Notes and Records of the
of London Dissipated, ed. Samuel Pegge Royal Society of London, vol. 32, no. 2, March
(London: B. White, 1772), p. 18. First published 1978, p. 123.
with a slightly different title. 3_An idea suggested to me by Adrian Petrenco.
2_Peter Brimblecombe, ‘Interest in Air 4_Evelyn, Fumifugium, pp. 1-2.
 Physiological Atmospheres 42

are either dryed up or enflamed, the humours being exasperated

and made apt to putrifie, their sensories and perspiration so excee-
dingly stopped, with the loss of Appetite, and a kind of general stu-
pefaction, succeeded with such Catharrs and Dissillations, as do
never, or very rarely quit them, without some further Symptomes
of dangerous Inconveniency so long as they abide in the place;
which yet are immediately restored to their former habit; so soon
as they are retired to their Homes and they enjoy fresh Aer again5 .

Evelyn distinguishes between London’s agreeable setting and the ruinous

effects of its polluted atmosphere. A keen admirer of Francis Bacon, he
advocated modern, empirical science but also referred to the medical tra-
dition of ancient Greece, which considered health and disease holistically
and the interdependence of the body, soul and environment. Recalling the
principle that the air—the breath—is ‘the Vehicle of the Soul, as well as that
of the Earth’, he recounts Hippocratic opinion that the character of a people
depends upon the air they inhale6. Convinced that London’s atmosphere
is unhealthy, he notes the comparative clarity of the sky on Sunday when
industries are idle, and mistakenly assumes that domestic fires contribute
little pollution. Offering a ‘Remedy’ for the ‘Nuisance’, Evelyn proposes
a number of practical and poetic measures, including the relocation of
coal-burning trades, butchers and burials to the east of the city so that the

5_Evelyn, Fumifugium, p. 24. 8_Evelyn, Fumifugium, pp. 42-43.

6_Hippocrates was born in the fifth century 9_Evelyn, Fumifugium, pp. 47, 49.
BC but it is uncertain whether he authored 10_Mark Jenner, ‘The Politics of London
the influential treatises attributed to him. Air: John Evelyn’s Fumifugium and the
Evelyn, Fumifugium, pp. 18, 11-13. Restoration’, The Historical Journal, vol. 38,
7_Evelyn, Fumifugium, pp. 3, 28, 34-37. no. 3, 1995, pp. 544-546.
43 Weather Architecture

prevailing westerly winds would carry the smoke away from London and
the rivers and ground-water would be unsullied7. Prisons are also to be
removed, indicating that his purpose is moral as well as medical8 .
Emphasising the allegorical and poetic as well as practical significance
of his treatise, Evelyn proposes that the edges of London are to be forested
with trees and planted with fragrant shrubs so that wood would replace
coal as the principal fuel and the whole city would be sweetly perfumed9 .
His remedy—a perfumed botanical garden—would have implied good heal-
th due to the known medicinal properties of certain plants and also promo-
ted associations with Heaven and the Garden of Eden10. Carolyn Merchant
acknowledges that ‘The Recovery of Eden story is the mainstream narrati-
ve of Western culture. It is perhaps the most important mythology humans
have developed to make sense of their relationship to the earth11.’
Bacon’s advice that the philosopher required a garden—as well as a
library and a laboratory—influenced Evelyn’s enduring fascination for
horticulture, and led him to cultivate an analogy between the domestic and
urban scales. Recording seasonal and yearly changes, he avidly tended his
garden at Sayes Court, Deptford, which included an arbour and medicinal
plants, like his proposition for London. The need for such a remedy was
most apparent in winter, when cold, stagnant weather prevented the dis-
persal of pollutants, leading Evelyn to observe ‘the havock which a rude
season has made in my poor Gardens12’.

11_Carolyn Merchant, Reinventing Sent to One of the Secretaries of the R.

Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Society concerning the Dammage Done
Culture (New York and London: to his Gardens by the Preceding Winter’,
Routledge, 2003), p. 2. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal
12_John Evelyn, ‘An Abstract of a Letter Society, vol. 14, 1684, p. 559, reporting on
From the Worshipful John Evelyn Esq.; the winter of 1683.
 Physiological Atmospheres 44

Fumifugium concentrates on London’s atmosphere but Evelyn also deri-

des its misshapen houses, narrow streets, uneven paving and irregular dra-
inage13 . Returning to these concerns after the Great Fire of 1666, he called
for the removal of odorous trades and industries and proposed that the city
should be rebuilt in a classical manner inspired by Rome with broad streets
and regular frontages. But the Great Fire’s only significant consequence
was that sturdier brick construction replaced timber. Property rights and
the economic intricacies of London’s industries, as well as popular identi-
fication of a fire with a home, undermined Evelyn’s proposals to transform
London’s material form and immaterial air.
Extending a metaphor that he explored in Fumifugium, Evelyn
considered the sun to be an appropriate emblem for the intellectual
enlightenment of the Royal Society, which was founded in 1660 and
received a royal charter two years later with the purpose to advance
scientific knowledge through empirical investigation. Evelyn was elected
a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1661, as was John Locke seven years
later. Concerned to address the depletion of natural resources due to the
demands of trade and industry, and marking a more sensitive attitude to
the modification of nature than before, the Royal Society’s first official
publication—Evelyn’s Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-Trees, and the
Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions, 1664—acknowledges
the effects of deforestation on climate and the need for forestry science,

13_Evelyn, Fumifugium, p. 8. the Rhodian Shore: Nature and Culture in

14_Identifying a new sensitivity to nature, Western Thought from Ancient Times to the
Clarence C. Glacken mentions Sylva and the End of the Eighteenth Century (Berkeley, CA:
French Forest Ordinance of 1669, initiated University of California Press, 1967), p. 485;
by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister to John Evelyn, Sylva, or A Discourse of Forest-
Louis XIV. Clarence J. Glacken, Traces on Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in His
45 Weather Architecture

conservation and sustainable development, once again three centuries

before these principles were widely accepted14 .
Empirical investigation was applied extensively, notably to the opera-
tions of the mind. In the Renaissance, ideas were understood to be univer-
sal, and the architect’s practice was synonymous with disegno. The origin
of the term ‘design’, disegno means drawing and associates drawing a line
with drawing forth an idea, which expresses geometric principles. But in
An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690, Locke emphasises that
ideas are provisional not universal. Identifying diverse beliefs to support
his assumption that values, morality and personality are acquired not
innate, he indicates that his travels enabled him to reach this conclusion.
Countering the Platonist and Cartesian traditions in which knowledge
is acquired by the mind alone, Locke states that understanding develops
through a dialogue between the environment, senses and mind15 .
Locke’s concern for environmental influences included a particular fas-
cination for the weather. For over twenty years he recorded the daily tem-
perature, barometric pressure and winds. But while he required a degree of
critical detachment from the natural world, Anthony Ashley Cooper, third
Earl of Shaftesbury, influenced a wider reassessment. Previously, uncultiva-
ted nature was considered to be brutish and deformed because the im-
material soul, ‘as a visitor in matter’, could not ‘be truly at home in nature’,
remarks Ernest Tuveson16. Shaftesbury acknowledged an ideal order but,

Majesties Dominions (London: Royal Society, Understanding, ed. Peter H. Nidditch (Oxford: Cla-
1664), pp. 112-120; John Croumbie Brown, rendon Press, 1975), bk, 1, ch. 1, pp. 46, 119-121.
ed., trans., French Forest Ordinance of 1669 16_Ernest Lee Tuveson, The Imagination as
(Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd & London: a Means of Grace: Locke and the Aesthetics
Simpkin, Marshall and Co., 1883). of Romanticism (Berkeley and Los Angeles:
15_John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human University of California Press, 1960), p. 11.
 Physiological Atmospheres 46

departing from Plato, conceived nature not as debased but as a means to

contemplate the divine17. In the second volume of Characteristicks of Men,
Manners, Opinions, Times, 1711, he praises weather and nature: ‘temper’d
by the fresh AIR of fanning Breezes! … I shall no longer resist the Passion
growing in me for Things of a natural kind’18 . Shaftesbury’s purpose was
profound, stimulating a new engagement with nature in all its forms.
Architecture’s relations with nature and weather have influenced
architects since Vitruvius. But the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
instigated a more intense dialogue with nature, establishing an archi-
tectural environmentalism that has significantly influenced subsequent
centuries. In emphasising subjective experience, and drawing attention to
the conditions that inform self-understanding, the eighteenth century fun-
damentally transformed the visual arts, its objects, authors and viewers.
Architecture was no longer conceived as a cohesive body of knowledge
based on universal ideas, forms and proportions. Instead design could
draw forth ideas that were provisional, changeable and dependent on
experience at conception, production and reception, undermining the
classical orthodoxy. In Britain, the title of architect associated with diseg-
no was in its infancy when another appeared alongside it, exemplifying a
new type of design and a new way of designing that valued the ideas and
emotions evoked through experience. At first this new environmentalism
was specific to the picturesque garden, but it led to a much wider engage-
ment with the natural and human worlds.

17_Plato, Timaeus, Critias, Cleitophon, Shaftesbury, Characteristicks of Men,

Menexenus, Epistles, trans. R. G. Bury Manners, Opinions, Times, ed. Philip
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Ayres (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1999),
Press, 1929), p. 121. vol. 2, pp. 94, 101.
18_Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of 19_Clark, quoted in Christopher Woodward,
47 Weather Architecture

Picturesque and Romantic Modernism

‘Bomb damage is itself picturesque’, responded Kenneth Clark—director
of the National Gallery and chairman of the War Artists Advisory Com-
mittee—following the aerial bombardment of London during the Blitz19 .
Clark’s stoic embrace of disorder and ruin was in line with a burgeoning
romanticism in 1940s Britain, which celebrated national identity and affir-
med the association of a people with a place, bolstering the nation against
military aggression. The tenets of this romanticism soon found support
among other figures of Britain’s intelligentsia, with Clark joined by T. S.
Eliot and John Maynard Keynes in writing a letter to The Times in 1944 in
which they stated that a ruined church would be an evocative monument
to wartime sacrifices20. In a subsequent publication, Bombed Churches as
War Memorials, 1945, Brenda Colvin complements this recognition of the
cultural value of a damaged ruin with a corresponding call for an envelo-
ping and unkempt nature. Her landscape proposal for Christopher Wren’s
Christ Church, Newgate Street, would ‘emphasise the passing seasons’ in
relation to the ‘charred and battered’ church and ‘the crisp polished faca-
des of the surrounding buildings’, reintroducing ‘the self-sown flowers’ that
had flourished during the sustained German bombing raids of 1940 and
194121. Returning to this theme in the second edition of Land and Landsca-
pe, 1947, she writes: ‘With a little imagination one might visualise a London
left to nature’s healing hand after all mankind was doomed, and see, in the
mind’s eye, a lost and broken city hidden under a great forest of sycamo-

In Ruins (London: Vintage, 2001), p. 212. 21_Brenda Colvin, ‘A Planting Plan’, in Casson,
20_Reprinted in Hugh Casson, Brenda Colvin, and Groag, pp. 26, 28, 30.
Colvin, and Jacques Groag, Bombed 22_Brenda Colvin, Land and Landscape
Churches as War Memorials (Cheam: Evolution, Design and Control (London: John
Architectural Press, 1945), p. 4. Murray, 1970, second edition), p. 222.
 Physiological Atmospheres 48

re’22 . As in the eighteenth century, the ruin was adopted as a sign of hope
as well as loss, and the future as well as the past.
Colvin’s purpose was metaphysical and spiritual as well as practical and
social, two attitudes to nature that developed alongside each other during
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She acknowledged the influence
on the English landscape of Joseph Addison, Alexander Pope and William
Kent, but gave particular attention to Evelyn. Colvin was a member of the
Institute of Landscape Architects’ wartime Forestry Committee, which
reported its conclusions in the October 1944 issue of Wartime Journal: ‘just
as the scenery in lowland Britain owes so much to the landscape planting
of the eighteenth century, so we of this generation … have the power to
create a new and hitherto undreamt of scenery’23 . Proposing a vocabulary
for postwar reforestation in Trees for Town and Country, 1947, she notes
that just 23 of the 60 trees originated in Britain and invokes an allegory of
liberalism: ‘Although introduced to Britain by human agency, the Spanish
chestnut grows well on light soils and suits our landscape. It has become so
well integrated that the eye accepts it as a native tree24 .’
Nikolaus Pevsner, the most sustained advocate of the twentieth-century
picturesque, and himself something of a non-native transplant, offered a
human equivalent to Colvin’s sylvan allegory: ‘England has indeed profi-
ted just as much from the un-Englishness of the immigrants as they have
profited from the Englishing they underwent25’. The diverse origins of

23_Brenda Colvin et al, Wartime Journal Version of the Reith Lectures Broadcast
(October 1944), quoted in Trish Gibson, in October and November 1955 (London:
Brenda Colvin; A Career in Landscape (London: Architectural Press, 1956), p. 185.
Francis Lincoln, 2011), p. 108. 26_Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘The Genesis of the
24_Colvin, Land and Landscape, 1970, p. 220. Picturesque’, The Architectural Review, vol. 96,
25_Nikolaus Pevsner, The Englishness of no. 575, November 1944, p. 139.
English Art: An Expanded and Annotated 27_Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘The Genius of the
49 Weather Architecture

the picturesque and its openness to new influences were important in the
eighteenth century and again two centuries later, when at the height of the
war Pevsner recalled the traditional two-way cultural dialogue between
England and continental Europe, describing the picturesque as England’s
principal contribution to European architecture26. For Pevsner, the pictures-
que was ‘tied up with English outdoor life and ultimately even the general
British philosophy of liberalism and liberty’27.
In 1947, Pevsner and his colleagues at The Architectural Review published
an editorial in the celebratory 50th anniversary issue titled ‘The Second Half
Century’. Calling for a ‘new humanism’ alongside a new environmentalism,
this text, which implied a reassessment of modernism as well as the maga-
zine itself, promoted ‘a new richness and differentiation of character, the
pursuit of difference rather than sameness, the re-emergence of monumen-
tality, the cultivation of idiosyncrasy and the development of those regional
dissimilarities that people have always taken pride in’28. For Pevsner, aware
of resistance to a new architecture, the picturesque was a means to make
modernism familiar. Remarking that the picturesque and ‘the modern revolu-
tion … had all the fundamentals in common’ he also wished to distinguish be-
tween interwar and postwar modernism29. Noting an increasing sensitivity
to place and ‘a new faith in nature’, Pevsner drew attention to the picturesque
in order to question one modernism—universal, mechanical and insensitive—
in favour of another that was local, empirical and environmentally aware30.

Place’, in Pevsner on Art and Architecture: 29_Nikolaus Pevsner, ‘Twentieth-Century

The Radio Talks, ed. Stephen Games (London: Picturesque: An Answer to Basil Taylor’s
Methuen, 2002), p. 232. Broadcast’, The Architectural Review, vol. 115,
28_Hubert de Cronin Hastings, Osbert Lancas- no. 688, April 1954, p. 229.
ter, Nikolaus Pevsner and J. M. Richards, The 30_Nikolaus Pevsner, (Peter F.R. Donner), ‘The
Second Half Century/The First Half Century’, The Lure of Rusticity’, The Architectural Review,
Architectural Review, vol. 101, January 1947, p. 36. vol. 93, no. 553, January 1943, p. 27.
 Physiological Atmospheres 50

The Big Smoke

Even in the mid-twentieth century, London was still nicknamed the ‘Big
Smoke’. In response to ‘The London Fog Inquiry’, 1901, an editorial in
Nature described atmospheric pollution as London’s ‘insidious enemy’,
recalling Evelyn’s language 250 years earlier31. Atmospheric pollution in
the city peaked in around 1900 and by 1950 was merely at the same level as
in 1700. Air quality was often worst in winter, when cold, stagnant weather
prevented the dispersal of pollutants. On Thursday 4 December 1952 a
slow-moving anticyclone settled over the city. By the following night, it had
stalled completely. Sir Donald Acheson, once the Chief Medical Officer,
recalled: ‘I lost myself in a street in London which I knew like the back of
my hand. I couldn’t see anything, had no idea where I was’32 . In a single day,
the filters to the National Gallery’s air conditioning system ‘clogged at 26
times the normal rate and in one four-hour period they clogged at 54 times
the normal rate’33 . The cause of 4000 deaths, the Great Smog of 1952 was
a catalyst for the Clean Air Act of 1956, which was the first UK legislation
to address pollution from domestic as well as industrial sources. The Act
did not address the true pollutant—sulphur dioxide—but sulphur emissions
were reduced because all domestic and most industrial consumption was
transferred to electricity, gas and smokeless fuels. The Clean Air Act has-
tened the downward trend in atmospheric pollution since the start of the
century, which combined with a further decrease due to industrial decline.
But reductions in traditional pollutants were to some extent matched by

31_W. N. Shaw, ’The London Fog Inquiry’, 33_Peter Brimblecombe, The Big
Nature, no. 64, 31 October 1901, pp. 649-650. Smoke: A History of Air Pollution in
32_Acheson, quoted in Paul Simons, Since London Since Medieval Times, London
Records Began: The Highs and Lows of Bri- and New York: Routledge, 1988, p. 168,
tain’s Weather, London: Collins, 2008, p. 219. refer to pp. 170-171.
51 Weather Architecture

an increase in other pollutants, such as road traffic. Even the interiors of

homes and offices did not necessarily offer respite because improved dr-
aught exclusion standards allowed pollutants such as formaldehyde resins
and dust mites’ fungal spores to linger. As each adult breathes more than
10,000 litres of air per day, pollutants continued to circulate through lungs.

The Coproduction of Nature and Culture

Despite the burgeoning environmental movement in the 1960s,
anthropogenic climate was not widely acknowledged by scientists until
the mid-1970s. Today, the increasing relevance of an environmentally
aware, picturesque and romantic architecture depends on anthropogenic
climate change, which is now the principal means to consider the
relations between nature and culture. Critics of climate change tend
to affirm the tradition of the biblical flood, in which environmental
catastrophe is the punishment for human failing, while many of the
proposed ‘solutions’ to climate change paradoxically reaffirm a faith in
technological progress that has been a principal cause of anthropogenic
climate change. However, such ‘solutions’ are unlikely to be implemented
due to insufficient scientific knowledge and political inertia due to the
conflicting agendas of countries and corporations. In a parallel scenario,
the rhetoric of sustainability tends to reduce architecture to a technical
issue and the architect to a technocrat, employing a debased empiricism
devoid of the poetic and practical implications of Evelyn environmental
research. Climate change is not only a scientific concern. The dangers
posed by anthropogenic climate change are real and need to be addressed
when and where possible. But climate always changes, whether by human
agency or other means. In offering a dialogue with the changing natural
world, picturesque and romantic modernism recognises the weather as
a stimulus to the imagination and is compatible with a complex, creative
 Physiological Atmospheres 52

and contextual engagement with climate change that is not only driven
by fear and can stimulate cultural, social and environmental benefits,
whether at a local, national or regional level.
Contemporary technologies—whether mechanical, digital or craft—in-
fluence urban and rural landscapes. For example, to maximise accuracy
and efficiency a modern-day tractor is guided by the satellite navigation
Global Positioning System. As an idea, ‘nature’ is a human construc-
tion, while landscapes are increasingly described as ‘man-made’. But the
places, species and phenomena that we include within nature are real
and not solely subject to our imagination and will. Just because we have
named something does not mean that we have made it, or even unders-
tand it, however extensive our influence. At a casual glance, a landsca-
pe may appear to be subject to human order, and no more natural than
another ‘cultural’ artefact. But it is teeming with life forms that are subject
to their own rhythms and intertwined in a complex network of relations
with other life forms, including humanity. The English origin of the term
‘wilderness’ is self-willed land 34 . According to the entomologist Edward
O. Wilson, ‘insects are the little things that run the world’35 . Thriving
everywhere, they so greatly outnumber humans that their combined wei-
ght outweighs the human population by six times, and their history with
the plant world is 400 million years older 36 . Even in a suburban garden
there are likely to be around 1500 insect species and a much larger total
population. Human decisions influence other life forms but they do not

34_Dave Foreman, referred to in Merchant, p. 230. 37_Steve Rayner refers to ‘coproduction’

35_Wilson, quoted in Eric Grissell, Insects while Carolyn Merchant recognises a
and Gardens: In Pursuit of Garden Ecology ‘partnership’ in which ‘both humans and
(Portland: Timber Press, 2001), p. 124. nature are active’ and nature is not gendered.
36_Grissell, pp. 35, 144, 234. Herbert Marcuse conceives nature as active,
53 Weather Architecture

control them. In newly industrialised England, the moth Biston betularia

mutated as its habitat was transformed in just a few decades. Renamed
Biston carbonaria, its pale wings had turned black, offering camouflage
against predators in soot-clad cities.
The term ‘coproduction’ explains nature-culture relations and the cities,
landscapes and weathers we inhabit37. Equally, people are natural as well
as cultural beings. Just as the intermingling of natural and human forces
creates the contemporary weather, a building, garden or field results from
the relations between nature and culture that arise during its conception,
creation and use. As architecture, landscape and the weather are each a
product of nature-culture relations, they inform, affect and alter each other
in a complex developmental process that is never one way.
The term ‘author’ has sustained over half a century of criticism becau-
se it has been associated with sole authority. But rather than a term such
as agency, which may dissipate creativity, the ‘coproduction’ of multiple
authors recognises that natural forces, as well as cultural ones, together
create a building or a landscape. Acknowledging that authorship involves
accidents as well as intentions, the contemporary sciences of climate chan-
ge, ecology and complexity theory are consistent with the idea of nature
as author38 . Sometimes competing, sometimes affirming, each author may
inform or deny the other, as in a feisty dialogue of distinct voices and
unexpected conclusions in which authorship is temporal and shared, and
architecture is a coproduction of nature and culture.

sometimes the ‘ally’ to humanity, sometimes Climate, Culture (Oxford and New York: Berg,
hostile. Steve Rayner, ‘Domesticating Nature: 2003), p. 287; Merchant, pp. 223-231; Herbert
Commentary on the Anthropological Study Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt
of Weather and Climate Discourse’, in Susan (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), pp. 65, 69.
Strauss and Ben Orlove, eds, Weather, 38_Merchant, p. 230.
55 Thermodynamic Space

Thermodynamic Space
Philippe Rahm interviewed by Javier García-Germán

Javier García-Germán (JGG): Your work is closely connected to scien-

ce. Most of your projects depart from a thermodynamic or physiological
principle which propels the whole creative process, giving to your approach
a scientific bias. However this scientific approach is overtly criticized in
the architectural academic environment for not leaving space for cultural
expression. Why do you think it is important to introduce scientific knowle-
dge and how can it contribute to the development of architecture?
Philippe Rahm (PR): The disappearance in the architectural context of
science and, to a greater extent, of medicine was a consequence of the gra-
dual emergence of critical thinking in the 1960s. This was a result of the
influence on architecture of the philosophical theories —of authors such
as the Frankfurt School thinkers Adorno and Horkheimer or the French
Postmodernist Foucault— which questioned after the catastrophes of the
World War II the progressive and scientific objectives of the Modernity
of the early 20th century. From the late 1960s, Critical Theory has de-
bunked philosophers’ ideas of progress —technical, scientific, or architec-
tural— which have being held responsible for the world’s disasters. Critical
Theory in architecture has disposed of science and medicine in favor of
linguistic, semantic, contextual and historical analysis. This preference
has evolved, to a great extent, as a consequence of the late 20th century
economical affluence and touristic development, which make a perfect
match. However, during the past years we have witnessed the exhaus-
tion of critical thinking methods which have end up stifling architectural
invention with repetition and formalism. By banishing the scientific and
medical tools, architecture focused on narrative and on plastic discourse,
choosing the subjective over the objective, and obscuring the physiologi-
cal and climatic causes of urbanization. These methodologies, however,
lack the tools and theoretical grounding to adequately address the very
immediate issues of global warming and dwindling natural resources.
 Physiological Atmospheres 56

How can irony constitute a serious answer to Global warming? Why in-
vent a story on the depletion of resources instead of fighting it? Nowadays
it is clear that science has not been the cause of the catastrophes of the 20
century but rather its use in a univocal political way, without accepting
difference, otherness or multiplicity. Our position regarding this question
is not a return to the genesis of modernity but rather the generation of a
new phase of architectural history that is post-post-modern, or post-criti-
cal, as defined Hal Foster in his essay “Post-Critical”1 . We want to reenga-
ge physiology and meteorology vis-à-vis critical thinking to provide new
tools for architecture and urban design; thinking critically by welcoming
multiplicity, diversity, and otherness of spaces and atmospheres; embra-
cing both the comfortable and uncomfortable, hot and cold, good and bad,
wet and dry, clean and polluted —and the gradients between these extre-
mes— to give the user the freedom to use and interpret spaces in order to
ensure his or her free will. In this sense, we want to abandon the modern
univocal vision of space. We do not want to design uniform atmospheres
that only provide the so-called ideal climates, but rather enable free choice
for everybody between colder or warmer spaces, sunny or cloudy, clean or
polluted. Therefore we are the heirs of critical thinking, and not neo-mo-
derns. Our goal is to re-engage science, medicine and technology together
with critical thinking, expanding its toolbox to include medical tools and
physiological analyses. Our design strategies provide a wide variety of
atmospheres and situations for outdoor and indoor spaces, abandoning
the so-called ideal and univocal controlled atmosphere of modern archi-
tecture. And this is attained keeping the field of the architectural design
as open as possible, diversified and multiple, accepting and designing not

1_Foster, Hal. “Post-Critical” in October Magazi- Ltd and Massachusetts Institute of Technology:
ne issue no. 139, Winter 2012. October Magazine Cambridge, MA, U.S.A. Pages 3 to 8.
57 Thermodynamic Space

only good places but also not so good places. In this sense are our archi-
tectural and urban projects post-critical.

JGG: Even though your work is closely connected to science, you are also
interested in having continuity with architectural discussions. Your radical
departure from conventional architectural discourse establishes however
some continuities. Statements like “form follows climate” or “thermal asym-
metry in architecture” reveal that even though you transcend mainstream
disciplinary questions, you share common ground. Why do you think your
departure needs however to be connected to a common background?
PR: I am very interested in the autonomy of architecture but not in the his-
torical or political way Aldo Rossi used it decades ago or Pier Vitorio Aureli
does nowadays. My interest in science is a result of the need to understand
the essence of architecture as a discipline. If we want to know the essence
of architecture, we need to recur to our “endothermic” condition: the neces-
sity of maintaining a constant body temperature at 37°Celsius. Architectu-
re exists because of the enzymes necessary for the biochemical reactions
of the human metabolism. Present by billions in our body, these molecules
can work in an optimal way only at a temperature between 35,0 and 37,6°C,
which forces man to maintain a constant physical temperature with inde-
pendence of the outside temperature. This temperature range is attained
either by internal means of his own body, such as various physiological
mechanisms of thermoregulation, or by external means such as clothing
and/or the construction of shelters. And this means that architecture is not
autonomous, but is one of the multiple means humans use to maintain our
temperature close to 37°. However these physiological answers are remote-
ly applied or associated with architecture, which has to be considered just
another answer — together with other mechanisms such as vasodilatation,
sweating, thirst, or muscular contractions— to prevent a steep decline or
 Physiological Atmospheres 58

increase of the body temperature. From nature to artifice, from the micros-
copic to the macroscopic, from the biochemical to the meteorological, from
food to urbanization, these answers range from physiological determinism
to pure cultural freedom. From this point of view, architecture appears
as an expanded mechanism of vasoconstriction, or, conversely, feeding
appears as a reduced variant of architecture. Architecture is nothing more
than a structure whose functions are expanded to include mechanisms of
physical thermoregulation; an expanded form that assumes exogenous
change and artificial thermogenesis or thermolysis.

The New Olduvai Gorge, Exhibition at the Royal Academy of

Fine-Arts,School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark,
2009. Philippe Rahm architects.
59 Thermodynamic Space

But, what is architecture? It’s the design of space. Everybody agrees on

this. However, until recently, architects have been unable to define space
in any another way than through the design of the solid that envelopes it.
Because they had no real knowledge of space —a hollow between the walls
they could not catch or see— they could not work with it. But space has
gradually acquired thickness. In the 17th century, with Torricelli and Blaise
Pascal, the air became heavy; in the 18th century, with Antoine Lavoisier
and Daniel Rutherford, it became chemically decomposed into elementary
particles of oxygen or nitrogen; it was charged by bacteria of a biological
value with Louis Pasteur in the 19th century; and modulated by electro-
magnetic waves in the 20th century. Whilst architects in the past have
been limited to work on the solid part of architecture, today we are more
and more able to work directly on space itself and to design its atmosphere
by modulating its temperature, smell, light or steam. For me, architecture is
becoming the art of building atmospheres.

JGG: I would like to trace back the origins of your interest in architectu-
re and climate. Is there any connection in your work to the two principal
lines of thought which have in modernity connected architecture to cli-
mate, either the Olgyay brother’s passive structural mode, or the Reyner
Banham’s intensive mechanical mode? Has your work deliberately con-
nected to any of these two lines?
PR: I think there is not really a connection between Olgyay and Banham
and my work. When I was a student I never heard about Reyner Banham
or the 1960s exploration on climatic issues. I studied in Switzerland, and
schools were at that time influenced by the Postmodern period, being figu-
res such as Mario Botta, Luigi Snozzi and Aldo Rossi the references. Only
later I learnt about the French critic Michel Ragon and Reyner Banham,
or the Italian Radicals Superstudio and Archizoom, which were only one
 Physiological Atmospheres 60

sentence or image in the History of architecture of Kenneth Frampton, our

only theoritical book when I was student.
My interest in climate started at the end of the 1990s with the explora-
tion of the invisible elements of space —linked to new technologies such
as mobile phones, computer screens or electro smog— and the physiolo-
gical reactions of the human body. It first became interested on issues
such as the effect of the light on the body and its physiological reactions,
which later led to other interests such as the perception of heat and relative
humidity. At a given point this research on climate became connected to
the problem of global warming and sustainability. The first reaction to this
problem was to add insulation to buildings, which led to an understanding
of indoor climate that is absolutely artificial.
This is the context which frames my work. I have absolutely no problem
with artificiality. I believe that architecture is artificial climate or artificial
climatic construction. In fact, the outside is no longer natural either, I don’t
believe any more in the idea of nature. In this sense I think that I’m close
to Peter Sloterdijk’s understanding of the world as a big interior or as the
construction of an artificial climatic atmosphere.

JGG: The intensive-energy mode has since 1973 been progressively de-
bunked. Current challenges have transformed the mechanical climate-con-
trolled architectural paradigm which has disconnected matter and form from
climate opening new fields and potentials to architecture. What opportuni-
ties does this new scenario offer to architecture? How does your reflection on
architecture, thermodynamics and atmosphere respond to these challenges?
PR: I think this situation has introduced a paradox. The ideas Reyner Ban-
ham developed during the 1960s were totally linked to the fact that energy
could be used without limit. Architecture originally was very tectonic, em-
ploying massive structures and materials. Modernity reduced its thickness,
61 Thermodynamic Space

changing massive materials for glass, a material reduction which was mat-
ched by an increase in energy consumption. Banham explains, for example,
that Mies van der Rohe’s glass houses have changed the tectonic approach
for pure energy radiation. This could lead to the elimination of the wall and
the roof, and have only energy, like in Yves Klein dream of the 1950s.
The 1973 energy crisis eliminated this dream of infinite sources of
energy and heat. The Postmodern return to the visual and the tectonic is
linked to the oil crisis. However, the energy crisis and later the idea of sus-
tainability, have introduced new techniques of insulation —in Switzerland,
for instance, buildings can reach up to 40cm of insulation— which gene-
rate completely artificial indoor environments. This situation brings back
the idea of an indoor artificial climatic quality which paradoxically is not
connected to the Reyner Banham tradition. It is something new which can
however rewrite the 1960s research on climate and architecture.

JGG: Your work initially was an abstract reflection on atmosphere and its
connections to physiology, but in the last years it is incorporating other
variables such as space and matter, revealing the thermodynamic dimen-
sion of the traditional architectural apparatus. Can you expand on this
evolution? What opportunities is thermodynamic agency is opening for
architecture and how is your work addressing it?
PR: My first projects were interested in producing an artificial climate
inside a box without form or shape. However, during the last five years
I have tried to introduce these ideas. Understanding for example that
the warm air rises and the cold air goes down, has led to changes in the
shape —because the air is moving— and in the position of the different
functions —which could be linked to different temperatures and air velo-
cities— which has introduced changes in the section. Similarly, in some of
my projects there are round corners because the air is moving through the
 Physiological Atmospheres 62

building like through pipes of air. Spaces can be understood as enlarged

pipes of air, receiving fresh air at some point and exhausting it at another
point. This creates a parcours or movement of air through the building
which is reflected in the plan. This understanding informs the section and
the plans through climatic phenomena such as convection or ventilation.
These principles are the basis of our projects for a library in Nancy or a
floating sport centers in Lyon. In addition, I am currently interested in
revaluing the choice of material through its heat conductivity, albedo, re-
flexivity or other physical parameters that supersede the aesthetic criteria
by which materials are usually selected.

JGG: Previously you have mentioned your interest the interaction between
the body and the environment. Could you please explain in which ways are
you researching the connections between human physiology and atmos-
phere? Is it connected to the fields of medicine and health, or does it make
reference to any other specific interest? Can you expand on this question?
PR: My main interest is to challenge the essence of architecture; not only
to discover a new aesthetic but also some new social and political values
through its climatic and physiological dimension. There is neither a uto-
pian dream nor dystopia beyond my architecture. I simply try to explore if
sustainability today can deliver new forms and new functions, and let them
emerge using critical thinking. I believe in innovation and astonishment.
For instance, I am satisfied if I discover, after a methodic work process, a
new form that I had never imagined before. Thus, I am not designing any
vision or image I visualized previously in my mind before starting the
project, but rather the image comes at the end, as a result of a scientific
process. Anyhow, the target is always the space, and working with medicine
or physiology is the most immediate way to define the space in relationship
with the bodies that inhabit that space.
63 Thermodynamic Space

JGG: Under the influence of the air-conditioning physiological model the

interactions between human physiology and atmosphere were limited to
convective heat exchanges and to psychrometrics. Apart from air tempe-
rature and relative humidity, which other atmospheric parameters do you
think are relevant for a psychosomatic understanding of architecture? Is
your work limited to defining an atmosphere and its effects over the body,
or are you also interested in defining the architecture and technologies that
produce a particular atmosphere? In other words, does your approach blur
the limits between atmosphere and users, or is it interested in blurring the
limits between architecture and its users via its ambient?
PR: My commitment is to reverse the traditional order of making archi-
tecture where you first design a space and later ask your air-conditioning
engineer to place pipes and ducts to create the atmosphere. I am doing
the opposite. I first design the air, the heat, the vapor and then design the
solid counterpart, the building’s structure. Therefore the building has to
reflect the shape of the air, has to conduct it, has to generate it and create
shadow and light, more heat here, less heat there, more wind, less wind.
For example, in the project for IBA-Hamburg, the design of the concrete
slab structure is based on the natural law of Archimedes by which makes
warm air rises and cold air drops. Related to thermal figures, we propose to
design the apartment with a variety of depths and heights: the space where
we sleep needs a lower temperature and therefore will be lower, whilst the
bathroom needs a higher temperature and therefore it will be higher. As a
result the apartment becomes a thermal landscape with a wide variety of
temperatures. The inhabitant can wander around like in a natural landsca-
pe, looking for specific thermal qualities related either to the season or to
the moment of the day. Deforming the floor slabs generates spaces with di-
fferent heights which in turn generates different temperatures. In addition,
this deformation gives the building its external appearance.
 Physiological Atmospheres 64

JGG: When dealing with the human body it is essential to bring forth
affect. Non-visible atmosphere affects not only physiological processes but
also sensations and affects. Do you think it is necessary to develop a theory
of environmental aesthetics which connects particular atmospheric effects
to specific subjective affects? Is there any aesthetic tradition through which
the user’s relationship to the environment can be recast?
PR: No. Never. Psychology is a subjective matter and a very precious per-
sonal propriety. I really don’t want an architect designing my psychology.
As an architect, you don’t have to interfere with personal psychology, with
a person’s free will. My work is to create open spaces with some physical or
thermal qualities which inhabitants are free to interpret freely. This is also
the reason why I always want to propose variety of spaces, with different
qualities, some more comfortable whilst other not. This means that an inha-
bitant has always to keep his free will and I an architect should not decide
for him. I conceive architecture like a background where you can invent your
own story. It is similar to a natural landscape where you are free to go either
under the shadow of the forest or to an open meadow under the sun. It de-
pends on individual choice. I want to do the same: offer an open background.

JGG: You claim that climatic architecture is open to user interpretation, pro-
moting individuals freely deciding upon the use of space in a building. Howe-
ver this open spatial interpretation appears to be in contradiction with a clima-
tic determinist understanding which establishes a closed connection between
a specific climate and human response. Can you expand on this question?
PR: The Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster house or the apartment for a young
doctor in Lyon are explicit answers to your question. For this apartment
in Lyon we used the most recent recommendations for domestic internal
temperatures that have been set up to reduce climate control energy con-
sumption in the built environment. These new recommendations advocate
65 Thermodynamic Space

for reduced temperatures in spaces such as the corridor (16° Celsius), the
kitchen (18° Celsius) or the bedroom (16° Celsius) where we are generally
engaged in movement and activities that generate heat and are conven-
tionally dressed. On the contrary, those areas where we are still or not
conventionally dressed, such as the living room (20° Celsius) or bathroom
(22° Celsius), will instead be heated to a greater extent. If we had worked

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The New Olduvai Gorge, Exhibition at the Royal Academy of

Fine-Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark,
2009. Philippe Rahm architects.
 Physiological Atmospheres 66

in plan, we would have physically separated the rooms —each with its own
function— by using walls and closed doors to prevent the air at different
temperatures from mixing, becoming homogenized in a similar way in
which hot and cold water become mixed. Therefore, if we strictly follow
these new energy savings recommendations, we would abandon the free
plan and spatial continuity acquired during modernity and return to the
plans that were drawn in the 19th century, where each room was separated
from the others by walls and doors. However, we can avoid this regres-
sion by working in section according to the intrinsic physical behavior of
air: elevated and hot or cold and closer to the ground. We can start again
composing rooms and spaces, or rather begin to sort out programs in spa-
ce, without the use of walls, delineating the contours of the parts. We can
compose using the spatial distribution of temperatures and luminosities
in the air, dividing the program. The goal is no longer to design the plan
but rather to design the atmosphere, with its various weather gradations,
enabling the inhabitant to move around to find a certain temperature or a
specific light. The result is that space still remains open, without doors or
other physical barriers. This means that we could achieve an economy of
energy determinism in an open and undetermined space, avoiding parti-
tions or rooms with a deterministic function. Our new park for the City of
Taichung in Taiwan is based on the same principle.

JGG: Simulation tools have amplified the ability of architects to unders-

tand and control atmospheric processes. I would like to know in what ways
these tools contribute to your work and if these leave space for intuition.
PR: We have used simulation tools for many years but, nowadays, due
to the fact we have acquired some knowledge about the physics of air
—thermodynamics— we are able to design with the immediacy of this
knowledge in mind. It may be similar to traditional architects working in
67 Thermodynamic Space

concrete who know that every 8 meters they must place a column. This is
something we have internalized as part of the way we think and design. I
don’t think that using computational fluid dynamics simulation is dimi-
nishing the architect’s intuition or imagination, but rather the opposite,
opening new possibilities for intuition.

JGG: Lately you have jumped from the architectural scale to the territo-
rial scale, explicitly working in the realm of geography, economics or poli-
tics. However previous experiments addressed implicitly these questions.
Your projects departed from scientific concepts but acquired, through its
architectural formulation, a clear political dimension. Are you interested
in addressing through architecture a political dimension? Do you think
architects need to engage overtly on political issues or is it indirectly,
through our work, that politics are to be addressed as a consequence of
our acts? Can you expand on this question?
PR: My interest in a geographical scale started reading the books Germs,
Guns and Steel and Collapse by the American scientist Jared Diamond.
These interesting books deal with climate as a driving force of the history
of humanity, which reverses a lot of ideas, showing that climatic issues
are very often the hidden reason underlying the changing the history
of humanity. I have also recently become interested in the work of the
French economist Daniel Cohen who tries to understand, for instance,
why Europe became so important with the Renaissance until recent years,
whilst China or the Islamic countries were more important than Europe
during the Middle Ages. Cohen links this change to the development in
temperate climates of new techniques for plowing the land and sowing
cereal crops which were however not applicable to the cultivation of rice
in humid climates. This change resulted in a larger food production which
ended up easing living conditions in European countries. In parallel I
 Physiological Atmospheres 68

have also become interested in data centers, for example, the huge data
center called Data Farm, virtual home of Google or Youtube. Located in
Silicon Valley, it needs massive air conditioning. The idea was to change
the localization of this farm to the North, in Alaska or Iceland, to cool
with the outside climate and cut down cooling costs. This shows this farm
could find a position in the planet linked, not to economy, but to the clima-
te. My design studio undertaken in Princeton in 2011 tried to explore the
interesting link between the completely abstract computer technology and
the basic climatic reality. This idea obviously accepts globalization, but at-
tempts to reduce its economical drivers in favor of climatic ones, offering
an alternative globalization linked to climatic reason.
If we think of urban planning in terms of thermodynamics, we could
start to imagine a new globalization strategy: a global redeployment of
industrial production based on energy and climate data rather than the
current delocalization which is based on financial or economical criteria.
Nowadays, the division between design conception and industrial pro-
duction is primarily a consequence of industrial production concentrating
on countries where labor is cheaper and labor law less restrictive. The
result is a continuous delocalization of production as industries search for
the cheapest locations. Consequently unacceptable social and ecological
inequalities arise. This requires finding an overall balance between pro-
duction costs and working conditions. Today, in the context of the Euro-
pean crisis of “Post-industrial society”, France, for example, has decided
in the last months to reindustrialize itself. This new tendency will deliver
in the coming years a World balance between the South and the North. If
the North reindustrializes, the South will have to improve the social and
health condition of the workers. Therefore, if we are looking for an equi-
librium in this new stage in globalization, we must know which criteria
will become important when planning at a global scale. The twenty-first
69 Thermodynamic Space

century is going to see a radical change in the criteria used for assessing
geographical value. Climate can play a primary role in the future urbani-
zation patterns of the planet, as geographical location parameters will be
connected to global thermodynamic values. This might engender a reloca-
tion of human geography which will cause the creation of new cities and
the decline of old ones. Latitude and altitude can be proposed as a solution
for a globalization that will no longer be based on wages or working injusti-
ces, but on ecological and climatic factors towards the sustainable deve-
lopment of humanity. In this context I would like to develop a new type of
urbanization strategy called thermodynamic urban planning which will be
based on the real location of renewable energy resources.
71 Hapticity: Architecture of the Senses

Architecture of the Senses

Harry Francis Mallgrave

It is now becoming clear through scanning technologies that the various

senses also share higher-order cerebral networks, or perceptual supramoda-
lities that engage a crossover of sensory inputs from one sense to another
and operate independently of any single one. In other words, as Richard
Neutra suggested more tan a half-century ago, the spatial understanding
of a medieval catedral is derived from not only vision but also the impact
of our feet on the stone pavement and the reverberation of a distant cough.
Auditory, visual, and tactile cues combine in every architectural experien-
ce, or as Neutra also noted, architecture is “omnisensorial.”
The multisensory nature of perception is very evident in the complex of
senses that compose the somatosensory cortex. The word “somatic” comes
from the Greek word soma, which means body, and the somatosensory
cortex runs across the crown of the head at the anterior edge of the parietal
lobe. Immediately in front of it, at the rear of the frontal lobe, is the motor
cortex, which combinates voluntary movement. Like the visual and auditory
cortices, the somatosensory cortex can be divided into areas of specialized
receptor neurons – regions dimensioned in proportion to the neural wiring
of the body. Traditionally, people speak of five senses (physiologists often
talk of more than twenty), but is far more useful to view the somatosensory
activities in themselves as a rich complex of interrelated sensory systems,
not all of which are located in the somatosensory cortex. These include the
homeostatic and visceral systems, musculoskeletal systems, propriocep-
tion, the vestibular system and the other senses involved with touch.
The homeostatic and visceral systems, of course, continuously monitor and
maintain our internal milieu by keeping track of all changes within the body,
including the work of the trunk organs as well as hunger, thirst, sex, sleep,
temperatura, fatigue and pain. They respond with neutral and chemical mes-
sages (the latter carried by blood) to adjust or correct abnormalities of threats
to the equilibrium of the system. Central to these activities is the hypothala-
 Physiological Atmospheres 72

mus, which is located below the thalamus and works closely with the pituitary
gland at the bottom of the brain. The hypothalamus overses most somatic
operations and produces its own peptides (oxytocin and vasopressin), which
can affect the work of the pituitary gland, amigdala, hippocampus, olfactory
system and brainstem, as well as the cortex above. It also controls the human
biological clock – the 24-hour or circadian rhythm – by regulating the secre-
tion of melatonin. Other hormones implicated with emotional behavior pass
into and through the hypothalamus, such as acetylcholine, dopamine and
serotonin. Dopamine, as we have seen, is much followed in research because
of its connection with both pleasure and fear, while serotonin often affects the
upswings and downswings of moods. The human brain is, in fact, a rich soup
of chemicals controlling or modulating neural activity, and, with the scrutiny
these chemicals are now receiving, it is likely that researchers will soon have
something to say about their interaction with the built environment.
If the musculoskeletal system, with its bones, muscles, cartilage, tendons,
and ligaments, provides the strucutre by which we stand and move throu-
gh the world, proprioception is the sense by which we orient, position, and
move our bodies in space. It comes about through a set of specialized neural
receptors deep within the muscles, tendons and joints, whose axons pass into
the spinal cord and brain. Proprioception, especially when connected with
movement, is sometimes called kinesthesia, and this latter term also empha-
sizes muscle memory and hand-eye coordination. Closely connected with
these two systems is the vestibular system, a remarkable sensory organ near
the auditory sensory complex that carries out a wide range of coordinated
activities. It is connected to the eyes and cars, whose neurons respond to ves-
tibular stimulation; it receives important input from the hands and fingers as
well as the soles of the feet; it activates facial and jaw muscles; and it affects
heart rates and blood pressure, muscle tone, the positioning of our limbs, res-
piration, and even immune responses. All of this is done simply to allow us
73 Hapticity: Architecture of the Senses

to stand vertically and move through space with rythmic sense of balance.
The musculoskeletal, proprioceptive and vestibular systems, with their par-
ticular set of biological rythms, are extraordinarily sensitive to architectural
enclosures. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe cited their importance two centuries
ago when he noted the pleasant sensations induced by dancing and claimed
that “we ought to be able to arouse similar sensations in a person whom we
lead blindfold through a well-built house.” Our corporeal relation with architec-
ture, of course, was repeatedly stressed by Wölfflin, as when he asserted that
“we can appreciate the noble serenity of column” only because we understand
gravity, that is, because we have all “collapsed to the ground when we no lon-
ger had the strength to resist the downward pull of our bodies.” Believing that
all aesthetic experience arises from a knowledge of ourselves, he insisted that
these principles from “the sole conditions under which our organic well-being

Cingulate Thalamus Sylvian Fissure

Cortex

Basal
Forebrain

Ventromedial
Prefrontal Insula

Brainstern
Hypothalamus Amygdala Nuclei

Longitudinal section through the brain showing areas activated by emotions and feelings, with a
transverse section through the brain showing the location of the insula. Illustration by Amjad Alkoud.
 Physiological Atmospheres 74

appears posible.” Steer Rasmussen devoted an entire chapter to “Rhythm in

Architecture,” in which he admitted that there was “something mysterious”
about its “stimulating effect,” which he equated with music. Richard Neutra,
again, was poignant in discussing the gravitational forces that we experien-
ce within an architectural setting – forces that “are continually recorded and
minutely felt within our bodies, within all the muscles we use in balancing
ourselves.” Such “inner pressures,” he goes on to argue, “though they are in the
majority not consciously perceived, produce feelings of comfort or discomfort,
as the case may be. Pallasmaa has summed up this point in a succint way:
“The body knows and remembers, architectural meaning derives from archaic
responses and reactions remembered by the body and the senses.”
These musculoskeletal, proprioceptive, and vestibular systems again take
on added complexity when combined with our sense of touch. Our skin is not
only the oldest and largest of our regulatory organs, but it is essential to bodi-
ly comfort and maintenance of life. Because it is the earliest sense to develop
in the human embryo, some had called touch “the mother of the senses,” and
of course it functions long before the eyes achieve visual competence. Johann
Gottfried Herder noted that “sight reveals merely shapes, but touch alone
reveals bodies,” from which we have our basic understanding of the world: “A
body that we have never recognized as a body by touching it, or the corporea-
lity of which we have not been able to establish by means of its similarity to
other objects,” he goes on to argue, “would remain to us forever like the rings
of Saturno or Jupiter, that is to say, a mere phenomenon, an appearance.”
The skin, and its sense of touch, is the site of our most intimate com-
munication with the world and is, at any age, the essence of our emotional
well-being. Infants and adults need to be touched, and we often need to hold
and feel an object in order to understand it. We can do so because of the
incredible discrimination of our tactile senses and their capacity to evaluate
weight, pressure, texture, temperature, hardness and softness. Physiologi-
75 Hapticity: Architecture of the Senses

cally, there are five different types of nerves involved in the sense of touch,
in addition to those responding to temperature and pain. The first is simply
the hair that grows from our body, which is attached to a nerve at its base.
Two other nerves close to the surface of the skin are the Meissner and Mer-
kel receptors, which pinpoint the location of the stimulus. Two deeper nerve
receptors are located in the dermis and detect vibration, magnitude, direc-
tion and the rate of change of tension in the skin. These nerves connect to
a peripheral nerve bundle that sends the signal to the spinal cord, which
then moves the stimulus up to the brainstem, thalamus, and somatosensory
cortex. The cortex itself is functionally divided into zones with the largest
areas (proportional to receptor density) given over to the face and hands.
Once again, specific analyses are sent out from the primary somatosensory
cortex to nearby areas more specialized in their processing. All of this neu-
rological activity takes place in as little time as it takes to flick away a fly.
In a purely tactile sense, we experience architecture in numerous ways, as
many writers have discussed. In walking across a tiled floor or the gravel of a
garden, our feet experience the texture and relative character of the material
we engage – profoundly in some cases. In standing close to a window in cold
weather we lose body heat and feel cold. A fire in a hearth on a holiday (no
doubt tapping into deeply embedded tribal memories) will not only raise our
thermal comfort but also our social and affective spirits. Conversely, the spec-
tral range of a fluorescent light may disturb the nerve cells of the eye, which
have not evolved for these particular spectra of light. We know the cool touch
of materials like glass and metal, and the relative warmth of wood (both a pro-
duct of heat transfer). A stair can be luxurious or onerous to climb in relation
to our feet and legs; a handrail can be comfortable or awkward to the grasping
hand. All of these are basic neurological reactions that reinforce the notion that
the skin is but a neural extension of the brain and its perceptions, as Neutra su-
ggested, also carry with them judgments of whether we like a building or not.
 Physiological Atmospheres 76

Dorsolateral Somatosensory
Prefrontal Cortex Cortex Architects also sometimes speak
Posterior
Parietal of a plastic or tactile architecture, and
Lobe
from a neurological perspective this
Anterior is an interesting statement. In one
Cingulate Visual
Cortex Cortex recent fMRI study of spatial working

memory, for instance, a team of Ita-

lian researchers tested spatial repre-
sentation with both visual and tactile
cues. These two stimuli are, of cour-
se, first processed in their respective
The supramodal network that is activated
during spatial processing for either visual or regions of the brain. Tactile-based
tactile stimuli. Illustration by Amjad Alkoud. stimulation activates the somatosen-
sory cortex as well as areas of the
insular, frontal, and parietal cortices. Vision begins in the occipital lobe and
engages dozens of other areas as well. Yet in addition to these sensory networ-
ks, the researchers also found a larger supramodal or multisensory network
that – for each visual or tactile perception – engages both sensory circuits. In
other words, tactile sensations stimulate areas of the visual cortex associated
with visual imagery and viceversa. We “feel” our visual images because, since
our first days, we have acquired a library of tactile memories and this firs-
thand (so to speak) knowledge of the world contributes in a large way to our
visual experience and understanding of things such as our built environment.
A more holistic understanding of hapticity and its various sensory moda-
lities has other implications as well. First and foremost is the importance it
lends to building materials and to the related sensory elements out of which
a building is composed: among them light and shadow, color, texture, grain,
repetition, contrast, coherence, transparency, temperature, sound, scent and
site. Better architects have always exploited these effects and few would
deny the powerful force that natural light, for instance, can bring to any
77 Hapticity: Architecture of the Senses

architectural setting – above and beyond its physical comfort. A sensitive

use of materials and light, it seems, has its own rewards, and it is interesting
in this regard that such contemporary artists as Olafur Eliasson and Phili-
ppe Rahm – artists who have been attracted both to phenomenology and to
the discoveries of neuroscience – place so much of their emphasis on these
elements. The same lessons are there for architects, whose material fields
and opportunities are, if anything, far more extensive in their range (...).
None of this is not to suggest a formulaic system for design or an at-
tempt to narrow the field of technological innovation or design invention. In
fact, the opposite is the case, because the brain, as science is now demons-
trating, demands both novelty and highly varied environments. But if we
accept the brain’s propensity toward ambiguity and metaphors of life, and
indeed the sensory-emotive grounding for these phenomena, then there
remains for the architect a wide field of play – values that, in recent years,
have been shunted aside by high-minded abstractions and abject formalism.
At this point, we have probably done little more than scratch the surface of
what the near future holds, and the objective of this book is certainly not to su-
ggest that neuroscience will offer any explicit panacea or theory to be fashio-
nably embraced. A more well rounded and factual knowledge of ourselves is
the principal value of this realm of science, and as we continue to gain a better
biological understanding of how we interact with the world we will inevitably
adjust our outlooks and build our own theories. What neuroscience and the
broader field of cognitive investigations are once again reminding us is that
we are still creatures imbued not only with aspirations but also with vestigial
biological needs. If culture is the social edifice constructed on the footing of
this heritage, it must therefore respect the primal nature of our existence.
This essay is an excerpt of the chapter “Hapticity: Architecture of the Senses” originally published
as part of Harry Francis Mallgrave’s book The Architect’s Brain. Neuroscience, Creativity, and
Architecture. 2010. Wiley-Blackwell, John Wiley and Sons, Ltd., Chichester, West Sussex, U.K.
79 The Unbounded Boundary

The Unbounded Boundary

D. Michelle Addington

Architectural theorists and sustainable designers have often situated

themselves at opposite poles in regard to the architectural project. In one
camp, architecture is the representation of an autonomous manifestation
emerging from formal inquiry. At the other, architecture is the constructed
composite of performative systems derived through functional determi-
nism. The two camps rarely intersect, even insofar as the number of rhe-
torical exercises aimed at finding common ground—i.e ‘theorizing’ green
design—have burgeoned. The chasm between the two may have yielded the
inherent competition that exaggerates their incompatibility, but it is what
they have in common that shapes the more fundamental conflict between
architecture and the thermal environment.
Regardless of whether the resultant object is a picture plane projec-
tion or a performative envelope, both approaches ascribe to, and remain
wedded to, the concept of architecture as a collection of material surfaces.
Purveyors of the performative envelope might argue that their surfaces
are more valid than those whose intention is semiotic rather than func-
tional, but there is little difference between the concepts that both use to
define the architectural space.
Architecture privileges the two-dimensional surface. The surface may
have originated from the classical method of orthographic drawing, it may
have been produced from the contemporary method of three-dimensional
modeling, or it may have been engineered from a set of criteria, but the
result is the same—buildings that can only be read or perceived through the
qualities of the surfaces in view. This privileging of the surface emanates
from an a priori belief that performance is rooted in and perception is de-
termined by geometry. Geometry relentlessly tethers the built environment
to static artifacts. And even though we cannot trace a line of causation from
the objective precision of the geometrically constructed surface to either
the subjective perception of the imagined space or the actual behavior of
 Physiological Atmospheres 80

the constructed wall, we unconditionally accept that the surface is the pro-
genitor--the author--of the resulting effects.
This idea of surface as creating the locus of determination is so perva-
sive that we are not capable of questioning the extension from surface to
effect. The historian and theoretician Robin Evans1 described this link as
a “projective cast” that operates in the “intervals between things.” In his
ten transitive spaces that form the reading of object by observer, seven
are constructed geometrically from the surfaces of the objects, while three
fall into the realm of the imagination: “projection—or rather quasi projec-
tion—breaches the boundary between world and self, the objective and the
subjective2 .” The imagined space escapes the precise and specific characte-
rization of the geometrically constructed surfaces of the object and yet the
implication is that its very existence is determined by those surfaces.
If surfaces are the carrier of effects, then they are also the delimiter of
the architectural object—as such, they define the extents of its property.
Evans’ “projective cast” may pose space as projecting from the object, as
operating between objects, as even penetrating the object, but the object is
always datum. The delimiting surface unambiguously defines datum, thus
differentiating inside—within the extents of property—from outside—be-
yond the extents. The surface as datum takes on an additional and perhaps
more problematic role as ‘boundary.’ The architectural boundary inherently
marks difference and thereby ownership through a didactic discontinuity.
The material physicality of the surface manifests this boundary as a ba-
rrier, container or edge—producing a very real discontinuity that is impene-
trable if the surface is opaque and still physically albeit not visually impe-
netrable if the surface is transparent. Materiality resides in the surface as
substance and properties, and, in its realization, as function and image. It
is therefore constituent in that it can be defined, specified, produced and
measured. Our normative means of design privileges materiality: we crea-
81 The Unbounded Boundary

te, situate and represent surfaces, and we presume that those surfaces are
the determinant of how the spatial environment performs and is perceived.
Materiality is, however, just a subordinate player in performance and per-
ception. Both are driven by local, discrete, and transient energy exchanges
that contingently appear whenever difference arises.
In their seminal essay “Transparency: Literal and Phenomenal” of
1964, Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky differentiated literal transparency
as being a “physical fact” such as that associated with material proper-
ties, whereas phenomenal transparency was more difficult to define, as it
was ambiguous, such as due to the conditions produced by overlapping or
interpenetrating entities3 . We might assume that the terms of constituent
and contingent could be directly substituted for literal and phenomenal,
but this would be incorrect, as what Rowe and Slutsky consider to be
physical fact is also phenomenal or contingent, and those conditions that
they consider to be ambiguous do indeed have physical facts or cons-
tituent properties underpinning their results. They oversimplified the
literal and over-mystified the phenomenal.
The boundary that serves as the building envelope represents the
ultimate manifestation of a literal or constituent materiality imbued with
supposedly phenomenal behavior. Not only does it demarcate ownership
and limits, and determine form and image, it also ‘protects’ the occupant
from the myriad trespasses of a hostile world: intrusion of the public,
assault from the environment. While traditional architecture was mini-
mally capable of providing shelter from the environment, the advent of
mechanical systems at the beginning of the 20th century established the

1_Cfr. Robin Evans in the posthumous The 2_Ibid, pp. 368-369

Projective Cast (Cambridge, MA: The MIT 3_see Colin Rowe and Robert Slutzky, “Trans-
Press, 1995) pp. 366. parency: Literal and Phenomenal,” in Perspecta.
 Physiological Atmospheres 82

building envelope as a cocoon within which an alternative universe was

maintained. Le Corbusier described the envelope as a “hermetic” seal that
enabled a house to provide ideal interior conditions regardless of where it
was located: “The Russian house, the Parisian, at Suez or in Buenos Aires…
will be hermetically sealed. In winter it is warm inside, in summer cool,
which means at all times there is clean air at exactly 18º4 .” Half a century
later, James Marston Fitch essentially equated architecture with the enve-
lope in describing its performative determinism: “the task of architecture
is not merely to abolish gross thermal extremes but to provide the optimal
thermal environments for the whole spectrum of modern life….to achieve a
thermal steady state and a thermal equilibrium across space5 .” Even after
the turn of the twenty-first century, there continues to be a profound faith
in the envelope as not only the definitive boundary of architecture but also
as the only boundary of consequence.
In architecture, boundaries demarcate and establish difference; as a
result, the architectural boundary is definite and didactic. In thermody-
namics, boundaries negotiate and equilibrate difference; as a result, the
thermodynamic boundary is dynamic and transient—it is a region in which
change occurs. The modes of heat and mass transfer, including radiation,
convection and diffusion, are responsible for the dissipation of energy from
a higher energy state to a lower energy state. Transfer occurs whenever one
condition of a state—temperature, pressure, density, internal energy—is di-
fferent in relationship to any single condition of another state. This may be

4_Cfr. Le Corbusier, Precisions on the Present delivered in Brazil in 1929. The original com-
State of Architecture and City Planning, trans. pilation was published in French in 1933.
E. Aujame (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 5_James Marston Fitch American Building
1991), p.66. The volume is an English transla- 2: The Environmental Forces That Shape It
tion of a series of lectures that Le Corbusier (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1972), p.46.
83 The Unbounded Boundary

a difference in temperature between a surface and its immediate surroun-

dings, a difference in density between air masses at different heights. Each
difference is mitigated by a mode of energy transfer until the two states
reach equilibrium. As such, energy transfer is always transient, always
unique, and always singular. Heat is exchanged, pressure is equalized, mo-
lecules are distributed. It is a zone of action, where the laws of physics are
made manifest at their most fundamental level. A cold front colliding with
a warm front produces a line of thunderstorms at the boundary negotiating
the different thermal conditions of the two fronts, an airplane fights gravity
through the pressure manipulations of the boundary layer that forms be-
tween the air foil and the surrounding atmosphere. Unlike the static boun-
dary of the building envelope, the thermodynamic boundary does not exist
to maintain discontinuities, rather it emerges to resolve them.
Most architects would argue that the building boundary is not only
analogous to a thermodynamic boundary but it also essentially functions
as one in that it mediates between two environments. This assumption,
however, misunderstands the most salient characteristic of a thermody-
namic boundary: temporality. It only appears when a difference emerges
between a thermodynamic system with its surroundings and it disappears
as soon as energy exchanges to re-establish equilibrium. Furthermore, the
difference is not tethered to any given location nor does have it have what
we might recognize as a shape. Even in a seemingly quiescent atmosphe-
re, highly variable thermodynamic boundaries are constantly appearing
and disappearing in often random locations. While the intervention of a
material surface can certainly produce conditions that create contiguous
and continuous thermal boundaries, those boundaries are insignificant
when it comes to determining the environment of the human body. Instead,
the most active thermodynamic boundaries, and the most common ones,
are free-field boundaries. As the name indicates, free-field boundaries are
 Physiological Atmospheres 84

those that form independently from material surfaces. In contrast to the

high-energy free field boundaries that form all weather systems, those that
surround the human body tend to be more discrete, more transient. Smoke
rising from a cigarette is a classic illustration of an interior free field boun-
dary, and, while we cant see the heat rising from the human body, its boun-
dary behaves in the same manner—rising vertically until density equalizes,
at which point the energy dissipates in a horizontal layer.
The typical HVAC system treats the human body the same as it treats
the building envelope: as if both were comprised of static material surfa-
ces exchanging heat in a gravity-less black box. The incredible array of
thermal behaviors—temperature/density stratifications; transient con-
ditions; wide ranging velocities; laminar and turbulent flows; buoyant
plumes; convective, conductive and radiant transfer; mass transfer; and
randomly moving objects—are all mixed together and diluted in the black
box. Indeed the human body becomes an almost unwelcome perturbation
that disrupts the efficient functioning of the HVAC system. This is entirely
consistent with the origin of the contemporary system. Mixing and dilu-
tion stem from nineteenth century concepts about contaminated air. The
source of contamination? The human body. Even the most polluted outside
air was considered less dangerous than the breath and odors emanating
from the human body6 . Over a century later, the only questions that arise
in regard to the contemporary approach stem from its efficiency in crea-
ting homogeneous air. Its efficacy in engaging the thermal conditions of
the human body has never been a priority.

6_Both the UK and the US developed an exhalations of carbonic acid as well

obsession with ventilation that lasted emanations of body odor (attributed to
throughout the nineteenth century. putrefying flesh) were deadly toxins. As
The prevailing belief was that human such, ventilation with outside air of any
85 The Unbounded Boundary

Heat transfer and fluid mechanics were the last branches of classical
physics to have theoretical structures fully in place. This did not occur until
Prandtl developed the concept of the boundary layer in 1925, decades after
the basic operational strategy of dilution systems was cemented in place.
The analytical equations were so complex that it was not until the 1950s that
simplified numerical methods were developed to approximate behavior, and
it was not until the 1970s that NASA pioneered the development of a simula-
tion method to provide the first window into how air actually behaved. The
method was Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) and it revolutionized
many fields including aeronautics and nuclear power, and has had a signifi-
cant impact on the design of products from turbo-machinery to micro-elec-
tronics. The thermal environment of the building? Not so much. There are
two different algorithmic structures at the heart of CFD; the one most used
by advanced industries is based on finite elements, whereas the one exclusi-
vely used by the building industry is finite volume. Finite volume is adequate
for very basic, macro-scale analyses of single regime behaviors but incapable
of simulating multi-scale, multi-regime behaviors. The types of heat and air
behaviors we see in buildings are among the most complex and varied of any
problem in heat transfer and fluid mechanics and yet we use the method least
suited to their analysis. The problem, then, is that finite volumes are funda-
mentally black boxes with homogeneous interiors and, as a result, they can
only simulate the very behavior that many architects would like to challenge.
The penetration of CFD into architecture has provided an unpreceden-
ted opportunity to represent the thermal environment of our surroundings.

kind, including highly polluted air, was Franklin Institute in 1969 was titled: “Your
considered preferable to the air of interior Own Breath is Your Worst Enemy.” See Lewis
spaces. The frontispiece of Lewis Leeds’ W. Leeds, Lectures on Ventilation, (New York:
lecture series in ventilation at Philadephia’s John Wiley & Sons, 1869).
 Physiological Atmospheres 86

Unfortunately the thermal environment that is represented is not the

transient environment that the body experiences. The tautology of the tool
constrains the representations to large, bulk volumes rather than discrete
and local exchanges. Certainly many architects have taken advantage of
the opportunity to decouple the volume from its material container, but
most are configuring the thermal boundary as analogous to the building
boundary. The supposed micro-environment that is created is treated as
yet another contained and defined zone. The desire to turn the thermal
environment into architecture has eclipsed the opportunity to design the
engagement of the body with its thermal surroundings. A tiny change in
the heat transfer from the carotid artery in the neck can radically alter the
thermal sensations felt by the hands, a significant change in the body’s ra-
diation exchange can be caused by a micro-shift in its emittance spectrum.
These have little to do with spatial surrounds, regardless of whether the
spatial surround results from the building envelope or a thermal zone.
In regard to the physiological and psychological interaction of
the human body with its thermal environment, the contemporary
approaches and systems still over-privilege air. If the nineteenth
century origins of HVAC systems were premised on air as a means to
move contaminants away from the body for the preservation of health,
then, ironically, today’s systems use the same methods to blanket the
body in perfectly controlled and homogeneous air for the establishment
of comfort. Over a century of research has gone into the quest to define

7_Although John Shaw Billings had perfor- Commission on Ventilation from 1913-1918.
med numerous experiments on determining The Danish engineer Ole Fanger developed
the ideal ventilation rates for human health, the PMV, or predicted mean vote, method in
the first major study of ideal air temperature the 1980s that is still used to determine the
for health was carried out by the New York ideal air temperature for human comfort.
87 The Unbounded Boundary

the precise temperature and humidity of the ideal environment that

provides for all the needs of the body 7. Yet, if we step back to look
at the four fundamental modes of heat and mass transfer exchange
from the human body, air temperature shows up as a variable in only
one mode—convection—which is not only the least significant mode
in interiors, but also by far the most energy intensive mode 8 . Most
significant is radiation exchange which occurs between the body and
an array of fields ranging from the tablet held inches from the face and
the sun located ninety million miles away. The building envelope, the
material boundaries are but intervening elements in the larger, much
more varied and complex field. Designing the thermal environment of
the human body would be accomplished by the design of negotiated
exchanges with an ever shifting radiant environment. In other words,
the design of contingency.
Rather than trying to create an architecture of thermal behaviors
can we create an architecture that serves as the armature for contingent
thermal behaviors? Rather than treating architecture as the determinant
of thermal behaviors or as determined by thermal performance, can we
open up the possibilities for a richer thermal experience by decoupling the
thermal environment from the material artifacts of the building? Freed
from its role as the custodian of the thermal environment, architecture
could actually become more sustainable while yielding even more
opportunities for formal expression.

8_Conduction is a function of skin temperature a function of the vapor pressure on the skin
and the temperature of surfaces in direct surface and the vapor pressure of immediately
contact, radiation is a function of skin adjacent air, whereas convection is a function
temperature and the solid angle exposure of skin temperature, air temperature, air
to radiant field temperatures, evaporation is pressure and air velocity.
The ambition of our project is to give back the outdoors to the inha-
bitants and visitors by proposing to create exterior spaces where
the excesses of the subtropical warm and humid climate of Taichung
are lessened. The exterior climate of the park is thus modulated so
to propose spaces less hot (more cold, in the shade), less humid (by
lowering humid air, sheltered from the rain and flood) and less pollu-
ted (by adding filtered air from gases and particle matters pollution,
less noisy, less mosquitoes presence).

The design composition principle of the «Taichung Jade MeteoPark»

is based on climatic variations that we have mapped by computa-
tional fluid dynamics simulation (CFD): some areas of the park are
naturally warmer, more humid and more polluted while some of them
are naturally colder (because they are in the route of cold winds
coming from the North), dryer (because protected from the south-est
wind provinding humidity of the see in the air) and cleaner (faraway
from the roads). We have augmented these differences of microcli-
mates in order to increase the coolness, the dryness, the cleaness of
the places that are naturally cooler, less humid and less polluted, for
creating more comfortable spaces for the visitors.

Beginning with the existing climatic conditions as a point of departure

we have defined three gradation climatic maps following the results of
three computational fluid dynamics simulations. Each map specifically
corresponds to a particular atmospheric parameter and it variation of
Jade Meteo Park
Philippe Rahm

intensity thoughtout the park. The first one corresponds to variation on

the heat on the site, the second one describes the variations in humidity
in the air and the third one the intensity of the atmospheric pollution.
Each map shows how the intensity or strength of the respective atmos-
pheric parameter is modulated through the park. By doing so the maps
keep areas within the park from reaching excessive natural conditions
while making the experience of changes in climate much more comfor-
table in the areas where we will reinforce the coolness, the dryness, the
cleaness. The three maps intersect and overlap randomly in order to
create a diversity of microclimates and a multitude of different sensual
experiences in different areas of the park that we could freely occupy
depending the hour of the days or the month in the year. At a certain pla-
ce for example, the air will be less humid and less polluted but it will still
be warm, whilst elsewhere in the park, the air will be cooler and dryer,
but will remain polluted. The three climatic maps vary within a gradation,
which ranges from a maximum degree of uncomfortable atmospheric
levels that usually exist in the city (maximum rate of pollution, maximum
rate of humidity, maximum rate of heat) to areas that are more comfor-
table where the heat, the humidity and the pollution are lessened.

To materialize these climatic maps, we invented a catalogue of clima-

tic devices (natural and artificial) that reinforce areas that are already
more comfortable by lowering, reducing, inverting, and diminishing the
heat, humidity and pollution. These devices are classified in three cate-
gories: the cooling devices, the drying devices, the depolluting devices.

JADE METEO PARK

Authors: Philippe Rahm architectes, Mosbach paysagistes, Ricky Liu
& Associates – Public client: Taichung City Goverment – Date: 2011-
2015. First prize of the International competition in 2011 / Preliminary
design completed in December 2012 / Detailed design completed in
June2013 / Tender design completed in December 2013 / Construction
starts in January 2014 / Completion in July 2015
Cooling Climatic Devices

The natural cooling devices are trees with specific qualities for coo-
ling the atmosphere because they have a lots of leaves or big leaves
that create heavy shadows, or white flowers and waxy white leaves
in order to reflecte the warm sun rays, or trees that produce a strong
evaporation with consequence to cool the air around because of the
physical change of phase from liquide to gas.

The artificial cooling devices are apparatus working on meteorologi-

cal phenomena like convection, conduction, evaporation or reflection
in order to cool the air or directly the human body. The convective

North Wind Speed Simulation Influence of North Wind Cooling Devices Location
Air temperature in Taichung is from Simulation There are 3614 Cooling Planta-
high all year round. North wind We then drew a gradient diagram tions and 102 Cooling Climatic
is the main factor to influence following the simulation analysis. Devices in the park. We take
the temperature on site. We ran We use gradation to show the ave- number of 3716 and based on
a north wind speed simulation rage wind velocity in the park. The the north wind velocity gradation
on site from which we analysed location of the cooling devices is diagram to determine the loca-
the average north wind velocity based on this. Where the coolest tions of each devices. Where the
through the park. The higher the area is with the largest quantities coolest area is with the largest
wind velocity, the cooler it is in of devices, and vice versa. We quantities of devices, and vice
the park; the lower the wind velo- are aiming to provide a variety of versa. This is to reinforce the
city, the warmer it is in the park. climatic sensational experience. cool atmosphere in the Park.
cooling devices are named "Antycyclone" or "Underground breeze"
and they blow cool air chilled by underground heat exchange. The
conductive cooling devices are named "Night light" or "Vertical night"
and expose black and cold surface chilled by cold water where the
human skin can be cooled by touching them. The evaporating cooling
devices are named for exemple "Stratus cloud" or "Blue sky drizzle"
and by emitting mist or rain, they refresh the surrounding air tem-
perature by their change of phase from liquide to gas. The reflective
cooling devices named "Moon light" or "Long waves filters" are appa-
ratus that filter or reflecte the sunlight and the hat carried by it.

Cooling Plantations Cooling Climatic Devices Leisure Activities Equipments

Each Cooling Plantation has There are 102 number of Cooling These are placed in the Cool Re-
one of the following cooling pro- Climatic Devices spreading in sorts. Cooling Climatic Devices
perties: Dense foliage provides the park at the coolest areas. are placed around these equip-
shade; large size of leaves provi- This is to reinforce the cool ments to provide cool and com-
de shade; high evaporation; light atmophere of the park. fortable atmophere for visitors to
colour appearance, high albedo. enjoy the activities. The location
of the equipments are related
to natural wind and sunlight
direction. This is to reinforece the
effect visitor could experience
from the Climatic Devices.
Anticyclone The Anticyclone de- the air, through con-duction, thereby
vice cools its surroundings during cooling itself. When the body is too
warm weather by blowing chilled air hot, the brain signals blood vessels to
downward in order to help prevent Park vasodilate, causing them to expand in
patrons from overheating. To do so, the diameter. Because blood carries heat,
device utilizes two natural cooling phe- more blood flowing to the skin’s surface
nomena: conduction and convection. increases contact between the cool air
Cool air brushing against the body and warm blood. This process speeds
causes human skin to transfer heat to up the convective transfer of heat from
the skin to the air, further cooling the 29.4oC, the hypothalamus signals blood
body’s internal temperature. vessels to expand (vasodilation), trans-
fering warm blood to the skin’s surface
The effects of Anticyclone: The human in order to lose heat energy. Excessively
body attempts to maintain a constant in- warm weather prevents the body from
ternal temperature (37oC). The outdoor losing enough heat through natural pro-
thermal comfort zone for the human cesses. The Anticylcone device facilita-
body is between 21oC and 29.4oC. When tes the body’s natural cooling processes
the outdoor temperature is higher than through cool wind propagation.
 Cumulus Cloud The atmosphere conducts heat energy away from the
is heated when objects, mainly the air until the water droplets evap-orate
ground, absorb the Sun’s radiation, heat back into the atmosphere, cooling the
up, and re-emit heat energy into the temperature underneath the device by
surrounding atmosphere. Utilizing the divesting the air of heat energy. These
natural phenomena of evaporative coo- water molecules also reflect part of the
ling and shading, the Cumu-lus Cloud Sun’s electromagnetic radiation, pre-
device passively cools its surroundings. venting the ground and Park patrons
To do so, the device emits cool mist that from absorbing the Sun’s radiation.
The effects of Cumulus Cloud: The hu- temperature. Excessively high temperatu-
man body attempts to maintain a constant re causes a rapid drop in blood pressure,
internal temperature (37oC). When expo- which can cause heat exhaustion and heat
sed to high atmospheric temperatures, the stroke. The Cumulus Cloud facilitates the
body regulates its internal temperature body’s natural cooling processes by pro-
by initiating vasodilation, or expanding viding a cool mist that partially reflects
blood vessels, to push blood to the skin’s the Sun’s radiation and absorbs the heat of
surface. This change in blood pressure the surrounding air while changing state
occurs at a rate proportional to the high from liquid to vapour.
 The atmosphere is heated when objects absorb
heat energy from the Sun and re-emit it into the
atmosphere. The Longwave Filter absorbs infared
and visible radiation, and allows violet light to pass
through (390nm), shielding the people and objects
below from absorbing heat energy

Longwave Filter The Sun delivers (750nm-1mm). In the visible spectrum

heat energy to the Earth through the longest wavelengths, in the red
electromagnetic radiation. 46-50% of range (650-750nm), have the most
the radiation emitted by the Sun is in heat energy. Those in the violet range
the visible spectrum of light (390- (390nm) have the least heat energy.
750nm). The remaining heat energy The Longwave Filter’s translucent
comes mostly from infrared radiation acrylic glass filters wavelengths of
 Translucent acrylic glass lets
through 92% of visible solar
radiation, from ultraviolet to the
near-infrared (390-750 nm). By
applying a colored tint to three
overlapping glass panels (violet,
blue, and green), and increasing
their optical thickness, the glass
will absorb almost all visible light
and transmit only violet light,
because the top colored panel is
violet. Violet light (390-450 nm)
is the ‘coolest’ range of visible
light, given that it has the least
amount of energy in the visible
spectrum (390-750 nm). The-
refore, the translucent acrylic
glass absorbs 83% of the visible
spectrum, and lets violet light
(17% of the visible spectrum)
through in order to cool the body
beneath the device.

radiation with the most heat energy constant internal temperature (37oC).
(450nm - 1mm) in order to shield Park Excessively warm weather causes
patrons from absorbing the Sun’s ther- causes the body to produce more
mal energy, cooling the body. heat than it can lose through natural
processes. The Longwave Filter device
The effects of Longwave Filter: The cools the body below through shading
human body attempts to maintain a and optical filtering.
 The Night Light emits cool radiation to its surroun-
dings through a coolant coil, supplied with cold wa-
ter from an underground duct. Overhead concrete
shades the coil from the Sun.

Night Light The atmosphere is heated nightly phenomenon during the day.
when objects, mainly the ground, To do so, the device both shades the
absorb the Sun’s visible and infrared people and objects below and emits
radiation, heat up, and re-emit heat cool radi-ation to its surroundings. A
energy into the sur-rounding atmos- coolant coil is supplied chilled water
phere, mainly by conduction. Radiative at 27oC, which allows it to absorb the
cooling is experienced on cloudless warm radiation from the human body
nights, when heat is radiated into space (37oC), effectively lowering its tempe-
from the surface of the Earth. The rature. People coming in contact with
Night Light device reproduces this or standing near to the device will lose
heat energy by radiation and conduc- below through shading and optical
tion, when touching the device. filtering. The Night Light seeks to re-
produce the conditions of the night sky,
The effects of Night Light: The human wherein there is very little heat energy
body attempts to maintain a constant coming from the Sun. To do so, the
internal temperature (37oC). Excessi- device shades Park patrons standing
vely warm weather causes causes the underneath the device from the Sun’s
body to produce more heat than it can radiation, while radiating cool cool air
lose through natural processes. The being chilled by 25oC water flowing
Longwave Filter device cools the body through the coolant coil.
Drying Climatic Devices

The second category of climatic devices are the drying climatic

devices which objectives are to protect the body from the rain
and to reduce the excess of humidity in the air that amplify the
uncomfort by an unfavorable influence on the human body in the
thermolysis process by blocking perspiration. The first objective

South West Wind Velocity Influence of South West Wind Dehumidifying Devices Location
and Vector Simulation and Basins from Simulation There are 3614 Dehumidifying
We ran a south west wind We then drew a gradient diagram Plantations and 62 Dehumidi-
velocity and vector simulation on following the simulation analysis. fying Climatic Devices in the
site from which we analysed the We use gradation to show the park. We take number of 3676
average south west wind velocity average wind velocity in the park and based on the south west
through the park. The higher the and the influence by the basins. wind velocity and basin influence
wind velocity, the drier it is in the The location of the dehumidifying gradation diagram to determine
park; the lower the wind velocity, devices is based on the gradation the locations of each devices.
the more humid it is in the park. diagram. Where the driest area Where the driest area is with the
is with the largest quantities of largest quantities of devices, and
devices, and viceversa. We are vice versa. This is to reinforce the
aiming to provide a variety of dry atmosphere in the Park.
climatic sensational experience.
is reached by artificial shelters and trees with dense frond that
protect from the rain. The second objective is reached by natural
drying climatic devices that absorb the humidity in the air with
their floating roots and artificial drying devices that blow air dried
by silicate gel exchangers named "Dry cloud" or "Desert wind".

Drying Plantations of the park.

All Drying Plantations have the Drying Climatic Devices Sport Activities Equipments
property to absorb the humidity There are 62 number of Drying Sports Activity Equipments are
in the air. Climatic Devices spreading in placed in the Dry Resorts.Drying
the park at the Driest areas. This Climatic Devices are placed
is to reinforce the dry atmophere around these equipments to
provide dry and comfortable
atmophere for visitors to enjoy
the activities. The location of the
equipments are related to natu-
ral wind and sunlight direction.
This is to reinforece the effect
visitor could experience from the
Climatic Devices.
Silica gel dries the air. As a solid desiccant, silica gel
beads have tiny pores which can absorb water va-
pour and stretch elastically to store water molecules.

Dry Cloud The body attempts to which requires heat energy from
cool itself in warm climates through the body in order to occur. Taking
perspiration. Conse-quently, the body heat energy from the body lowers
can lose up to 3 liters of liquids per the temperature of the skin. Humid
day through sweating, causing it to air, however, cannot absorb much
lose approximately 580 kilocalories of moisture; therefore, the majority of
heat per liter. As the sweat comes out sweat molecules can-not evaporate
through pores on the skin’s surface, and cool the body. In order to utilize
it changes state from liquid to gas, the process of sweating as a cooling
mechanism more effi-ciently, the Dry The effects of Dry Cloud: Bodies lose
Cloud device dries the atmosphere of heat by releasing sweat through pores,
some areas in the Park, by blowing which then takes heat energy from benea-
air that has been dried by collecting th the skin’s surface in order to change
and passing it through an array of from liquid to gas. Humid air cannot ab-
silica gel desiccants. The dry air sorb much moisture, so sweat cannot eva-
helps sweat evaporate, taking heat porate. This makes the body sweat more
energy from the body with it to rapidly. By drying the air, the Dry Cloud
change from liquid to gas. device facilitates evaporative cooling.
Depolluting Climatic Devices

The third category are the depolluting climatic devices. They redu-
ce the atmospherical pollution in the air, the excess of the noise and
presence of mosquitoes. The natural depolluting devices are com-
posed by trees with capability to absorb oxides of nitrogen and other
aerosols, to make effective sound barriers. The artifical depolutting
devices like the "Ozone eclipse" for exemple blow in the park filtered
air without gazeous pollution like Nox, O3 or S02. The "Preindustrial
draught" blow in the park air without particle matters PM10 and PM2.5
emitted by the industry and cars. The Ultrasound Repellant device

North Wind Velocity Influence of North Wind Depolluting Devices Location

and Vector Simulation and Surrounding Roads There are 3614 Depolluting
Air pollution in cities is problematic from Simulation Plantations and 97 Depolluting
for the inhabitants as it can cause We then drew a gradient diagram Climatic Devices in the park. We
hesitation to spend time outdoors. following the simulation analy- take number of 3711 and based
Wind brings pollutants throughout sis. We use gradation to show on the north wind velocity and
the park. North wind and the su- the average wind velocity in the surrounding road influence gra-
rrounding roads on site are the main park and the influence by the dation diagram to determine the
factors to influence the pollution on surrounding roads. The location locations of each devices. Where
site. We ran a north wind velocity and of the depolluting devices is the cleanest area is with the
vector simulation on site from which based on the gradation diagram. largest quantities of devices, and
we analysed the average north wind Where the cleanest area is with vice versa. This is to reinforce the
velocity through the park. The higher the largest quantities of devices, clean atmosphere in the Park.
the wind velocity, the cleaner it is in and vice versa. We are aiming
the park; the lower the wind velocity, to provide a variety of climatic
the more polluted it is in the park. sensational experience.
repels mosquitoes emitting waves, above the human auditory range
(>20kHz), and at the same frequency as the beat of a dragonfly’s wings.
This will repel the mosquitos from the sounds of their predators.

According to the density and quantity of climatic devices in a given

area, we create spaces more or less enjoyable, more or less comfor-
table, thus the different climatic properties sometimes overlap, se-
parate, regroupe, densify, dilute, generating a variety of atmospheres
where the users can choose and appropriate as they see fit.

Depolluting Plantations Depolluting Climatic Devices Family Activities Equipments

Each Depolluting Planta- There are 97 number of Depollu- Family Activity Equipments are
tion has one of the following ting Climatic Devices spreading placed in the Clean Resorts.
cleaning properties: Big truck in the park at the cleanest areas. Depolluting Climatic Devices are
to absorb noise; leaves which This is to reinforce the clean placed around these equipments
absorbs air pollutant; leaves atmophere of the park. to provide clean and comfortable
with mucinous or smells which atmophere for visitors to enjoy
repels mosquitos. the activities. The location of the
equipments are related to natu-
ral wind and sunlight direction.
This is to reinforece the effect
visitor could experience from the
Climatic Devices.
 Polluted air passes into a plasma
chamber, where a 4.8 kv ionizer
applies an electric current to the
air molecules, detaching electrons
from oxygen molecules. Plasma
filters continually generate char-
ged ions, which bind to airborne
particles using an oppositely char-
ged collection plate, or filter, to
attract these particles. Filtered air
then leaves the plasma filter and
flows into the low atmosphere.

Ozone Eclipse The main sources of ur- nitrogen oxides (NOx), and ozone (O3),
ban air pollution have been identified as by emitting air that has been purified by
vehicle exhaust and industrial processes. various catalytic and plasma filters. Clean
A pollutant is a substance that is present air then leaves the Ozone Eclipse and
in concentra-tions that cause harm to flows into the sur-rounding atmosphere.
living organisms. The Ozone Eclipse
device cleanses the air of potentially The effects of Ozone Eclipse:
damaging toxins like sulfer oxides (SOx), Carbon dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and
sulfur oxides are gases emitted by delivers oxygen, which carries energy,
vehicles and industrial processes. In to the cells and organs in the body.
excessive quantities, as are found in By slowing down the lungs’ airflow
urbanized areas, these gases can cause processes, harmful gases make
respiratory inflammation, headaches, respiration more difficult and less
cogntivie damage, and nausea. The effective. The Ozone Eclipse provides
Ozone Eclipse device cleanses the clean air which has been cleansed of
air of these harmful gases. Breathing NOX, O3, and SOX.
 Cap

Material
Atmospheres

02
 Iñaki Ábalos and Javier García-Germán co-editors

115 Iñaki Ábalos:

“Thermodynamic Materialism”

123 Toni Kotnik:

“Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow”

131 Juan José Castellón, Pierluigi D’Acunto:

“The Architectural and Performative
Potential of Porous Structures”

137 Kiel Moe:

“Cellular Solidarity: Matter,
Energy, and Formation”

147 Iñaki Ábalos:

“Regaining Authority by Means of Knowledge”

148 Iñaki Ábalos, GSD Harvard University

in collaboration with the ETH Zürich
Chair of Structural Design
Thermodynamic Prototype
 Cap 110

MODERN INTERIOR SPACE:

METEOROLOGICAL UPHEAVAL
Modernity introduced a spatial and material
model which transformed thoroughly the interior
of buildings. Modern spatial paradigms deployed
continuous, isotropic and horizontal homogeneous
interiors eliminating any concession to fragmentation
or verticality. This spatial model was paralleled
by a material one which introduced the new
structural and building systems industry was
delivering, implementing prefabricated lightweight
envelopes, partitions, suspended ceilings, finishes
and furnishings inside buildings. These changes
succeeded to transform the interior of buildings
rendering the new interiors industrial society
demanded, but this was done at the expense of its
climatic devaluation.

The drive for isotropic and continuous interior

spaces annihilated the oriented and room-based
spatial arrangement which had until then provided
an appropriate climatic modulation. The tendency
towards horizontality did away with the vertical
gradient of buildings which procured interior spaces
varied in temperature, humidity and luminosity.
In addition the modern choice of materials was
instrumental to change interior heat absorption
and emission patterns. Lightweight façade systems
reduced the resistance and storage capacity of
envelopes, losing its ability to lag outdoor heat
111 Sub

flows. Glazed envelopes introduced short-wave solar

radiation indoors heating up interior spaces. The shift
from load-bearing walls to post and lintel systems
extended the use of lightweight partitions which,
together with the replacement of massive floorings
with light materials such as fitted carpets or linoleums
and the use of suspended ceilings, reduced the heat
storage capacity of materials limiting its potential to
accumulate impinging solar radiation. High thermal
storage materials would have absorbed incoming
short-wave solar radiation, buffering temperature
increases, but their absence heated-up the air inside
buildings to unprecedented levels.

AIR-CONDITIONING TAKES COMMAND

Modern Architecture procured an innovative spatial,
material and atmospheric paradigm, but however
failed to generate an environmentally-sound one.
Modern interiors disposed of the spatial and material
potential of interiors to control climate in a passive
way, making air-conditioning a necessary technology
to compensate its thermodynamic neutrality. The
fact that air-conditioning was based in convective
heat exchanges made this technology a perfect
match to offset the excess of hot air generated
inside buildings, providing a thermodynamically-
balancing atmosphere. The massive air inputs
subordinated entire buildings to a steady-state
environment, paving the way to the mainstream use
of air-conditioning and establishing a new building
 Cap 112

thermodynamic model on which current design and

building practices —to a large extent— still rely.1
ALTERNATIVE SOURCES AND SINKS
As a reaction to air-conditioning appeared an
interest in the performance of climatic typologies
which brought forward the idea that a careful three-
dimensional and material orchestration of sources and
sinks enabled to design the flows of dissipating heat
inside buildings. The bioclimatic approach introduced
by Olgyay brother’s in the 1950s2 staged the idea that
interior space is instrumental for structural climate
control. Even though their efforts focused on the
building envelope, they researched extensively on
cross-ventilation exploring the effect of openings and
partition arrangements on air flow.3

These initial steps led to other experiments which

explored the thermodynamic interaction between
interior space and tectonics. This brings forth the
work developed by Barach Givoni whose major
contribution was the idea that indoor materials have
the potential to modulate indoor ambient,4 providing
a meteorology as variegated as outdoors. According
to Givoni indoor climate could be modulated not
only by the envelope, but also by interior material
arrangements or by programmatic sources, arguing
that the “materials within the internal space, such
as floors, partitions and even furniture, also modify
the indoor temperatures by affecting the heat
capacity of the structure as a whole and the rate of
113 Sub

absorption of heat generated or penetrating within

the building.”5 Envelopes ceased to be protection
barriers to unidirectional outdoor climatic flows,
and began to manage transient bidirectional heat
flows, staging a shift from the building’s envelope as
climatic shield to the building’s structure as climatic
manager. Interestingly this new understanding
posed the passage from the modern steady-state
equilibrium thermodynamic model to an open
equilibrium model, opening the capacity of interior
space, through the orchestration of sources and
sinks, to provide particular climates.

INTERIOR SPACE AND DISSIPATION DESIGN

A thermodynamic understanding of interior space
offers the potential to arrange architectural questions
—spatial structure, material choice and arrangement
or program— in a particular way to obtain a desired
climatic performance. Interiors, as spatial and material
constructs, have the ability to store, transport and
release heat, modulating the dissipating flows of heat
inside a building. Energy just flows and the spatial and
material lineaments can be designed to modulate,
resist, accelerate, store or release this spontaneous
flow of dissipating heat to provide a variegated,
healthy, comfortable, inspiring and perceptually-
captivating interior for its users.

Material Atmospheres discusses a design culture

which is interested in exploring the thermodynamic
 Cap 114

interactions between climate and interior space.

Going beyond the thermodynamic neutrality of air-
conditioned interiors, it speculates on the capacity of
material assemblages to overlay its spatial, structural
and thermodynamic organizations in an integral way to
provide a stimulating atmosphere for everyday life.

JGG

1_At this point it is important to mention 2_Both Victor and Aladar Olgyay
both Reyner Banham, who was the first originally addressed the need to provide
architecture critic who detected the radical a bioclimatic outlook for architecture
transformations that the uninhibited in the article “Bioclimatic Approach to
usage of environmental technology was Architecture” (BRAB Conference Report
having on architecture, and its technical no. 5, National Report Council, Washington
counterpart, the American Society of D.C.. 1953. Pages 13-23). This approach
Heating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, was developed in detail in the report
which was the institution which provided Application of Climate Data to House
the theoretical and practical tools which Design (1953. US Housing and Home
made the modern spatial and material Finance Agency: Washington D.C.) which
patterns environmentally feasible. resulted from the research undertaken
115 Sub

at MIT in the early 1950s, and which later published in Design with Climate (1963).
laid the foundations for Victor Olgyay’s 4_Givoni’s book Man, Climate and
acknowledged Design with Climate (1963). Architecture (1969) devoted a whole
3_Building upon the research undertaken section to the “thermophysical properties
years before by Neutra in the Puerto Rico of buildings materials and the effect
commission (see The Architecture of Social on indoor climate”, analyzing in detail
Concern in Regions of Mild Climate, 1948), and how interior thermodynamic material
drawing on the experimentation of the Texas properties affected indoor meteorology.
Engineering Research Station (1949), the 5_Givoni, Barach. Man, Climate and
Olgyays developed along the 1950s a series of Architecture. 1969. Elsevier Publishing
cross-ventilation experiments at the Princeton Company Limited: Amsterdam, London,
Architectural Laboratory which were years New York. Page 113.
117 Thermodynamic Materialism

Thermodynamic Materialism.
Project (Site plan)
Iñaki Ábalos

The escalating technical apparatus of indoor comfort in buildings after

World War II fundamentally altered the discourse and design of architec-
tural envelopes and interiors—that is, architecture. Not only could building
depth increase indefinitely, but the whole complex ideology of functiona-
lism was challenged by new artificial air technologies that enabled other
forms of programmatic flexibility. The envelope displaced its traditional
role of regulating heat gain, ventilation and natural lighting for that of an
isolating paradigm that aimed to neutralize interior from exterior. To achie-
ve this, architects increasingly specified a multi-layer envelope with mini-
mum exposed surface and maximum insulation, tightly sealed wherever
possible, that facilitated both the calculation and the control of the interior
environment in keeping with the air-conditioning technologies universali-
zed by Willis Carrier. Structure was by necessity taken inside to minimize
thermal bridging, largely losing tectonic expressivity. The materials used
to organize the interior spaces ceased to have a specific tectonic or techni-
cal function, being chosen instead for criteria of appearance or taste. The
model and the technology of the cooling industry, as Kiel Moe aptly writes
in Insulating North America1, replaced typological and tectonic traditions
not only in America but in all continents and climates. These fundamental
architectural transformations coincided with unprecedented demographic
and economic expansion throughout the tropical and subtropical regions of
the globe, the very places where the concepts of insulation and separation
between structure and envelope are least effective. Junkspace became the
paradigm of indoor space, and insulation its ally on the outside2 .

1_Kiel Moe, “Insulating North America,” 100, Spring 2002, pp. 175-190.
Journal of Construction History, Vol. 27, 3_Bernard Rudofsky. Architecture without
January 2013, pp. 87-106. Architects, Doubleday & Co, Garden City,
2_Rem Koolhaas, “Junkspace”, October vol. New York, 1964.
 Material Atmospheres 118

Criticism of this model was not far behind. Bernard Rudofsky’s book Ar-
chitecture without Architects and the exhibition at the MoMA in 1964 can be
seen as a trigger whose argument, though perhaps romantic and rather nos-
talgic, is just as vital today, as multiple re-editions show3 . With no mention
of other models, Rudofsky exclusively emphasized the capacity for tectonic
and thermodynamic adaptation of vernacular and even primitive architectu-
res, thereby indirectly challenged the entire technocratic model imposed by
early modernity’s fascination with mechanics and naive progress ideologies.
With increasing knowledge of the negative aspects of the model of industria-
lized growth in the latter half of the century—modernization’s unfettered and
irresponsible exploitation of resources and its irreversible global effects—the
rise of other ways of addressing the city and architecture were ensured. An
emphasis on the adaptation and minimization of ecological footprints gave
way to epithets— such as “intelligent” and “sustainable” buildings—which
found the initial acceptance, though their inadequate frameworks revealed
what they did not address: a technological and constructive model that was
not yet questioned and was in many cases maximized, dependent though to
varying degrees on Carrier’s basic concept: maximum insulation from the
environment (whatever it may be) = minimum consumption inside.
The quick acceptance by the media and politics of the idea of sustainable
architecture responded to a latent demand in society. Many architects, howe-
ver, were suspicious of the opportunistic marketing regimes that quickly
appropriated the idea, were, for valid reservations, not unwilling to consider it.
Today, we realize that the coincidence of sustainability as a social and techno-
cratic paradigm, contrasted with iconographic experimentation as an academic
and cultural paradigm were divergent responses to the incipient digitization
of design techniques. The consequence of this divergence was the progressi-
ve displacement of architects to the role of exterior decorators, providers of a
brand image for buildings that were spatially designed entirely by other agents
119 Thermodynamic Materialism

who ensured the product’s coherence with market demands, including high
levels of sustainability and iconic impact, the last creative redoubt for the ar-
chitect. The architects’ surrender of integral control over the very disciplinary
space of their traditional agency coupled with insufficient insight on a cultural
model that criticized the technocratic model left the discipline in an apparent
dead-end. Despite having the intuition and the capacity to realize that the de-
sign of energy dissipation at different scales of the urban environment was one
of the most obvious ways of redirecting a necessary dialogue with society, the
profession was not quick enough to claim these areas of knowledge. Academic
programs and the attraction of experimenting with new forms that involved
modeling and animation (representational) software cemented a division that
led to the emergence of a body of experts with technical and scientific training
and parametric modeling and simulation (performative) software as “specia-
lists” in energy issues prompting the initial retreat of architects from energy
issues. Since the vast majority of this software was—and still is—based on the
retroactive testing of a project for which not only volumetric but also material
and constructive aspects had already been defined, the role of the architect
was reduced to providing a model to be examined by an “expert” in the energy
field. It is not difficult to understand why institutional or private clients came to
systematically entrust this expert more than the architect, who, almost blindly
proposed the original model. The architect’s challenged authority is grounded
in the inability of architects and academics to accept and thereby integrate the
technical and cultural significance demanded of architecture today.
In this context, various individuals and sub-disicplines saw an emerging
need for a redefinition of the problem presented by the technification of the
built environment and its disciplinary consequences. On the one hand, there
was a call for a broad redefinition of the cultural and scientific fields in which
the problem was being debated; a recontextualization in terms of what Ilya
Prigogine redefined as biotechnology or, in stricter terms, the unification of the
 Material Atmospheres 120

exact, natural and social sciences into a common lexicon by thermodynamics4 .

This idea, as formulated for the field of architecture by Sanford Kwinter5 , was
a decisive first step that allowed many to “redescribe” the panorama of disci-
plinary practices toward a new and different socio-technical model capable
of eclipsing the previous mechanical modality of modernism. The problems
of mechanized of air and its technocratic model, sustainability, came to be
understood as problems set in a process of cultural and technological change
that both allowed and demanded a holistic approach to rethinking the role of
thermodynamics in the reconstruction of the architecture discipline. At diffe-
rent points of the globe, with diverse socioeconomic contexts and climates, this
relocation of the theme has gradually become consolidated in the new century
and has entered the common lexicon of professionals and academia.
In the field of academia, disenchantment with the excesses and con-
sequences of the continued iconic preoccupations in traditional design
discourse has directed the attention of to the digital instruments that offer
the as yet embryonic possibility of real-time modelling of the most decisive
environmental parameters (architecture software companies, meanwhile,
are discovering a new field for their business). The evolution of thermody-
namic parametric software involves an algorithmic way of operating and
an approach to modelling that were unknown a decade ago. A case study
model wherein invited “experts” peddled tips and trick to students who lac-
ked specific knowledge has given way to architects who have developed an
architectural agenda for the principles of thermodynamics and its practical
application to architecture design. They have begun to explain and syste-
matize design methodologies using technical guidelines and operating pro-

4_Prigogine, I., and Isabelle Stengers. Order 5_Sanford Kwinter, “A Materialism of the Incor-
out of Chaos: Man's New Dialogue with Nature. poreal”, Documents of Architecture and Theory
Toronto: Bantam, 1984. Vol. 6, Columbia University, 1997, pp. 85-89.
121 Thermodynamic Materialism

tocols that are accessible to students. Even more significantly, historians are
starting to interact in these seminars and studios, explaining the cultural
and disciplinary dimension of thermodynamic conceptions in time and spa-
ce, tracing their involvement in different historical practices and moments.
This evolution can be seen as a redefinition of the technification of archi-
tecture from the viewpoint of thermodynamics, aimed at consolidating the
ability of architects to operate technically and imaginatively in the context of
a technical and scientific model that is different from the model it inherited
from modernity. With the aim—perhaps illusory—of recovering the ground
and the authority lost in the modern, capitulating redistribution of discipli-
nary knowledge and responsibility, the relations between technology and
culture have been fundamentally altered in contemporary practice and therby
can reposition the role of the architect. Recovering the capacity for interven-
tion in the reality of contemporary societies and the associated forms of the
metropolis and its buildings, is a primary aim, but so too is the creation of
new formal and material conceptions that address the twofold need for techni-
cal innovation and aesthetic renovation. With the introduction of a new field
of definition of architecture based on modelling phenomena and materials
that used to be invisible, new ways of understanding the relations between
form, material, space and program provide unbounded scope for architectural
speculation: a new idea of beauty has emerged and, with it, the hope of mer-
ging the social, technical and aesthetic dimensions of architecture.
This new approach plays an important role in a reappraisal of moderni-
ty, regarded until recently as a more or less pioneering social, technical and
aesthetic period. From the new thermodynamic viewpoint, architecture and
the modern city are starting to be seen largely as a surrender and counter
model, a moment of retreat on the part of architects due to this condition of
“tourist” in an environment with which they are not familiar, which Reyner
Banham, at the end of Theory and Design in the First Machine Age (1960),
 Material Atmospheres 122

applied to the modern architect, fascinated by disciplines that were unfami-

liar. Both the silent retreat (Mies) and the defense of tectonics (Louis Kahn)
can be regarded as phenomena that mark a single process of withdrawal
and defeat in which architecture and architects still find themselves, per-
haps even more intensely. However, beyond the historiographic review of
20th century narratives lies the political involvement implicit in the defen-
se of thermodynamics, as a critique both of the material culture of domi-
nant production processes and of the methods and techniques of interven-
tion, including the disciplinary division between architecture, landscape,
urban design and environment that is the legacy of modernity.
These observations on the state of the question all point to the need to re-
view certain general principles in order to shake off the modern mechanistic
lexicon and relocate traditional elements of the discipline in a new technical
and cultural—if not biological and political—context in order to bring about
a systematization of knowledge that paves the way for the adaptation and in-
novation of architecture that are inherent in the concept of thermodynamics.
This epistemological shift of the discipline will not be straightforward, as
this rapid outline might at first glance mistakenly suggest. Neither the approa-
ches nor the consequences of this thermodynamic shift—inseparably linked to
the digital shift—are grounds for instant immediate optimism. The loss of the
holistic ability to approach thermodynamic phenomena is evident in the diffi-
culty that many designers have in intuitively approaching the basic problems
of form, material and energy as single, convergent practice. Knowledge that was
once such an integral part of the practice of construction that it did not have to
be addressed as a technical issue—that is, economic and typological adaptation
to the climate and the resources at hand—is now almost irreversibly lost: a dead
language. The Carrier/refrigeration model of efficiency, today’s field of scientific
reference for those in higher education, and the testimonials of excellence that
the same model has generated recently in the architecture field are undoubted-
123 Thermodynamic Materialism

ly responsible for this deaden thermodynamic practice of architecture, as is the

unfortunate distance that the most common environmental software creates
between the introduction of data and the response generated, often involving a
considerable accumulation of error. Instead, there is great need for approaches
based on historical documentation, scientific knowledge and the visualization
of thermodynamic processes using technical-architectural manuals to unders-
tand the phenomena studied to bolster a holistic intuition similar to the tec-
tonic counterpart habitually found among architects. As such, there is today a
palpable reality that requires the training of architects to be updated.

Seminar discussion at the GSD, 2012. From left to right: Kiel

Moe, Sanford Kwinter, Matthias Schüler and Iñaki Ábalos
(photographer Daniel Ibáñez).
125 Polyvalent Porosity. Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow

Polyvalent Porosity
ETH Zurich – DARCH, Chair of Structural Design
Aalto University, Helsinki – Dept. Architecture,
Professorship of Design of Structures

The research project Polyvalent Porosity is intended to answer the ques-

tion of how to integrate structural and thermodynamic principles into
the design of architectural space. In order to achieve this aim, the in-
vestigation is aiming at the development of a theoretical framework by
approaching the problem from a scientific and a design perspective.
This approach is introduced in the current section through two distinct
contributions: the first part, which approaches the topic from a scientific
perspective, is focused on the formal similarity that can be observed in
the phenomenology of behaviour within the research fields of mechanics
and thermodynamics; the second part, which develops the topic from an
architectural and engineering perspective, explores the spatial and perfor-
mative potential of porous structures in the design field. In this light, the
research is presented as a seminal contribution towards the definition of a
new paradigm in contemporary architectural thinking.

Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow

Toni Kotnik (Aalto University)

Contemporary way of living in industrialized as well as in developing

countries is in large part fossil-fuel driven with over 80% of primary energy
consumption relying on oil, coal and gas (fig. 1). Buildings directly affect
more than 40% of all energy consumed in developed countries. In general,
building operation like heating, cooling, lighting, pumps and elevators
requires around one third of all energy used. The construction of buildings
including the manufacture and delivery of building materials and products
as well as the energy used on-site takes another 5%1. In addition to this buil-
ding-related energy consumption, the construction of necessary supporting
infrastructure like roads and highways, water and sewage systems, power
 Material Atmospheres 126

Fig. 1: Sources of energy consumed annually in the US and

areas of consumption (US Energy Information Agency, 2012).

generation and distribution uses around 4% of all consumed energy. With

respect to these undisputed facts - prevailing fossil-fuel based energy
sources and the consumption of a large part of this energy by buildings - it
cannot be denied that the built environment is responsible for a large share
in the emission of greenhouse gases and, thus, for climate change.
In order to make the built environment more sustainable, therefore,
two strategies of equal importance are currently pursued in the context of
various disciplines and multi-disciplinary research fields: on the one hand,
the development of more clean energy and, on the other hand, the impro-
vement of energy efficiency and the activation of other opportunities of
energy saving. The availability of clean energy is depending in large on the
efficient utilization of renewable sources of energy like sun, wind, water or
geothermics by means of technology and, thus, is in essence an engineering
challenge. In buildings, the amount of energy needed for the operation is

1_Stein, Carl: Greening Modernism: 2_Schneider, Eric D. & Sagan, D.: Into the
Preservation, Sustainability, and the Modern Cool: Energy Flow, Thermodynamics, and Life,
Movement, Norton & Co, 2011, 31-34. University of Chicago Press, 2006.
127 Polyvalent Porosity. Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow

Fig. 2: Strategies towards a sustainable built environment

(based on Stefan Behling, lecture, IIT Chicago, 2004).

dependent on the morphology, the organization and materialization of the

building. Because of this, architectural decisions during the design process
play a key role in making buildings more sustainable (fig. 2). Decisions made
during an early design phase have a larger impact on the final energy foo-
tprint of a building than any technology that is added to it at a later stage.
One of the key issues in making buildings more sustainable, therefo-
re, is to inform the design process from the beginning in order to find a
balance between the necessities of physics and the freedom of design. With
respect to energy, the necessity of physics is governed by the laws of ther-
modynamics. Consequentially, the driving force behind patterns in nature
are gradients of energy: Nature’s tendency to reduce gradients, energy’s
tendency to spread in accord with the second law of thermodynamics, is
assisted by natural complex organizations, living and nonliving2 . Due this,
the quest for sustainable architecture is not so much based on precedence
from nature but rather on the utilization of the underlying principles of
thermodynamics, i.e. on the incorporation of the logic of the flow of energy
into the design process. In order to be operational during the early for-
mative stage of a design, such incorporation cannot be based on numeric
 Material Atmospheres 128

simulations - currently the dominant paradigm in the design of sustainable

architecture - but has to resort to intuition and schematic simplification3 .
The goal of a design tool, therefore, has not to be the simulation of the
energy flow in great detail but rather the capturing of basic phenomena of
the flow in such a way that the design process can be directed appropriately.
Based on this paradigm a new approach towards the design of sustainable
architecture is under development that enables the integration of flow-related
information into the design process. Point of departure is the observation,
that different flows of energy can be described formally in similar ways, i.e.
the formal structure of the mathematical description is comparable (fig. 3).
This similarity is not a coincidence. Already in the 1940s a strong
interdependence of continuum mechanics and thermodynamics had been
recognized, that is an interdependency of force flow and heat transfer
within materials. In general, continuum mechanics deals with deforma-
ble bodies. Since part of the energy exchange takes place as heat flow it
is impossible to separate the mechanical aspects of a problem from the
thermodynamic processes accompanying the motion of the molecules of
the material 4 . This has resulted in the reformulation of thermodynamics
as a field theory in much the same way as continuum mechanics has been
treated for more than 200 years and the amalgamation of two branches of
science into continuums thermomechanics.
This has resulted in the unifying description of a range of formally sepa-
rated areas of research by the same set of differential equations that captu-
re the mechanical and thermodynamic behaviour of continues bodies (fig.
4). Due to the existence of such a set of equations it can be argued that

3_Abram, J., 2010. Pier Luigi Nervi: Strength Challenge. Milano: SilvanaEditoriale, pp. 41-57.
through Form, Form as Structure. In Olmo, 4_Ziegler, Hans: An Introduction to
Carlo et al: Pier Luigi Nervi: Architecture as Thermomechanics, Elsevier, 1983, vi.
129 Polyvalent Porosity. Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow

Fig. 3: The description of various flows of energy by means of calculus of variation reveals
the structural similarity within the flows based on three constitutive elements: the overall
transfer of energy within the system expressed by the nabla-operator, the rate of exchange
of energy along the boundary and the change of the exchange rate over time. The similarity in
the mathematical structure hints towards a similarity - at least on a phenomenological level
- in the underlying flow systems and, thus, offers a possibility for a conceptual approach
towards the design of flow systems at an early stage of the design process.
 Material Atmospheres 130

there has to be some formal similarity in the phenomenology of behaviour

that can be observed within different research fields. A similarity, that
enables modern finite element analysis software like Strand 7 to calculate
various problems like structural equilibrium, buckling and heat conduction
using the same solver. Consequently, the inner flow of forces as phenomena
of mechanics shares some similarity with the flow of energy as phenomena
of thermodynamics. An insight that forms the basis for constructal theory,
a general theory on the formation of pattern within flow systems5 .
Because of this affinity, a description of the logic of the inner flow of
forces has the potential to function as diagram for the phenomenologi-
cal study of the flow of energy. One such description is graphic statics,
a traditional vector-based approach deduced from plasticity theory that
enables the geometric construction of the inner flow of forces. Based
on the interplay of tension and compression it enables the step-by-step
construction of a possible inner force flow as equilibrium solution. These
equilibrium solutions can generally be based on resultant forces of un-
derlying stress fields, and can be visualized by an inscribed network of
compression and tension forces in equilibrium6 .
With this method it is easy to redirect forces in space according to
design ideas and thereby adapting the underlying stress field to given cons-
traints. This means the stress field can be manipulated using the geometry
of constraints as parameter. The resulting force flow for example around an
obstacle can be understood as discrete pattern of energy dissipation, a pa-
ttern that resembles phenomena that can be observed in other flow system

5_Bejan, Adrian & Zane, J. Peder: Design in 6_Muttoni, Aurelio, Schwartz, Joseph
Nature: How the Constructal Law Governs &Thürlimann, Bruno: Design of Concrete
Evolution in Biology, Physics, Technology, and Structures with Stress fields,
Social Organization, Doubleday, 2012. Birkhäuser, 1996.
131 Polyvalent Porosity. Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow

Fig. 4: Continuum thermomechanics as unifying theory that brings together mechanical and
thermodynamic properties into a coherent set of interdependent equations and conditions.
This not only enables the study of the interaction of force flow and heat flow within mate-
rials but sheds light onto the conceptual similarities in the study of flow systems in formerly
independent disciplines and the possibility of exchange of methods and techniques. Becau-
se of this, a theory on the behaviour of building structural like plasticity theory - a theory
that evaluates structural systems with respect to the load bearing capacity based on the
resistance of the material - can potentially be put to use in the study of patterns of energy
flows like for example in the transfer of heat.
 Material Atmospheres 132

Fig. 5: Based on plasticity theory the flow of forces can be manipulated following simple
geometric operations like the redirection of forces: The direct flow of inner forces between
two external loads (a) can be redirected within the material by adding an internal force that
pushes the flow out of its preferred line and compensating the additional force to ensure
equilibrium in the system (b). The resulting configuration of forces can be understood as
pattern of turbulent dissipation of energy (c). The discrete turbulence pattern in force flows
resembles in an abstract way the patterns of energy dissipation - visible in the local increase
of wind speed - that occur in the flow of wind around an obstacle like a wall (d).

like the flow of wind around a wall, too (fig. 5). Based on such observations
it is argued that the inner flow of forces can be viewed as a simplified repre-
sentation of the phenomenology of energy flows in space and, thus, can be
utilized as operative diagram at an early stage of a performance-oriented
design process with respect to energy. Over the past few years, in various
design projects such diagrammatic approach to the design of sustainable
architecture has been tested and the validity of the hypothesis confirmed.
Current research, therefore, focuses on one hand on the establishing of a
solid scientific exploration of the phenomenology of energy flows and on
the other hand on the extraction of a simple geometric logic that is able to
capture the main features of flow systems in such a way that it can be used
as operative guidelines in an early stage of the design process.
133 Polyvalent Porosity. The Architectural and Performative Potential of Porous Structures

The Architectural and Performative

Potential of Porous Structures
Juan José Castellón, Pierluigi D’Acunto (ETH Zurich)

Within the domain of engineering, porous structures have been traditiona-

lly understood as the result of an operation of hollowing out of load-bearing
elements in order to remove unnecessary material to produce lighter, and as
such, more efficient structures. This position was effectively described by
the structural engineer Pierluigi Nervi as “the method of bringing dead and
live loads down to the foundations … with the minimum use of materials1”.
A collection of interesting references that bear witness of this approach
can be found in contemporary Spanish Engineering and Architecture
which produced elegant concrete structures with a minimum and opti-
mum use of material. In this sense, are remarkable the works of the struc-
tural engineer Eduardo Torroja and of architects such as Felix Candela
and Miguel Fisac. Whereas Torroja and Candela developed their ideas
based on the idea of stiffening the structures through the application of
geometrical principles, Fisac explored innovative solutions based on the
concept of structural hollowness. Particularly interesting in his investi-
gation, were the series of so called “bones”. D’Arcy Thompson devoted a
complete chapter of his book On Growth and Form to the shape of animal
bones. The understanding of how force-flow is distributed through mate-
rial enables a dialog between material distribution and form in the same
way that D’Arcy Thompson described the relationship between force and
form on animal bones2 . He analysed the way the bone system acquires
formal coherence from the smaller details up to the complete skeleton. In
the first place he studied individual bones and found out that their appa-
rent formal complexity, which at first sight can be perceived as shape-
 Material Atmospheres 134

less mass, on the contrary reflect

a growing pattern that follows
directly the lines of the stress field
(Fig.01) applied to the bone3 .
Taking as a reference the
morphology of bones in animals
skeletons, Miguel Fisac designed
several typologies of hollow con-
crete beam sections (fig. 2) where
form emerged out of the interaction
Fig. 1: Crane head (left) and femur (right). of structural and thermodynamic
D’Arcy W. Thompson’s “On Growth and
parameters. By hollowing the
Form”. 1961. (Source: Thompson,D. “On
Growth and Form”. 2008. Cambridge sections, the aim was not only to
University Press. New York. P. 233). reduce the self-weight of the struc-
ture but also to provide shading, to
collect and guide rain water and to provide thermal insulation 4 .
The correlation between form and the inner flow of force was extensively
explored by Fisac in the design of his concrete “bones”. This relationship is
also inherent to graphic statics, a method that encourages a unified un-
derstanding of the interplay of form and inner flow of force and with it an
understanding of the formative effect of the active inner forces in a struc-
ture and the targeted control of these forces. Free flow of forces through
space can be re-directed by means of a re-distribution of matter. Space
and matter, therefore, are not two unrelated entities but rather have to be

1_Billington, D.: "The tower and the bridge. 2008. Cambridge University Press.
The new art of structural engineering". 1985. New York. Pp 233.
Princeton University Press. New Jersey. P. 178 3_Quesada, F.: “Bones: Matter and
2_Thompson,D.: “On Growth and Form”. Form”in“Assembly with Voids (1959-68)”. 2004.
135 Polyvalent Porosity. The Architectural and Performative Potential of Porous Structures

Fig. 2: Miguel Fisac. Concrete “Bones”. From left to right,

Piece “Cedex”, “Cerro del Aire” and ”Trapecio”.Sections.

regarded as complementary to each other in the light of a performative

approach to design. Consequently, the production of a hole in a structural
element directly generates a re-distribution of the stresses around it (fig.3)
and, therefore, opens up the possibility to establish a direct dialog between
structural behaviour and spatial properties5 .
The Center of Hydrographics for the Ministry of Public Works (1960)
was the first project in which Fisac felt the necessity to introduce an
innovative structural solution (referred as “Cedex” piece) that in turn set
the ground for a completely new structural theory. The concrete “bone”,
developed in the form of a post-tensioned structural element, meets the
demands of both protection against rainwater and sun shading, to achieve
a continuous and homogeneous internal lighting condition6 . The shape of

Editorial Rueda. Pp 46. 5_Muttoni, A.: “The Art of Structures”. 2011.

4_Gonzalez Blanco, F.: “Miguel Fisac: EPFL Press. Lausanne. Pp 5.
Huesos Varios”. 2007. Fundacion COAM. 6_Arques Soler, F.: “Miguel Fisac”.1996.
Madrid. Pp 31. EdicionesPronaos. Pp 158-161.
 Material Atmospheres 136

this structural piece can be regar-

ded as the result of a morphoge-
netic process in which a standard
hollow structural profile evolves its
form by means of material re-distri-
bution following performative and
spatial criteria (fig.4). Specifically,
the process is developed based on
structural parameters (i.e. inten-
Fig. 3: Stress distribution around a hole in
wall. Force-Flow analysis. (Source: Allen, E,
sity of the inner forces) and ther-
Zalewski,W. “Form and Forces”. 2010. John modynamic parameters (i.e. water
Wiley & Sons. New Jersey. P. 404). collection, sun shading, thermal
insulation and lighting).
As can be seen from the diagram, starting from a standard circular
hollow section (Step 1), the shape of the “bone” is modified to accommodate
different performative requirements, such as water collection (Step 2), sun
shading (Step 3&4) and thermal insulation (Step 4&5). In parallel, the struc-
tural behaviour of the “bone” changes accordingly: in this context, graphic
statics can be used as a synthetic and intuitive tool to describe the correla-
tion between the flow of internal forces and the form of the structural piece;
the redistribution of the external loads (F1, F2, F3, F4) is reflected by a redis-
tribution of the internal forces (red for tension and blue for compression).
The work of Fisac demonstrates how engineering aspects can be imple-
mented and combined with architectural parameters and how structural
and thermodynamic logics can be deployed to produce an integral solution.
In addition, his series of concrete “bones” demonstrate how the operation of
hollowing can be controlled and, thus, be used within an iterative process
in order to generate porous structures not only as efficient engineering
systems but also as spatial concept in architecture.
137 Polyvalent Porosity. The Architectural and Performative Potential of Porous Structures

Fig. 4: Miguel Fisac. Cedex Piece. Analysis of an

hypothetical morphogenetic process of the "bone" (cross-
section) and the corresponding force-flow diagrams using
the method of graphic statics.

In conclusion, the introduction of porosity in structural engineering and

architecture opens up to the possibility of establishing a direct relationship
between structural behaviour, spatial qualities and thermodynamic proper-
ties. Within this context, the works of Fisac represent an early precedent in
the exploration of the spatial and performative potentials of porous structu-
res. In light of this, the concept of porosity emerges out as a crucial aspect
in the search for new design methods towards a holistic approach to con-
temporary architectural and structural design.
139 Cellular Solidarity

Cellular Solidarity:
Matter, Energy and Formation
Kiel Moe

As architects today reassess the thermodynamics of their practices, buil-

dings, and the associated patterns of building production and urbanization,
the class of foamed materials and cellular solid bulk materials is particu-
larly productive to consider today. This class of materials—both naturally
occurring and more overtly manufactured—are comprised of co-isolated
polyhedral cells, typically with solid faces in architectural applications1.
Generally the cells entrap air. The varying structural, thermal, and mois-
ture properties and performances of these materials are promising for a
range of contemporary exergy matching designs. Their relative density—
the ratio amount of air to matter in the material—yields specific properties
that are of primary interest for design today2 .
The lingocellulose structure of wood (fig. 1) is one example; foamed
glass, concrete, and polymers are other examples. Site-cast air-entrained
lightweight insulating concrete is a common example of cellular solids
as applied in buildings. A wall
constructed with this monolithic
material is thick because the lower
strength of lightweight concrete
requires more thickness to perform
structurally. This thickness, in turn,
uses the millions of entrained air
pockets as its insulation strategy —
consequently dropping its U-value
to equal that of layered insulated
wall assemblies — as well as to Fig. 1: Cellular solid wood. (Sciencewise,
manage vapor and water migration The Australian National University)

1_Lorna J. Gibson and Michael F. Ashby, Cellular ge, U.K.: The University of Cambridge Press, 1997.
Solids: Structure and Properties. 2nd ed. Cambrid- 2_Ibid. p. 2.
 Material Atmospheres 140

with its capacity to 'breathe' once psychrometric conditions have changed.

What are taught as determinant phenomena in layered construction assem-
blies, such as vapor or water migration, only became critical as assemblies
became layered with thinner task-specific systems and air-conditioning.
In these bulk, but cellular solid, materials, thermal and moisture capacities
shift beyond the limitations and taught assumptions regarding these phe-
nomena and their relationship to architecture.

Cellular Solidarity
To limit our understanding of these materials to their mechanical properties
and techno-scientific explications, however, would be to constrain their lar-
ger efficacy in design today and tend to constrain thermodynamic considera-
tion to the platitudes of energy efficiency and energy conservation. Cellular
solids provoke new thinking, if not a new paradigm, for a more convergent
construction, performance, and operation of architecture and its practices.
They can help resituate not only thermal and structural considerations but
professional, industrial and urban considerations as well; a seemingly dis-
parate set of practice and concerns. In short, they provoke a more totalizing
consideration of the manifold dissipations of energy inherent in architecture.
Given this totalizing perspective, the term solidarity is evoked in this
text because it is a word, most generally, that can direct attention to the
bonds amongst seemingly disparate entities towards some greater end. In
the case of cellular solids, solidarity draws attention towards how material,
energetic, and professional bonds might be directed—designed—towards
mutually beneficial, reinforcing ends that amplify the thermodynamic and
architectural power of buildings and architectural practices. This solidarity
amongst the multiple, simultaneous spatial and temporal scale of thermody-
namics referred to as thermodynamic depth: a measure of the complexity of
a thermodynamic system3 . Thermodynamic depth is an indicator of robust
141 Cellular Solidarity

and vital feedback loops in a system, or specifically in architecture between

the basic relationships, contingencies and realities inherent to buildings.
From the molecular to the territorial, an architectural agenda for ther-
modynamics could more fully design and practice the thermodynamic
depth of buildings and cities. I submit that cellular solids provide a more
unified, convergent way to approach this thermodynamic depth. While
material science binds cellular solids to a specific range of material struc-
tures and their associated properties, it would be a mistake to ignore other
contemporary provocations about co-isolated but communicating cellular
solids that are present at multiple spatial scales.

Integrated Design — Convergent Design

One of the more problematic co-isolated cells of contemporary practice is
the fragmentation of expertise in contemporary building. How did design
and construction become so fragmented? The history of thermodynamics
in modern architecture plays a central role.
What are often seen as determinant energetic phenomena in the highly
additive approach constitutive of current construction assemblies, such as
vapor dissipation or dew point behaviors, only became more and more cri-
tical as assemblies became more layered with thinner and thinner task-spe-
cific systems required by the proliferation of air-conditioning systems in
modern architecture4 . As building practices shifted from ostensibly redun-
dant, low emergy bulk materials to a more complicated matrix of multiple
higher-emergy, task-specific layers and systems, not only were buildings
transformed in their most obvious material realities but the role and prac-

3_Seth Llyod and Heinz Pagels, “Complexity 4_Michelle Addington, “Contingent Behaviors” in
as Thermodynamic Depth,” Annals of Physics, Sean Lally, ed. Energies: New Material Bounda-
Vol. 188, 1988, pp. 186-213. ries. Architectural Design, Wiley, 2009. pp. 12-17.
 Material Atmospheres 142

tices of the architect, too, were radi-

cally transformed. As matter shifted
from building materials to building
products, the role of the architect
became that of a prosumer.
Increasingly, the architect
became a manager, an integrator,
of systems imposed from outside
commercial interests with little
reflexive research or response—
Fig. 2: Foamed concrete, cellular solid
thermodynamic or otherwise—from
spatial project. National Park Centre.
Valerio Olgiati. Zernez, Switzerland the discipline of architecture. In the
(photograph: Javier Miguel Verme). place of reflexive research about the
future of architecture, a mixture of
capitulation, acquiescence, and, often, hubris about the role of new mate-
rials and technologies most often guided the hand and voice of architects.
Architects routinely “integrated” the new systems, most often for either
shameless short-term market differentiation or naïve earliest modern
progress ideologies. As buildings became more reliant on an increasing
number outside experts, the role of the architect shifted further in scope.
Today, the necessity of BIM software to manage and integrate the products
and systems that dominate contemporary buildings is but the emblematic
symptom of a discipline that has drifted from more central and operative
questions about matter, energy, and formation.
One of the most compelling aspects of the convergence of matter, energy,
and formation inherent to cellular solids is, then, the reconfiguration and re-
positioning of not only these salient architectural topics but that of the disci-
pline itself. When buildings consist of fewer materials that yet do more work,
not only does the emergy to exergy ratio of a building stand to become more
143 Cellular Solidarity

powerful but the role of the architect, too, regains power: in the scientific sen-
se, the rate at which work is done on a surrounding system. Cellular solid ma-
terials afford one step towards the simultaneous amplification of buildings
and the architect. As a convergence of matter, energy, and formation, this
step for once emerges from within the discipline’s most fundamental concer-
ns and is thusly by now an absolutely novel thermodynamic proposition.
How do cellular solids push architecture towards more maximal power?
Curbing the exhausting, highly additive logic of contemporary construction
that undermines buildings and architectural practices, a building with fewer
and simpler systems demands greater and more deliberate knowledge about
what is actually designed and therefore represents an ecological and archi-
tectural solution not just an enabling software amelioration. When stacks of
drawings and volumes of specifications for a building are reduced to a few
known pages, implications for more focused design, mindful management
and new formal potential becomes apparent for a very simple but important
reason: architects know more about the matter, energy, and formation of a
building. By burrowing into unconsidered disciplinary assumptions about
the twin fates of multi-layered obsolescence and more monolithic masses,
new possibilities for architecture emerge in this century; possibilities that
advance sound ecological, economic, professional, and architectural trans-
formations that are as compelling as they are perhaps necessary.
While each scale of matter, energy, and formation in the inherent ther-
modynamic depth of architecture has specific knowledge and practices, it
is essential to recognize the nonetheless shared vocabularies and methods
that unite this thermodynamic depth. After the endless partitioning of
knowledge and the world in modernity, it is time to once again gain exper-
tise for the difficult whole of the world. In architecture, extracting as much
exergy from cellular solids in the thermal, structural, spatial, and boundary
design of buildings is one way to practice the thermodynamic depth of this
 Material Atmospheres 144

difficult whole. Other contempora-

neous articulations of cellular solids
from adjacent thinkers about ano-
ther larger scale of cellular solids
help extend the architectural reflec-
tion on the role of cellular solids in
architecture today.

Foam Architecture
Fig. 3: Space Time Foam, Tomás Saraceno Peter Sloterdijk has articulated
(Photographer: Camilo Brau). what he describes as an “architec-
ture of foam” in his Spheres trilo-
gy . Sloterdijk invites us to see buildings and cities—the physical fabric of
5

society—as co-isolated associations; a multi-chambered system made up

of relatively stabilized personal worlds: “The adjacency of world projects
or living spaces within a co-isolated structure has a quality different from
the vicinity of spaces within traditional segmented cultures6 .” Sloterdijk
sees society and its architectural manifestations as a cellular solid, one
operating at other scales with other but relatable vocabularies, behaviors
and properties. “In foam worlds,” he observes, “the individual bubbles are
not absorbed into a single, integrated hyper-sphere, as in the metaphysical
notion of world, but drawn together to form irregular bulges7.”

5_Christian Borch, “Foam architecture: Harvard Design Magazine, Spring/Summer

managing co-isolated associations,” Economy 2009, Nº 30.
and Society, Volume 37 Number 4 November 7_Peter Sloterdijk, Spharen I: Blasen:
2008: pp. 548-571. Mikrosphärologie. Frankfurt am Main:
6_Peter Sloterdijk, “Spheres Theory Talking Suhrkamp. 1998. p. 72.
to Myself About the Poetics of Space,” 8_See notes 1 and 6.
145 Cellular Solidarity

Calibrating Porosity
Sloterdijk helps us see how architects have recalibrated the cells of the
human habitus in modernity. In straightforward ways, the manifold spatial
transformations of modern architecture are but recalibrations of the cellu-
lar solid constitution of buildings and of buildings in cities. The idiomatic
modern architectural tropes of thinned walls, spatial continuities, and
related urban transformations of super-blocks, deeper floor plates, and ta-
ller structures all have analogical equivalents in the transformation of the
densities and porosities of matter that enabled these larger transformations.
The specific transformations wrought are no more important architectura-
lly than the simultaneous calibration of matter, energy, and formation that
has been at the core of architecture since its inception.
More than any particular instantiation of any paradigmatic trope, what
architects practice—wittingly or unwittingly—is the capacity and thermod-
ynamic necessity to constantly recalibrate the porosity on matter-space
relationships at all the scales invoked thus far. In this regard, one of the
more interesting developments in cellular solid material science is variable
density cells that you find in plants or in bones. These variable density ce-
llular solids prompt questions about the specific formation of these mate-
rials and their resulting performance. The resulting calibration of porosity
in the material yields deliberate structural and thermal capacities. It is also
very suggestive, in the terms of Sloterdijk’s trilogy and related works on
architecture, of a new vision for the social habitus of humans.

Cellular Solidarity
For the contemporary architect, it is worthwhile to literally juxtapose
Gibson and Ashby’s book on Cellular Solids and Sloterdijk’s observations
on “Foam Architecture8 .” Oscillating between the two helps construct
one glimpse, if not a very raw methodology, for practicing the inherent
 Material Atmospheres 146

Fig. 4: Variable density cells of a plant stem

(Source: Ross E. Koning, 1994).
147 Cellular Solidarity

thermodynamic depth of architecture. The inclined architect would un-

doubtedly work closely with material scientists and anthropologists, but
the disciplinary opportunities and obligations associated with toggling
between these scales—as unified by cellular solids—affords, if not helps
reclaim, the specific task of that architect: constructing not buildings but
rather cogent future worlds and vital qualities of life. A methodology for
those future worlds and qualities of life demands a recursive consideration
of all things thermodynamic from imperceptively small thermal transfers
to imperceptively large dynamics of civilization and the sport of life itself.
In short, at first nothing can be externalized and no system boundary
scale is irrelevant in the thermodynamic depth of buildings. As opposed
to managerial claims about efficiency, this thermodynamic depth, this
thermodynamic richness is what architecture at its most magnificent has
always offered the world throughout human history. Cellular solids, as a
material science category and as an explication of the human habitus, are
one convergent way to reconsider the thermodynamic depth of the matter,
energy, and formation inherent in architecture.
149 Regaining Authority by Means of Knowledge

Regaining Authority
by Means of Knowledge
Iñaki Ábalos

Addressing “architectural interiors” is a decisive aspect in rethinking mate-

riality in terms of thermodynamics. In the convective model of air-conditio-
ning, the interior represented the advent of a tremendously banal collection
of “products”, trade patents that prompted architects to relinquish their ca-
pacity to create an integrative spatial design. Decorators, interior designers
and other “experts” soon filled this gap by capitalising on taste and fashion.
To the materials and the mass required to organize these spaces, and to the
transfer of structural stress to the site, a new “thermodynamic materialism”
brings a fresh vitality in the form of conductive and/or convective channels
of thermal gain that are integral to the architectural concept. Thermod-
ynamic materialism redefines not only the very need for matter and our
choices of materials and products, but also the way in which we can model
interior space, and the instruments and knowledge required to develop a
new, synthetic idea of architectural beauty.
 A

3
2

NVELOPE STRATIFIED AIR AIR FLOW AIR TEMPERATURE HEAT SINK HEAT SOURCE
ThP_Thermodynamic Prototype
Iñaki Ábalos

ThP is a spatial, structural and thermodynamic organization

composed by nine concatenated and environmentally
differentiated spaces.

Those spaces are conceived to syncretically resolve three

different organizations (spatial, tectonic and thermodynamic),
minimizing the used material and maximizing the versatility of its
behaviour or performance.

The geometry and topology of the rooms (and their thermal traps
that establish differences in open adjacent spaces by combining
static and dynamic areas), together with the most basic thermal
devices (Trombe wall, heat exchanger, Stirling engine, absorption
refrigerator…), and the choice and modeling of materials using
simultaneously tectonic and thermodynamic parameters, all
in relation with climatic factors and the resources provided by
natural materials – earth, water, sun and air- serve to configure a
construction that extrapolates thermodynamic differences and, with
them, the diversity of the spatial experience. IA

THERMODYNAMIC PROTOTYPE. GSD, HARVARD UNIVERSITY

Director: Iñaki Ábalos. 2013-ongoing
In collaboration with: The Chair of Structural Design, ETH Zürich Chair
of Structural Design: Joseph Schwartz. GSD instructors: Salmaan Craig,
Jianxiang Huang, Kiel Moe, Matthias Schüler, Renata Sentkiewicz. GSD
students: Collin Gardner, Ryu Matsuzaki, Elizabeth Roloff. ETH Zürich
instructors: Juan Jose Castellón, Pierluigi D' Acunto, Toni Kotnik.
Basic Parametres: Bi-dimensional Approach

Function / Climate Relationships

Long-duration Functions Cluster in the Comfort Zone

Prototype Schematics

The THP aims to provide a diversity of conditions to human activities, assigning

environmentally differentiated spaces. The specific temperature-to-humidity rela-
psychrometric chart relates environmental tionships to particular functions. JGG
Trombwall Options

Humidity Condensing
Stirling Machines

Uses of Work Output

Bi-dimensional Approach

The THP through the spatial organization of its activities. Other devices such as Stirling engi-
rooms, the choice of materials and low-ener- nes produce mechanical work which is used,
gy thermal devices —trombe walls, heat for instance, to regulate louvers or to power
exchangers or absorption chillers—, all in fans. The diversity of interior climates can be
relation to outdoor climate, induce a diversity further modified changing the thermodyna-
of interior climates which match the envi- mic parameters —volumetric heat capacity
ronmental conditions required by particular or thermal conductivity— of materials. JGG
Development of a Methodology: Three-dimensional Approach

Variables

Interior Atmosphere Primary Materials

Solar Data Terrain Conditions Secondary Materials

The THP is a nine-room prototype which, me- conditions. It is configured by a set of nine dis-
diating between climatic conditions, choice of crete rooms which can be organized, accor-
materials and its relationship to the ground, ding to its spatial porosity, in eight different
orchestrates a variety of interior climatic geometric and topological arrangements. JGG
Relationships

Arrangement Principles

Geometric Figurations
Relationships

Geometric Figurations

The resulting geometric arrangements

have, according to its spatial porosity,
different yearly solar yields. JGG
Thermal Figurations

Equivalent envelope conditions, with different

interior spatial arrangements, induce a variety
of air flow and air temperature patterns. JGG
Transformations

Relationship to Ground

Thermodynamic Transformations

Transforming its spatial organization and re- Thermal devices such as trombe walls, stirling
lationship to the ground, the THP articulates a engines and absorption chillers transform
variety of heat sources and sinks which induce boundary conditions, further modify the THP’s
diverse air flow and air temperature patterns. air flow and air temperature patterns. JGG
Trombe Wall Stirling Engines Absorption Chiller

Developing Envelope Condtions with Thermal Assemblies

Prototypes

Prototype 01 A simple
arrangement of two cool
volumes and two hot volumes.
The treatment of the interseting
planes produces a complex
thermospatial figuration.
 Prototype 02 A simple
arrangement of four cool
volumes and five hot volumes.
The treatment of the intersecting
faces produces a complex
thermospatial figuration.
 Cap

Territorial
Atmospheres

03
 Silvia Benedito and Javier García-Germán co-editors

175 Silvia Benedito:

“Landscape and Atmosphere:
Genealogies of Appearance”

189 Kathleen John-Alder:

“Equilibrated Exchange: an Exploration
of The Sea Ranch Bioclimatic Analysis”

201 Matthias Schüler interviewed by

Silvia Benedito & Javier García-Germán:
“Urban Meteorology”

217 Gërnot Böhme:

“The Physiognomy of a Landscape”

232 OFICINAA architecture + urbanism

Campo Mineral

240 Foster and Partners + Transsolar

Masdar
 Cap 170

CLIMATIC ISLANDS
In the early 1950s, when interior atmospheres
were finally subsumed as an integral part of design
processes, the understanding designers had of
outdoor climate was still clinging to 19th century
climatic knowledge. At that time meteorological
institutions considered climate to be static and
homogeneous over large geographical areas.1 This
uniformity was a consequence not only of the distant
separation between meteorological stations, but also
of the reductive weather records which, for instance,
limited thermal records to maximum and minimum
summer and winter temperatures, or to the generic
tables and maps used to display data.

Not coincidentally this meteorological

understanding was connected to the thermodynamic
model air-conditioning practices had developed.2
The need to attain full environmental control within
buildings required eliminating to the greatest
possible extent boundary conditions, which
propelled the disconnection of buildings from local
meteorological conditions. Outdoor climate was
abstracted reducing its multiple changing variables
to the maximum and minimum temperatures
meteorological institutions provided. Similarly
thermodynamic interactions were limited to
conductive energy exchanges. A as result buildings
were sealed and insulated, and considered to
operate within constant boundary conditions and
171 Sub

on a steady-state basis,3 which enabled engineers

to achieve full indoor environmental control, but
disengaged buildings from its climatic contexts.

CLIMATE NEAR THE GROUND

Even though meteorology was thought to be
uniform and stagnant, close to the ground unfolded
a variegated microclimatology which changed
according to subtle nuances in the kind of soil,
topography, orientation or vegetation. This idea
was acknowledged by the pioneering work of
several German meteorologists4 who, working in
the field of agriculture and forestry, consolidated
microclimatology as an essential subfield of
climatology. Whilst climatology dealt with the
general meteorological patterns in the atmosphere,
microclimatology unveiled the intense thermodynamic
interactions that took place in the boundary layer
between the atmosphere and the ground, and which
played a relevant role in local climatic patterns.

Rudolph Geiger’s acknowledged Climate Near the

Ground (1927) explained how the thermodynamic
exchanges taking place in the boundary layer
between the atmosphere and the ground are not
only connected to orientation, land morphology or
to the material’s intrinsic thermodynamic qualities
—e.g. its conductivity or heat storage capacity—
but also to its meso and macrostructure, revealing
for instance, that the microclimate generated above
 Cap 172

a given kind of soil depends on questions such as

its water content, porosity, firmness or looseness,
roughness, state of cultivation or plant coverage.5
It is important to point out that this knowledge
brought to view the idea that architecture, landscape
architecture and urban design has the potential to
consciously modify natural microclimates. “While
the weather, and specially the macroclimate, is
free from regulation by man” Geiger argued, “the
microclimate is relatively easily affected and
molded to his will. In this lies the far-reaching
practical significance which microclimatology has
for human life. Man can consciously control climatic
conditions for himself and also for the plants and
animals on whose welfare he depends.”6 As a result
Climate Near the Ground provided a basic toolkit
to understand, modulate and consciously induce a
particular microclimatic interaction between local
climate, landform and built form.

HARNESSING CLIMATIC OPPORTUNITIES

Interestingly, the abstract and reductive climatic
interpretation air-conditioning procedures had
introduced to design practices was challenged by
Geiger’s findings. The knowledge generated within
the field of microclimatology made explicit that the
thermodynamic interactions above the ground could
be designed to generate a specific microclimate.
This was understood by Victor and Aladar Olgyay
who, building on Geiger’s studies,7 incorporated in
173 Sub

the 1950s these set of new ideas to the design of

the built environment. Microclimatology provided
a basic understanding of the thermodynamic
interactions between atmospheric phenomena,
material assemblages and the resulting climatic
effects, conferring to urban form, landform
and vegetation the capacity to harness outdoor
dissipating climatic flows.

What is at stake is not only that local microclimates

were engaged in an active way, but principally that
microclimatic opportunities could be harnessed
through architecture’s, landscape architecture and
urban design spatial and material apparatus, handing
back to designers the ability to intermediate with
climate Modernity had transferred to engineers. The
bioclimatic approach started analyzing the effect of
solar radiation and wind on built form —developing,
for instance, the concepts of optimum form criteria or
volume effect— to later acknowledge the importance
of material surfaces or vegetation. Microclimatology
revealed how qualitative differences in the texture or
porosity of the soil or the vegetal cover in agricultural
fields affected in a particular way the air temperature
or relative humidity near the ground, probing to
be equally important for the paved surfaces or
landscaped areas in urban environment. This oriented
climatic modulation towards an expanded field
of energy exchange which encompassed not only
built form, but a range of site-specific elements
 Cap 174

such as topography, kind of soil or vegetation,

connecting climate design from the transpiration
rates of a meadow to the morphological and material
lineaments of building blocks.
ORGANIC AND INORGANIC MICROCLIMATES
Unlike modern practices which disconnected the
built environment from local climates, the bioclimatic
approach engaged them extending the designers
range of action from the building envelope to the
realm of landscape architecture and urban design. The
introduction of microclimatology shifted climate-to-
building interactions from a closed-system steady-
state approach to a new understanding where, outdoor
climate, landform, vegetation and buildings form an
interacting open thermodynamic system which, if
conveniently orchestrated, can generate a comfortable
and stimulating atmosphere.

Territorial Atmospheres explores a design culture

which is interested in the connections between
outdoor climate and the urban environment,
delineating an expanded design field which transcends
urban form —orientation, massing and materiality—

1_See Kristine C. Harper’s Weather by architecture. See the article “Insulating

the Numbers. The Genesis of Modern North America” (in Journal of Construction
Meteorology. 2012. MIT Press: Cambridge History, vol. 27. January 2013. Pages 87-106)
(MA, USA), London. which anticipated the thesis of the book
2_See Javier García-Germán’s foreword Insulating Modernism. Isolated and Non-
to MATERIAL ATMOSPHERES. Isolated Thermodynamics in Architecture
3_To expand on this question refer to (2014. Birkhäuser Verlag GmbH, Basel).
Kiel Moe whose work is contributing 4_In this context have to be situated
to introduce with clarity and rigor the pioneering work developed by the
non-equilibrium thermodynamics to German meteorologist Gregor Kraus and
175 Sub

to encompass landform and vegetation. This chapter

explores the potential of spatial, material and vegetal
arrangements to generate particular microclimates,
and this is done aspiring to balance the prevalent
quantitative digital approach with a qualitative one,
making explicit that thermodynamics transcends
invisible energy flows to locate design agency in the
interaction between the visible and the invisible, the
material and the immaterial, climatic typologies and
climatic fields, science and culture.

JGG

by his disciple Rudolph Geiger, who would English edition of Climate Near the
eventually consolidate microclimatology as Ground had a significant influence on
an essential subfield of climatology. architecture on American architecture
5_Geiger, Rudolph. The Climate Near the culture, giving place to books such
Ground. 1950 (1927). Harvard University as Jeffrey Ellis Aronin’s Climate &
Press: Cambridge Massachusetts. Page 146. Architecture (1953), and being essential
6_Geiger, Rudolph. The Climate Near the for the scientific rigor of the seminal
Ground. 1950 (1927). Harvard University Application of Climate Data to House
Press: Cambridge Massachusetts. Pages 386-7. Design. 1953. US Housing and Home
7_It is well documented that the 1950 Finance Agency, Washington D.C. Page 23.
177 Landscape and Atmosphere

Landscape and Atmosphere:

The Genealogy of Appearance
Silvia Benedito

“We live in the sky, not under it.”

Tyndall, John. “Climbing in Search of the Sky”,
Fortnightly Review, No. 37 (1 Jan 1870), 13.

1. Being in the landscape is being in the out-of-doorness. The varying gra-

dients of concealment to exposure and separation to immersion in the dyna-
mics of the “weather-world”1 are primary conditions for the construction and
experience of landscape. Haptic engagement with these dynamics implies
contact not only with the visual and material world, but also with the im-
material elements of the atmosphere—namely meteorological subjects such
as wind, temperature, light and humidity. Although atmosphere seems to be
at the core of the discipline of landscape architecture and related fields, its
presence in design has been rarely acknowledged. Landscape architecture
constructs with and in the atmosphere, engaging with the fluid environment
and the qualities of the air. In his book Aesthetics of Appearing, Martin Seel
argues that attentiveness to what is appearing in the environment is at the
same time attentiveness to oneself. While the environment reveals itself in
its atmospheric appearing, “an atmosphere that is already operative beco-
mes noticeable”2 by the subject. This argument establishes the environment
as a subject outright, positioning the body as a protagonist in the environ-
ment itself. In the present context of growing atmospheric disruption—in-
creased air temperature and pollution, extreme weather events—the re-ima-
gining of the relationship between landscape, atmosphere and the subject
is paramount. This essay is a brief historical examination of the moments
in which the environment appears differently to the subject. It attempts to

1_See: Ingold, Tim. "Landscape or Weather- Routledge, 2011. 126-35. Print.

world." Being Alive: Essays on Movement, 2_Seel, Martin. “Aesthetics of Appearing.”
Knowledge and Description. London: Stanford, CA: Stanford UP, 2005. 93. Print.
 Territorial Atmospheres 178

raise more questions than it answers; more importantly, it aims to recapture

the role of the atmosphere for landscape architecture and urbanism as a
noun (sphere), substance (air) and adjective (quality).

2. Moments of heightened awareness of the natural world typically coincide

with large-scale territorial transformations alongside new forms of lands-
cape reception, representation and purpose. Geographical studies of land
and sea, stirred by the “opening” of the New World during the sixteenth
century, flourished amongst renaissance cosmographers. While maps and
illustrations depicted the new physical territory, a corresponding humanis-
tic quest arose to represent the meteorological elements and phenomena of
the air: “Lord God placed man in this world as in a beautiful showcase and
endowed him with sense and reason so that he need not… live only for his
stomach and for material goods, but may direct his gaze outward to obser-
ve the skies, the air, and the waters…”3 For instance, the German painter and
architect Albrecht Altdorfer (1480-1538) portrayed landscape as a subject
and not as a typical background. Short-lived atmospheric changes were de-
picted as integral to the physical world and a component of a geographical
identity. Rather than a way of seeing the world, landscape and its atmosphe-
ric changes became the medium of experiencing the territory.
The increased sensitivity towards landscape in the sixteenth century
grew beyond ideas of representation and identity towards notions of lifes-
tyle, particularly in the hinterlands of Venice, which saw large-scale territo-

3_Strauss, Gerald. Sixteenth-century Ger- Wisconsin, 1998. 113. Print.

many: Its Topography and Topographers. Madi- 5_Cornaro, Luigi. The Art of Living Long
son: University of Wisconsin, 1959. 5. Print. a New and Improved English Version of
4_Cosgrove, Denis E. Social Formation and the Treatise of the Celebrated Venetian
Symbolic Landscape. Madison, WI: U of Centenarian Louis Cornaro. Milwaukee: W.F.
179 Landscape and Atmosphere

rial transformations. Motivated by an economic shift from maritime trade

to estate farming, as Denis Cosgrove noted in his book Social Formation
and Symbolic Landscape, extensive land reclamation transformed swamps
and foul odors into productive grounds and pleasing airs. These changes
promoted an “altered attitude to land, and changing social and econo-
mic relations in the countryside.”4 Alvise Cornaro (1467-1566), owner of a
profitable farming estate and author of the treatise Discourses on the Sober
Life, introduced the term santa agricoltura (holy agriculture) to describe
the idealized humanistic lifestyle in the farming estates—sources for an
easily-secured income and comfortable living amongst the therapeutic
effects of the good “air-ambient.”5 The renewed interest in Varro and Cato’s
De Agricultura, Aristotle’s Meterorologica and Hippocrates On Airs, Wa-
ters, and Places, placed pneuma (air, breath and vital spirit) as an essential
ingredient for the humanistic physical and spiritual well-being.
Cornaro’s santa agricoltura finds its most revealing model in Palla-
dio’s villa-farm, particularly in the Villa Barbaro (1558) and the Villa Emo
(1565). Palladio’s architectural compound “freed from encircling walls…
turns outward to the landscape rather than inwards towards a court.”6
The central pavilion at the heart of the house presents itself as the civic
core of the compound, a cool and lofty pavilion opened to the recurring
land and sea breezes. The architecture turns inside out to the “gentle
airs,” 7 now a central substance to the humanistic well-being and delight.
Palladio writes: “They [the gentlemen] could easily pursue that good life

Butler, 1903. 124. Print. 7_Ibid, 14.

6_ Ackerman, James S. Distance Points: 8_Palladio, Andrea. "Chapter XII. On Choosing
Essays in Theory and Renaissance Art and the Site for Buildings on Country Estates." The
Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1994. Four Books on Architecture. Cambridge, MA:
305. Print. MIT, 2002. 121. Print.
 Territorial Atmospheres 180

which they could enjoy there since they had lodgings, gardens, foun-
tains, and similar soothing places… where the air is moved by the conti-
nuous blowing of the wind and the land… so that the inhabitants remain
healthy, happy, and of good complexion.” 8

3. Atmosphere first emerged as a scientific term when the English natural

philosopher and one of the founding members of the Royal Society of London,
John Wilkins (1614-1672) claimed the existence of an appearance, an envelope
made out of vaporous air (atmos) surrounding the moon. This claim arose wi-
thin the context of both ongoing climatic decline, broadly known as the Little
Ice Age, and the emerging air pollution of a rapidly industrializing London.
Given these conditions, phenomena of the air became a subject of primary
importance amongst British society, science and governance. On the one hand,
the British people’s at least anecdotal relationship with air was well-established,
as evidenced by the popular and old belief that the English’s hesitant nature
was influenced by the island’s air: “The mutability of air in an island contribu-
ted to mutability of thought;”9 On the other hand, the recently founded Royal
Society of London—supported by King Charles II, who claimed to be allergic
to the “new” polluted air – embraced the investigation of the natural world, in
particular of the weather, air and its effects on human health. With the develop-
ment of diverse instruments of scientific measure and observation, atmosphere
became defined as both an envelope and a substance in constant movement.
John Evelyn, a gardener and also a founding member of the Royal Socie-
ty of London, proposed in a letter to King Charles II a large-scale strategy

9_Sara Warnecke, "A Taste for 10_Evelyn, John. Fumifugium. Published

Newfangledness: The Destructive Potential of by The Rota at the University of Exeter.
Novelty in Early Modern England," Sixteenth- 1976. 22. Print.
Century Journal 26. 1995. 886. Print. 11_Ibid.
181 Landscape and Atmosphere

to address London’s polluted atmosphere. Fumifugium, or, The inconvenien-

cie of the aer and smoak of London (1661) was a proposal “conducive of the
three transcendencies… Health, Beauty and Profit.”10 Evelyn claimed that
Fumifugium would be an achievement of “far greater concern (however light
and airy it may appear to some) than draining a swamp or beautifying an
aqueduct.”11 While the first part of the proposal recaptures the Hippocratic
belief that good air restores the physical and mental state of the human
body, the second and third parts concentrate on strategies to reduce and
ameliorate the poisonous quantities of sulfur present in London’s air. To
reduce air's sulfur content, Evelyn proposed re-zoning the downwind peri-
phery of London to accommodate all existing polluting activities of the city,
including coal-burning trades, butchers and chandlers, graveyards and slau-
ghterhouses. This proposal would not only reduce the foul air in the city, but
would also generate employment for watermen plying their trade between
the two centers—the old and the new proposed industrial core. To improve
the urban odor, Evelyn proposed a city surrounded with a band of up to
one hundred and fifty feet wide. This band would consist of plots ranging
from twenty to forty square acres that “would produce sweet-smelling and
beautiful flowers and fill the air with their fragrant smell… Rosemary [is] the
most important as it [is] reported to give off a scent for about thirty leagues
at sea on the coast of Spain…”12 Evelyn’s proposal was never built nor further
developed, but is nonetheless of great relevance in projecting the role of air
in the delight, economic yield and health of those within its envelope.
At the same time, drawing on the scientific ideas of English physician

12_Ibid, 14. Modern London: Perceptions and Portrayals

13_Williams, Laura. "To Recreate and of the City from Stow to Strype, 1598-
Refresh Their Dulled Spirites in the Sweet 1720. Ed. Julia F. Merrit. Cambridge, U.K.:
and Wholesome Ayre." Imagining Early Cambridge UP, 2001. 194. Print.
 Territorial Atmospheres 182

William Harvey on the human circulatory system, ideas of movement in

relation to health and leisure emerged as a topic in the understanding of
the city. As argued by Laura Williams: “Good health was vested in move-
ment as opposed to stagnation, applicable not just to circulation within the
body of the individual, but the body of the town itself.”13 Typologies such
as public walks, promenades and pleasure gardens proliferated in London
in the beginning of the eighteenth century, meant to not only support the
emerging interest in body movement and its benefits to human health but
also to ameliorate the side effects of a polluted city. Walking in the open,
free-flowing air became an aesthetic and prophylactic practice in society.
The discipline of landscape expanded its scope with the development of
new typologies in the city and the science of atmosphere started to emerge.

4. In the early eighteenth century, as the “sciences of airs” began to gain

definition the term “atmosphere” expanded into the aesthetic realms as
a sensorially charged ambient condition. While the former was fueled by
the experiments of Blaise Pascal, Robert Boyle and Lavoisier, the latter
was primarily formalized in landscape art, the science of aesthetics, and
the picturesque gardens of England.
Edmund Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the
Sublime and Beautiful (1757) had enormous impact on the aesthetization of
landscape and atmosphere. The beautiful was apprehended haptically and
was seen as a provider of comfort and solace. The sublime contained ele-
ments of unbounded limits: bigger than men, uneasy to grasp, threatening
and associated with fear and awe. Stormy and vast seas, gloomy moun-

14_Burke, Edmund (1757). A Philosophical University Press. 2008. 67. Print.

Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the 15_Hunt, John Dixon. Gardens and the Pictures-
Sublime and Beautiful. New York: Oxford que: Studies in the History of Landscape Archi-
183 Landscape and Atmosphere

tains, deserts, rains and cloudy skies were amongst the sublime natural
landscapes. The sublime gave aesthetic value to the big and unbounded
and opened up the scope of landscape architecture towards territorial and
meteorological formations that, despite being ungraspable, were senso-
rially recognized. Burke writes: “…the eye not being able to perceive the
bounds of many things, they seem to be infinite, and they produce the
same effects as if they were really so… The imagination meets no check
which may hinder its extending them at pleasure.”14
The sensorial journey through the landscape—constructed of contrasts
between the beautiful and sublime, the bounded and infinite—was a funda-
mental component in the design of the large estates of the English coun-
tryside. John Dixon Hunt, while describing Lancelot Brown’s intervention
at Stowe, highlights the sensory engagement offered by his landscape:
“The subtle varieties of the valley afford a landscape that seems to answer
our moods… It expresses us and our changing moods, or such is the illu-
sion that it encourages.”15 Brown initiated his design process by walking
the estate to evaluate the site’s possibilities for amplification of affective,
ecological and economic potentials. The meandering pathway at Stowe
orchestrates the sensorial journey as it crosses sheltered and open areas,
varied levels of humidity and water surfaces, follies, and dramatic exposu-
re to the open sky. Stowe’s boundless lake operates as both a drainage in-
frastructure and a spirited mirror of the sky. The vastness of the ever-chan-
ging sky reflected on the lake offers the sublime experience evoked by
Burke, and, as Ruskin later wrote in relation to Turner’s paintings, “is not a
mockery, but a new view of what is above it.”16

tecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT, 1997. 87. Print. 17_Pevsner, Nikolaus. “Picturesque England.”
16_Ruskin, John. "Of Water as Painted by Turner." In The Englishness of English Art. London:
Modern Painters, v.I. N.p.: Allen, 1898. 359. Print. Architectural, 1956. 173. Print.
 Territorial Atmospheres 184

The London smog and the transitory nature of England’s weather made
atmosphere an important subject matter in the appreciation and design
of landscape. Nikolaus Pevsner observed that “any account of landscape
gardening must start from the English climate, as indeed landscape pain-
ting… can also be appreciated only by taking climate into consideration.”17
Christian C.L. Hirschfeld, (1742-92), author of the Theory of Garden Art,
further acknowledged the aesthetics of appearance and transient atmos-
pheric phenomena as design medium in landscape architecture: “The
sudden fall of lights and shadow; the gleam of the moon behind a passing
cloud; the alternating brightening and darkening of the distance to respond
to the forms of lights of the sky’s moods… All of these changes in nature…
seem to create new situations, even new objects altogether.”18 Where the
landscape painter was already depicting atmospheric phenomena to evoke
“inner emotions,” the “garden artist” was still exploring this potential.19 The
role of the “garden artist,” as claimed by Hirschfeld, would be to engage the
visitor in various aesthetic experiences20 as offered by happenstance—the
moments of appearance and transient atmospheric phenomena.

5. In 1785, just as Hirschfeld released the last volume of the Theory of Gar-
den Art, Thomas Baldwin published an account of his journey in a hot air ba-
lloon titled Airopaidia: Containing the Narrative of a Balloon Excursion from
Chester. For the expedition, Baldwin equipped the balloon with sensors to re-
cord the different elements of the atmosphere—wind velocities and currents,

18_Hirschfeld, C. C. L., and Linda B.. Parshall. 21_Too see more: Dorrian, Mark. Seeing
Theory of Garden Art. Philadelphia: University from Above: The Aerial View in Visual Culture.
of Pennsylvania, 2001. 185. Print. London: I.B. Tauris, 2013. Print.
19_Ibid. 22_Baldwin, Thomas. Airopaidia: Containing
20_Ibid, 184. the Narrative of a Balloon Excursion from
185 Landscape and Atmosphere

air temperature, and atmospheric pressure. 21 Instead of a detached binary

relationship between sky and ground, Baldwin registers the overlapping of
clouds, green fields and rivers, acting together as dependent and interacting
subjects. The interplay of air, wind, mist, and the colors of the atmosphere
blurred the objects in the frame and led the observer into “pure delight.”22
Instead of a traditional “view” of the landscape, composed, fixed, and on the
ground, Baldwin unfolds a possible “frame” of a world in motion—a sublime
landscape made of transient atmospheric phenomena, relational and ed-
geless: “The spectator is supposed to be in the car of the balloon… looking
down on the Amphitheatre or white floor of clouds, and seeing the city of
Chester, as it appeared throu’ the Opening: which discovers the Landscape
below, limited, by surrounding vapours…”23 Baldwin’s flight unfolded a new
phase in the appreciation of landscape and air that was simultaneously
accompanied by quantifications and descriptions. Importantly, it benchmar-
ks the shift of sites of scientific observation and experimentation from the
indoors (such as laboratories, theaters and museums) to the outdoors. This
reversal allowed the observer to immerse himself within the subject of in-
quiry—the field, beach, countryside, mountains, sky, park or gardens24— and
to position landscape and “airscape” as integrated and relational.
A few years later, chemist and meteorologist Luke Howard took a more
systematic approach to the classification of atmospheric phenomena with
his essay “On the Modifications of Clouds” (1803). As claimed by Howard,
the frequent and long observation of the atmospheric phenomena in cons-

Chester. Chester: printed for the author, by J. 1650-1820. Chicago: University of Chicago,
Fletcher, 1786, 37. Print 2001. Print.
23_Ibid, 4. 25_Howard, Luke. Essay on the Modifications
24_See Jankovic, Vladimir. Reading the of Clouds (1803). 3rd edition. London: John
Skies: A Cultural History of English Weather, Churchill. 2. 1865. Print.
 Territorial Atmospheres 186

tant movement produced an experience that should be subject to “a metho-

dical nomenclature . . . to the modifications of clouds. By modification is to
be understood simply the structure or manner of aggregation, not the pre-
cise form or magnitude.”25 Howard’s taxonomy of clouds not only promoted
the establishment of meteorology as a descriptive and empirical science
but also attracted several artists and thinkers’ attention, as among them
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, John Constable, and John Ruskin. Further,
his study on London’s climate, The Climate of London (1818), identified what
is now known as the urban heat island effect by comparing his tempera-
ture records from the city and countryside: “The excess of the Tempera-
ture of the city varies through the year… which average three degrees and
seven-tenths warmer than in the country.”26 He continues: “it partakes too
much of an artificial warmth, induced by its structure, by a crowded popu-
lation, and the consumption of great quantities of fuel in fires.”27 Howard’s
study of the meteorological elements in the city showcased urban atmos-
phere as a result of urban form, economic activities, and material qualities
in connection with civic, public health and well-being.

6. Howard’s cloud taxonomy and studies of urban climate projected a

unity between experience and measure, perception and knowledge. The
classification of something ontological, indeterminate and indefinite,
sensational and ephemeral inspired Goethe’s “idea to produce a new art
founded on science (die Hervorbringung von neuerer Kunst aus Wissens-

26_Howard, Luke. The Climate of London: Dedu- 27_Ibid, 2

ced from Meteorological Observations Made in the 28_Damisch, Hubert. A Theory of /cloud:
Metropolis and at Various Places around It. Lon- Toward a History of Painting. Stanford, CA:
don: Harvey and Darton, J. and A. Arch, Longman, Stanford UP, 2002. 195. Print.
Hatchard, S. Highley R. Hunter, 1833. 237. Print. 29_See Dickinson, Robert Eric. The Makers of
187 Landscape and Atmosphere

chaft).”28 This proposition rejected the dualism between humanity and

nature and the omission of the subject’s experience from the domain of
science in favor of the idea of totality in nature. 29
Influenced by Goethe’s proposition to create an “art from science” or a
“science from art”, Alexander von Humboldt, a German geographer and
scientist, aimed to scrutinize the diversity of nature by linking landscape
aesthetics with scientific precision. Like Goethe, Humboldt positioned the
sensorial experience provided by nature as a vital mediator between the
subject and the object of study. For Humboldt, understanding this relations-
hip was critical: “I shall… discover how nature’s forces act upon one another
and in what manner the geographic environment exerts its influence on
animals and plants. In short, I must find out about the harmony in nature.”30
Humboldt’s experiences and observations in different regions and clima-
tes during travels in Europe, Asia and tropical South America allowed him to
establish connections between the disciplines of geology, botany, and meteo-
rology. He brought together the visible and the invisible, the earth and the
sky. In this context, one of his major contributions was the isothermal line,
a continuous curve connecting the similar temperatures of the world. He
wrote in his Geognostical Essay: “In my researches on the isothermal lines,
on the geography of plants, and on the laws which have been observed in
the distribution of organic bodies, I have endeavoured, at the same time that
I presented the detail of the phenomena, to generalize the ideas respecting
them, and to connect them with the great questions in natural philosophy.”31

Modern Geography. London [etc.: Routledge & Humboldt 1769-1859 (1955), 87

Kegan Paul, 1969. Print. 31_Humboldt, Alexander Von. A Geognostical
30_Humboldt, Alexander Von. Letter to Karl Essay on the Superposition of Rocks in Both
Freiesleben (Jun 1799). In Helmut de Terra, Hemispheres. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees,
Humboldt: The Life and Times of Alexander van Orme, Brown, and Green, 1823. vi. Print.
 Territorial Atmospheres 188

While Humboldt registered large scale relational phenomena through

careful measure and rigor, he also claimed the importance of the “total
impression” (totaleindruck). This moment arises when one recognizes the
physiognomy of the landscape: “In ascending, the traveler sees the physiog-
nomy of the country, the aspect of the sky, the form of the plants, the figu-
res of animals, the manners of the inhabitants, and the kind of cultivation
followed by them, assuming a different appearance at every step.”32 The
“total impression” of the landscape is like a reverberation one experiences
when immersed in an environment; it is the “enthusiastic sentiment that
touches us like a soft wind blown from a blue sky.”33

7. Recasting Humboldt’s reverberations, Gernot Böhme, a contemporary

German philosopher, positions Atmosphere34 as a fundamental medium
through which one engages nature and the built environment. In order to
understand our surroundings, one must first experience it aesthetically,
grasping it with one’s senses. Atmospheres, as presented by Böhme, are
“spaces insofar as they are ‘tinctured’ through the presence of things, of
persons or environmental constellations that is through their ecstasies.”35
The Open around us—as matter and phenomena, as atmosphere and atmos-
pherics—is the space of appearance of one’s existence-ness in the world.
For landscape architecture, the renewed interest in the body accompanies
the current moment of heightened environmental awareness. The atmosphere,

32_Humboldt, Alexander Von. The travels and von Humboldt- From the Americas to
researches of Alexander von Humboldt: being the Cosmos. Bildner Center for Western
a condensed narrative of his journey in the Hemisphere Studies. 141-156. 2004. Print
equinoctial regions of America, and on Asiatic 34_See Atmosphäre: Essays zur neuen Ästhe-
Russia. Harper, New-York.1833. 321. Print tik (1995), Architektur und Atmosphäre (2006)
33_Goethe, In Mattos, Claudia. “Landscape 35_Böhme, Gernot. “Atmosphere as the
Painting between Art and Science.” Alexander Fundamental Concept of a New Aesthetics.”
189 Landscape and Atmosphere

at times alternately polluted, fresh and delightful, radioactive, thick and warm,
is the result of “aesthetically mediated impressions.”36 Technology and science
alone cannot establish a relationship with nature; aesthetic engagement throu-
gh atmosphere reveals “the nature we ourselves are,”37 and the one(s) we are
not. Through atmosphere “aesthetics opens up as a completely different field
if it is approached from ecology[…] The new resulting aesthetics is concerned
with the relation between environmental qualities and human states.”38
Atmospheres as “something thinglike… and subjectivelike… sensed in
bodily presence,”39 are to be crafted and designed. The concept and the
space of atmosphere reclaim the body in different scopes and scales of
landscape architecture from large ecological networks to smaller scale
interventions; it offers the possibility to reconcile the ecological imperative
with human delight and well-being. Atmosphere, perceived both as a me-
teorological space and a space for sensory acquisition, promises a genealo-
gical expansion of “landscape” into the realms of “airscape.” Hydrosphere,
lithosphere and atmosphere become part of an overarching scope within
the discipline of landscape architecture. This also offers potentials for
landscape architecture and urbanism to expand their role and ethical va-
lues in light of economic demands and environmental pressure. Landscape
architecture and urbanism, revisited through the lens of atmosphere, claim
a new sensibility toward our world made of visible and invisible realms, of
imaginative, social, sensorial and humanistic values.

Transl. David Roberts. Thesis Eleven 36. 1993. the Nature We Ourselves Are.” The Journal
113-126. 121. Print. of Speculative Philosophy, 2010, Vol.24(3),
36_Böhme, Gernot. “Acoustic Atmospheres: pp.224-238. Print.
A Contribution to the Study of Ecological 38_Böhme, Gernot. “Atmosphere as
Aesthetics.” Trans. Norbert Ruebsatt. the Fundamental Concept of a New
Soundscape 1.1 (2000): 14. Print. Aesthetics.”p.113-126. 114. Print.
37_Böhme, Gernot. “The Concept of Body as 39_Ibid, 122.
191 Equilibrated Exchange

Equilibrated Exchange: an Exploration

of The Sea Ranch Bioclimatic Analysis
Kathleen John-Alder

In July of 1963, the cultural geographer Richard Reynolds spent two weeks
at Rancho Del Mar, a 5,000 acre sheep ranch located approximately 120
miles north of San Francisco, collecting data on wind, water, topography,
vegetation and land use. His work was the first stage of a feasibility study to
determine the potential of the ocean-side site for residential real estate deve-
lopment. Much of data collected by Reynolds involved the dynamic flow of
wind. With the help of the micro-climatologist Dr. Franklin Raney, he measu-
red wind speed and direction, as well as its upward deflection by the cypress
hedgerows that bisected the pasture. (Fig. 1 and 2) More casually, Reynolds
observed how the grass, like water, rippled and swirled in the sea breeze, and
he recorded how the wind made him feel. Steady wind, he noted “would be
irritating if one were to sit out in it for some time”, while a gentle breeze in
the lee of a hedgerow was “somewhat of a relief1.” Reynolds’s field notes cap-
tured the dynamic quality of the landscape. Nothing was static, not even the
location of the hedgerows. As he also observed, the weathered, salt-bleached
cypress trees had bent to the ground in response to the wind and had grown
adventitiously, which had caused the windrows to creep leeward over time.
Reynolds was an employee of the landscape architect Lawrence Halprin.
Halprin, in turn, had been hired by Alfred Boeke, the Director of Develop-
ment for Oceanic Properties to prepare an overall master plan and a detai-
led site plan for the first 1,000 acres. Halprin was to ensure the accommo-
dation of the proposed site amenities. In addition to single-family homes,
condominiums and roads, these included a lodge and restaurant, swimming
and tennis center, golf course, airport and village center2 . Boeke wanted an
environmentally sensitive design. But he also knew that an economically
successful, and market-competitive, second-home community had to inclu-

1_Architectural Archives, The University of Folder 014.I.B.971.

Pennsylvania, Halprin Collection 014. Box 281, 2_Ibid. Box 42, Folder 014.I.A.1565.
 Territorial Atmospheres 192

de certain amenities, and it had to

be conducive to outdoor relaxation
—two conditions made difficult by
the site’s remote location and less-
than-ideal climate3 .
Rancho Del Mar, which would
soon be renamed the Sea Ranch,
was an unlikely candidate for a lar-
ge-scale planned community. Three
hours north of San Francisco by car,
or as noted by one of the architectu-
ral consultants on the project, two
hours by Porsche, the site was cool,
damp, and windy4 . Yet the roman-
tic atmosphere of the windswept
landscape immediately captivated
Boeke, and he convinced Oceanic to
develop the site as a second-home
Fig. 1: Wind flow sketch by Richard resort community5 . (Fig. 3)
Reynolds. Lawrence Halprin Collection, Reynolds’s data collection fo-
The Architectural Archives, University of
llowed an experimental approach,
Pennsylvania. Fig. 2: Lawrence Halprin
Associates wind flow diagram from data which had recently been published
collected by Richard Reynolds. by the architect Victor G. Olgyay in

3_Smith, Kathryn. 2008. “Al Boeke, Oceanic 4_Solomon, Barbara Stauffacher.

Properties Vice-President: The Sea Ranch, 2011. Why? 80 Years in 42,636 Words
1959-1969”. Berkeley, CA: Regional Oral and Sixty Pictures. Why Not?
History Office. The Bancroft Library, and the (Unpublished manuscript).
University of California Berkeley. 5_Smith, 2008.
193 Equilibrated Exchange

the 1963 text Design with Climate:

Bioclimatic Approach to Architectu-
ral Regionalism6. As the title sug-
gests, bioclimatic design investiga-
ted the interplay between human
physiology, climate, and built form.
According to Olgyay this approach
required designers to “work with,
and not against, the forces of natu- Fig. 3: The Sea Ranch coastal landscape.
re”, and adapt their designs to the Photograph courtesy of Kathleen John-Alder.
site and the local climate .
7

To support his argument, Olgyay drew upon a variety of sources in-

cluding indigenous housing in cold, temperate, hot-arid and hot-humid
climates. He similarly studied the forms of nature and drew insight from
the morphologic adaptation of plant leaves to thermal stress; the shape and
orientation of termite mounds in respect to solar radiation; the impact of
temperature and wind upon the structure of bird nests; the relationship of
sun and shade to the bloom time of flowers; and the environmentally indu-
ced transformations of fish diagramed by D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson8 .
Olgyay was equally intrigued by the self-regulatory mechanisms that
govern temperature regulation in the human body. Like the physiologist
Walter B. Cannon, he marveled at the body’s ability to maintain a constant
internal temperature even though it was constantly buffeted by external

6_Olgyay, Victor G. 1963. Design with Victor and Olgyay, Aladar. “Environment and
Climate. Princeton, Princeton University Building Shape” Architectural Form August
Press: See also: Olgyay, Victor G. “The 1954, pp. 104-108.
Temperate House”, Architectural Forum. 7_Ibid., pp. 1-10.
Vol. 94 March 1954, pp. 179-194: Olgyay, 8_Ibid., pp. 2, 53, 84 and 85.
 Territorial Atmospheres 194

disturbance. Olgyay incorporated

Cannon’s concept of homeostatic re-
gulation into his approach, and then
set about describing the energetic
requirements of built form as an ex-
tension of this physiologic process
with a metabolism analogous to
that of the human body9 .
To help visualize the interplay
of climate, site, human physiology,
comfort, and health that comprised
his system, Olgyay devised a mul-
ti-axis nomograph called the biocli-
Fig. 4: Diagrammatic illustration of the
matic chart. The chart’s prefigured
Bioclimatic Chart from Design with Climate.
Reprinted by permission of Princeton format allowed designers to cross-re-
University Press. All rights reserved. ference measurements of solar radia-
tion, air temperature, humidity, and
wind against human metabolism. Sunstroke and frostbite denoted the upper
and lower limits of physiological tolerance, and hence the upper and lower
limits of quantification. Halfway between these extremes, in the center of
the chart, was an energetically optimal “ideal climate zone” where ambient
temperature remained within the human comfort range. Olgyay illustrated
the stress-free zone as the perfect spot to sit back, relax in a lawn chair with
legs crossed, smoking a pipe and reading the newspaper – a necessary requi-

9_Cannon, Walter B. 1932, 1967. Wisdom W.W. Norton & Company. New York, pp.
of the Body: How the Human Body 22-24. According to Canon homeostasis
Reacts to Disturbance and Danger and referenced physiological systems that work
Maintains the Stability Essential to Life. cooperatively to maintain a relativelystable
195 Equilibrated Exchange

site for any second-home resort community10. (Fig. 4)

The distribution of data on the bioclimatic chart predicted the body’s res-
ponse to a particular set of environmental conditions. If the distribution pattern
fell outside acceptable physiologic parameters, appropriate remedial action
—including both the siting of buildings within the landscape and the strategic
positioning of vegetation next to buildings— could be taken to modify the
microclimate to more closely match human need. For instance, the placement
of deciduous trees west of a building mediated intense afternoon solar radia-
tion, while a line of evergreen trees north of a building blocked winter wind.
(Fig. 5) To put it another way, and to return for a moment to Olgyay’s interest in
leaf shape, termite mounds, bird nests, and the morphologic transformation of
fish, bioclimatic design is informed by the interconnection of an organism to its
environment. Essentially an ontological parallel of natural evolution, it embeds
humanity within the landscape as an active agent selecting and modifying its
surroundings as the need arises, making it an ecological way of seeing and
describing the world. It was exactly this relational strategy, along with Olgyay’s
experimental embrace of biological self-regulation and balanced feedback
exchange that made bioclimatic design appealing to Halprin, who was just
beginning to formulate an ‘ecological’ design strategy based upon personal
observations of the dynamic processes that influence human behavior11.
Yet, even though bioclimatic design delved deeply into the ecology of na-
tural processes, organizational assemblies, systems physiology and feedback
exchange, it is important to remember that Olgyay’s methodology, in line
with the sly reference to Le Corbusier’s briar pipe in his arm-chair analogy,

internal environment in “A field guide to form: Lawrence

response to disturbance. Halprin’s ecological engagement
10_Olgyay, 1963. p. 23. with the Sea Ranch”, Landscape Journal
11_See :John-Alder, Kathleen. 2012. 31:1-2, pp. 53-75.
 Territorial Atmospheres 196

was fundamentally a modernist discourse on the benefits of sunlight, orderly

planning and ideal form12 . Olgyay’s search for the consummate formal logic
is clearly evident in the wind tunnel studies he performed to test his assump-
tions. Similar to work reported by the Texas Engineering Experiment Sta-
tion, Olgyay discovered that subtle variations in building form and height,
the number and orientation of openings, the distance between structures,

Fig. 5: Shade and air flow diagrams from Design with Climate.
Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press.
All rights reserved.
197 Equilibrated Exchange

and the placement of vegetation were extremely important in determining

exterior and interior wind flow, and thus temperature. (Fig.5) He also discove-
red that —and this was critical for the design that Halprin and his colleagues
would eventually propose for the Sea Ranch— topography and vegetation
have greater influence on wind patterns around low, one-story buildings than
built form13 . Equally important, the wind tunnel studies indicated that tempe-
rature modulation via the alteration of wind flow was comparatively easy.
In August, Halprin’s office began the second phase of the feasibility
study. This stage of the project compared the site data collected by Rey-
nolds to historic information on temperature, rainfall, relative humidity and
wind at other points along the Northern California coastline. A report titled
Sea Ranch Experimental Studies summarized these findings. The report
indicated the Sea Ranch was less foggy and rainy than other areas of the
Northern California coast, although it was still moist and cool, and the wind
was often extreme. The site data were also reconfigured into seasonal so-
lar radiation diagrams, which enabled the creation of a daily and seasonal
timetable of clothing requirements for an individual sitting outside14 . (Fig.
6) Late summer afternoons required only a short-sleeved shirt and Bermuda
shorts, while the same time period in winter necessitated a heavy wool suit
and light overcoat15 . This description of the Sea Ranch climate, including its
relationship to human comfort, was confirmed after the data were transferred
to a bioclimatic chart. Not surprisingly, given the site’s location, the data fell

12_See: Le Corbusier. 1931,1986. Towards a Pennsylvania. Image Folders 170-175. See

New Architecture, Fredrick Etchells trans., also: Halprin, Lawrence. 1969. The RSVP
New York: Dover Publications, p. 289. Cycles: Creative Processes in the Human
13_Ibid.: 94-112. See also: “Airflow Environment. New York. George Braziller, Inc.,
Around Buildings” Architectural Forum pp. 128-129.
September 1957, pp. 167-168. 15_Barbara Solomon, Sea Ranch
14_Architectural Archives, The University of publicity brochure.
 Territorial Atmospheres 198

outside the ideal comfort zone in

an area of the chart categorized as
humid, irritating and raw. The chart
position also indicated that remedial
action should ameliorate wind and
maximization solar radiation16.
Following the design approach
suggested by the data analysis, Hal-
prin’s office studied the interrelated
effects of topography, vegetation,
and built form upon existing wind
flow patterns17. Under the direction
of Don Carter, this phase of the
Fig. 6: Lawrence Halprin project explored the wind-deflection
and Associates solar radiation diagrams. potential of various grading and
Fig. 7: Lawrence Halprin and Associates fence
planting strategies in order to maxi-
design and wind flow studies. The Lawrence
Halprin Collection, The Architectural mize the size and seasonal duration
Archives, University of Pennsylvania. of the ideal outdoor climate zone.
A major concern was how to
transform the working landscape of the sheep farm into a functional, albeit more
frivolous, resort community without sacrificing its stark, wind-swept beauty. To
this end, proposed solutions either enhanced or mimicked existing site features,
both man-made and natural, that blocked the wind. In addition to vegetation
and topography, this included the wind-deflection impact of the fences that en-

16_Architectural Archives, The University of 18_George Homsey personal

Pennsylvania. Halprin Collection 014, Image communication. According to Homsey,
Folders 170-175. Esherick’s office knew of Halprin’s work
17_Ibid. but performed a wind tunnel analyses and
199 Equilibrated Exchange

closed the outdoor courtyards. (Fig. 7).

The project’s demonstration
homes, in line with the studies
done by Halprin’s office, were lo-
cated along an existing hedgerow
where the vegetation deflected
the ocean wind. The sloped-roof
profile of the “Hedgerow Hou-
ses” worked in conjunction with
Fig. 8: Lawrence Halprin and Associates
the wind-shorn form of the trees
conceptual site plan. Lawrence Halprin
to enhance the deflection effect. Collection, The Architectural Archives,
Designed by the architect Joseph University of Pennsylvania.
Esherick, these buildings also fa-
ced west toward the setting sun 18 . This opportunistic strategy provided
an energetically efficient means to capture the warmth of the sun in the
winter and refreshing ocean breezes in the summer.
The building placement, in conjunction with the design’s carefully con-
sidered grading and planting scheme, also made it possible to hide access
drives and automobiles along the hedgerow, behind the houses. When po-
tential buyers looked out the west-facing windows across the former pastu-
re, now reconstituted as a grassland meadow, they had uninterrupted views
of the water and the setting sun (fig. 8). Sod roofs reinforced the romantic
naturalism, while a line of wind-deflecting fences sheltered outdoor sitting
areas, ensured privacy, and united the components of the design19 .

developed the sloped-roof University of California, Berkeley.

building profile separately. 19_Architectural Archives, The University of
See also: Joseph Esherick Collection, Pennsylvania. Halprin Collection 014. Image
(1974-1), Environmental Archives, Folders 170-175.
 Territorial Atmospheres 200

Fig. 9 and 10: The Hedgerow Houses today.

Photograph courtesy of Kathleen John-Alder.
201 Equilibrated Exchange

A photograph of one of these homes taken fifty years later illustrates the
design’s durability. Equally apparent is how a relatively simple and inexpensive
adaptation of standard wood-frame construction produced an aerodynamically
adroit and energetically efficient design that worked with the dynamic forces of
the landscape (fig. 9 and 10). Though simple in theory this thoughtful equilibra-
tion of landscape and built form proved difficult to realize. The victim of econo-
mic and regulatory constraints, and its own marketing success, the initial attempt
to work with rather than against the forces of nature, along with the concomitant
desire to celebrate the land, achieved its full potential only in the first 1,000 acres
of the project completed under the direction of Boeke20. And yet, as Halprin would
later observe, even the small portions of the site − like the line of Hedgerow Hou-
ses − that incorporate the modest but effective initial design recommendations,
are potent reminders that in this landscape the “architecture and land enhance
each other, and with mutual respect, look after each other in an orderly way21.”

20_John-Alder, Kathleen. Spring 2012. A Journal of Place, pp. 11-14.

“California Dreaming”, SiteLines: 21_Halprin, 1969, p. 119.
203 Urban Meteorology

Urban Meteorology
Matthias Schüler interviewed by Silvia Benedito
& Javier García-Germán

Javier García-Germán (JGG): The current obsession with energy per-

formance is relying excessively on efficiency benchmarks not questioning
the adequacy of thermodynamic concepts. What conse-quences would a
more rigorous use of the Second Law of thermodynamics have in how the
built environment is conceptualized? What effects would this have on the
climatic design of urban environments?
Matthias Schüler (MS): It is important to talk not only about the amount
of energy but about the quality of the energy —or exergy— we are using,
which I think definitely takes on board the Second Law of thermodynamics
and leads to a different consideration of energy-saving strategies.
There are different values for energy and it is important to be specific
when defining energy qualities. Electricity is one of the highest values
of energy and it is a disaster to use high value energy such as oil to heat
buildings when it can be used to produce very valuable products such
as cosmetics or plastic. On the other hand geothermal is an abundant
kind of low exergy energy which typically is not being used as an energy
level. But if it is introduced for example, in a thermo-activated building
envelope forming a thermal-active weather curtain or active insulation,
it reduces the thermal losses to the outside. Even for the Passivhaus
standard, 50% of the insulation thickness can be reduced by a thermal
activating of the outer façade cladding from a 10°C waste heat from a
sewer system or just from the ground.
It is interesting to point out that Denmark has recently passed a new
law which considers natural gas a high value energy source and reserves it
exclusively for electricity production. This law prohibits to burn natural gas
for domestic heating, forcing either to connect an existing district heating
system or to implement cogeneration systems, using waste heat to warm
up your house. It's quite interesting to acknowledge that governmental
institutions are beginning to understand there are different qualities of
 Territorial Atmospheres 204

energy, considering there are energy sources that are able to create specific
levels of energy. Heating energy is one of the lowest kinds of energy de-
mand and high-valuable energy sources should not be used for the simple
task of heating buildings to 20-22°C.

Silvia Benedito (SB): In the context on increasing global air temperatures

how do you see the idea of “constructed” outdoor environments as a neces-
sary focus within the disciplines of landscape architecture and urbanism?
MS: Increasing outdoor temperatures is typically considered an additional
load that creates urban heat island effects rather than a relief that reduces
heating demand. In this respect I think that landscape architecture beco-
mes a very important field of enquiry because it has at its disposal specific
techniques such as natural evaporative cooling which, in combination with
overshadowing, air-cleaning or biodiversity that can have an important
effect on urban climate. I think the understanding of the interconnections
between landscape architecture and urbanism will hopefully attain a great
importance. These kinds of measures will definitely be able to temper some
of the cities’ global increase in temperatures, which is quite important be-
cause otherwise urban life will be unbearable.

JGG: Comfort indexes are principally used to assess indoor environ-

ments but rarely outdoors. Which indexes are used for outdoor comfort?
Do these consider factors which are not used for indoor comfort indexes?
Can you expand on these questions?
MS: There are 3 or 4 rating systems for outdoor comfort – Perceived tem-
perature, Thermal sensation, WBGT = Wet-Bulb-Globe-Temperatur nach
YAGLOU u. MINARD, Heat Stress Index and UTCI Universal Thermal
Climate Index, that are taking into account additional factors than indoor
comfort evaluation would use. For instance, the perceived temperature
205 Urban Meteorology

evaluation methods Transsolar is currently using take into account direct

solar radiation and the clothing people are wearing, which leads to a
totally different evaluation of air movement and humidity. It is interesting
to point out that this field of enquiry is connected to military climatic
evaluation. If there is a military incursion in extremes climates such as
the desert, it is important to know how long soldiers can be exposed to
specific outdoor conditions before they reach survival limits. In addition
these indexes take on board highly specific issues regarding either activi-
ty (fighting or standby mode), clothing (such as bullet-protective jackets)
or if they are carrying stuff (such as guns).

JGG: One of the most powerful urban design climatic tools is urban form.
However the materiality of buildings and public spaces is addressed on
rare occasions. The physical properties of materials such as its albedo,
thermal diffusivity or its effusivity have an important impact on urban
climatic performance. Can you expand on this question?
MS: I totally agree. The urban heat island effect regarding material solar
radiation absorption is a topic that is currently under discussion. Depen-
ding on the albedo effect the amount of heat absorbed by materials can
be controlled. For example, Californian legislation forces roofs to have an
albedo that targets a 60% reduction of the absorbed heat in the city, which
paradoxically is not applicable to parking lots. However, in general terms,
the albedo effect is a totally underestimated point in energy discussions.
Many cities are conducting studies to find out what are the adequate
strategies for improving the energy performance of existing buildings.
Many of these studies recommend adding an external layer of thermal
insulation that increases indoor energy efficiency. Even though these
strategies can solve one problem protecting indoor environments from
energy loses in wintertime, it however creates another one in the city as
 Territorial Atmospheres 206

thermal mass has a beneficial effect on urban climate. For example, in

wintertime, thermal mass stores sun radiation and, delaying its emission,
radiate it back to the urban space during night-time when temperatures go
down. Adding external insulation eliminates thermal mass from the public
realm, transforming the city into a lightweight box. As a consequence, the
city temperature peaks, increasing maximum and minimum temperatures
by 10°C, which would increase the urban heat island effect in summer and
have no energy savings in winter, increasing overall energy loads.
This discussion offers a typical example which focusing on one problem
obliterates other questions. We cannot reduce the city to a single building,
but need to have the whole city in mind. Urban climate would benefit from
massive concrete walls but would have a negative effect on indoor climate
for its low thermal insulation. However lightweight concrete might offer a
middle ground between these opposite situations: reaching an optimum
thermal conductivity value which offers at the same time indoor thermal
insulation and outdoor thermal storage, attaining an overall balance ins-
tead of an individual optimum for a single building.

JGG: Following your conversation it can be argued that the drive for
self-sufficient buildings is problematic —among other questions— because
it focuses on indoor environment but disregards urban climate. Rethin-
king this question shifts urban design from the design of urban voids
to the integration of public space, biological systems and the shape and
materiality of urban form. What do you think about this? In what ways
should architecture, landscape architecture and urban design integrate to
address this new understanding?
MS: I absolutely agree with this argument. We have focused on solving
energy questions at the building scale, forgetting that we have to knit
architecture to urban design. The interaction of architecture and urban
207 Urban Meteorology

design can buffer temperature increases, reducing its impact on the

urban heat-island effect. Everything is interconnected. If we consider one
realm independently from the other, we will miss part of the problem.
To address these new understanding these two fields, architecture and
urban design, need to be integrated.
Christoph Reinhart developed at MIT a PhD Thesis which posed the
idea that single, individual building evaluation must be developed in para-
llel to urban evaluation. And this evaluation must be done not only in terms
of urban shadowing and contribution to the local heat-island effect, but also
combining these with the analysis of air flow patterns in the city. It is im-
portant to point out that wind flows in the city are connected to urban pat-
terns, for instance, designing local high rises to create windscreens. Some
research-based designers are taking on board these ideas but unfortunate-
ly, it is still missing in mainstream urban design professional practice. In
fact, I am aware these considerations are not being implemented in the new
urban developments that are being built nowadays in places like China.
Presently, European legislation is demanding in the next 3-4 years
zero-energy houses to reduce energy inputs. This is an interesting ques-
tion regarding the previous topic because creating zero-energy buildings
at the building scale will however generate an increased urban heat-island
effect that has to be solved. If every roof instead of being 50% reflective
will become 80% absorptive, it will locally collect much more energy. This
question poses interesting challenges regarding the capacity of buildings
to invert heat-island effect. It is something we have already tackled in
Peter Zumthor’s proposal for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, whe-
re we had to build a black roof that however performs like a white roof. It
was necessary to pull the heat out at daytime and release it at night-time,
which meant photovoltaic elements should become hybrid devices with
a pipe on the backside to pull the heat out and prevent it from heating-up
 Territorial Atmospheres 208

more than a white roof. This extra-heat was stored in a big tank and pum-
ped back to the black roof at night-time. The objective is to maintain it
under ambient air temperature to relieve the heat by long-wave radiation
to the sky rather than by convection to the surroundings that would create
heat island-effect at night-time. This example shows how single-handed
approaches for attaining zero-energy individual buildings can create an
urban problem that later have to be solved.

JGG: The iconic drive which has pervaded architecture culture during the
last years has banalized the role of architectural form. However, form may
be defined with great precision when connected to its climatic performan-
ce. Can you explain ways in which climate can be modulated through form
and building massing and give some examples?
MS: Medieval cities are a perfect example to show how urban form and ur-
ban density are connected to climatic performance. On the one hand urban
density creates self-shading and protection, and on the other hand exposed
stone thermal mass buffers urban temperature. This is the way a city can
survive a hot day: by means of a specific shape and materiality.
The solar passive architecture that appeared 10-20 years ago has a lot
to do with form and climatic performance. If you take for example Tho-
mas Herzog's house in Munich, the sloped roof was intended to collect
solar radiation, although it had some flaws and its slope was not adequate
either for summer (as it overheated) or for winter (it should have been
more vertical). Similarly, Rolf Disch, the German architect who designed
the first Plus-Energy house in Freiburg, considered that energy collection
was a design driver in terms of form. Another example are the passive
houses designed Wolfgang Feist, the architect who invented the Passive
House, which had vertical south-facing glazed facades and sloping nor-
th-facing facades with thick insulation.
209 Urban Meteorology

JGG: Designers—architects, urban designers and landscape architects—

and climate engineers have worked together rarely. However it is now clear
that their fields of expertise have to be integrated. In what ways can design
be connected to climate engineering? Which are the thermodynamic fields
of action on which both disciplines have a common ground?
MS: The studies Reinhart is currently developing at MIT show in what
ways all the relevant fields of knowledge can be integrated. It is clear

Matthias Schuler (Transsolar), Jean Nouvel (Jean Nouvel

Ateliers Paris), Rainer Franke (HFT Stuttgart) and other
experts around the shading dome model for Louvre Abu Dhabi.
 Territorial Atmospheres 210

that architecture, landscape architecture, urban design or thermodyna-

mics should be integrated. And we should not forget the social interac-
tion in a city. It is important to recall the problems that started in the
1970s when people were screwed in boxes, and designers did not care
about the public spaces around them.
It is interesting to point out that the current need to make cities denser
must be paralleled by an improvement of outdoor spaces as people will
spend more and more time outside. A master student of Peter Rose studied
the Marseille’s banlieus where the density is unbelievable. Even though one
might think this urban environment might not work, he found out that it
was successful because its inhabitants lived a great part of the time out-
doors.... Of course, Marseille’s climate is nice enough.
There is a similar case in China, though it is entirely economically-dri-
ven. Young couples in China cannot afford flats over 85m2, so developers
are trying to reduce them to 65m2. But this effort to squeezing people in, de-
mands in turn a high quality outdoors in-between buildings. And it happens
to be cheaper to invest on the quality of these outdoor spaces —playgrounds,
etc.— than on larger homes. It is quite interesting to ascertain that an econo-
mically-driven idea ends up finding out what we already know: the quality of
outdoor space has an important impact on the definition of indoor space.

SB: While ecology and sustainability address systems, energy exchan-

ges, and, ultimately quantitative assessments, the discussion of the user/
body in relation to the outdoor environments and landscapes still remains
unchecked. In your opinion what is the role of the sensorial qualities of
climate in the design of the city?
MS: I agree that the interaction and the performance between the body
and the urban environment have not been evaluated. Up until know
mainstream urban design has not dealt with outdoor climate because it
211 Urban Meteorology

was thought to be out of control. However, we are now aware that cities
are affecting the solar exposure, the wind patterns, the temperature or the
noise of the urban environment.
Living in Manhattan explains pretty well this situation. After the cold
winter months, when the spring arrives, it gets wonderful and you can
finally open the window. Even in the middle of Manhattan you get nice
breezes, and everything is fine... However around March-April people
start to switch-on their window cooling devices...and in two weeks the
city becomes such a noisy hot monster, that it makes people back in their
homes, who close their windows and start their air-conditioning units. This
situation probes that urban space is being used as a dump for our vitiated
air, dissipating heat, noise, etc... And we are not completely aware that this
is the air we are still breathing. Considering urban atmosphere either as
a climatically uncontrollable space or as an environmental dump shows
the value we are placing on it. However, some European cities are starting
to understand this question and certain Swiss cities are, for instance, not
allowing cars that emit excessive micro-dust.

JGG: Analyzing the climate of a given site enables to recognize the most
relevant climatic factors pertaining to a particular situation. Which criteria
do you use to decide which are the instrumental climatic factors in a given
site? How do you establish a hierarchy which enables to decide which are
the principal design drivers —either formal or material design-strategies—
in connection to climatic performance?
MS: First of all we look for the climatic identity of a site, and we run the
climate analysis to grasp its identity. Then we try to understand what kind
of program we are dealing with. Are we dealing with residential, offices
or retail? So initial steps have to do with the program of the building and
the possibilities the climate analysis offers. For instance, if it's warm and
 Territorial Atmospheres 212

humid, is there any wind? Or if it's colder and dry, do we have accessibility
to the sun? Can I use direct sun in wintertime? Thus, considering the buil-
dings specific energy demands, our objective is to use as much of outdoor
resources as possible, hoping the building can do as much as possible on
its own. In some occasions we challenge ourselves and propose: "We have
to design this building to be run without electricity." This means filling in-
door spaces with light and having operable elements to get air in, which in
turn limits the depths of a building. I wouldn't say there is a general proce-
dure and that case-specific analysis is important.

SB: Is the methodology you apply in the climate analysis for buildings si-
milar to the one you apply for urban projects? Can you expand on the case
of Masdar and the principles you proposed in the making of urban form?
MS: Let’s go by parts. The methodology I use is similar; however the
requirements for urban form are a bit different than those that are used
for an individual building. It is necessary to consider first how the urban
form feeds the demands of individual buildings. In addition it is impor-
tant to consider how urban form can provide outdoor quality, which takes
on board a variety of factors such as noise, air quality, solar exposure, city
ventilation and so forth. Since our participation in the Masdar project—ei-
ght years ago—we have began to understand the city as an interconnec-
ted thermodynamic system. Before we were mainly focused on the indivi-
dual buildings we were designing.
In Masdar our design strategy was to a great extent conditioned by time
constraints. We established a set of generic rules because we thought that
in the time-lapse of 8-12 months that was scheduled to complete the master
plan, there was no time to wait for Foster's layout. We carried out a climate
analysis and came up with a set of concepts and recommendations, expec-
ting the master plan would be designed according to this approach.
213 Urban Meteorology

One of the project drivers was urban density. It was clear we had to crea-
te a dense city to attain a self-shading effect, which also meant introducing
exposed shaded thermal mass. On the other hand the hot and humid NW
prevailing winds were undesirable as they provided a heat source at 45°C
and 60% relative humidity. Even though the city grid orientation was initia-
lly designed to optimize solar self-shading and the provision of daylight, it
ended up considering the wind factor. Having in mind that the wind comes
from the NW, we decided not to have streets oriented in this direction.
This provoked turning those 45°, which would reduce the problem but not
solve it because the wind would end up falling into the street. This in turn
motivated reducing their length to a distance between 75 and 100 m, which
solved to a great extent the problem. These initial intuitions were tested
through simulation, attaining temperature and wind speed values that were
tolerable in terms of comfort. This process defined a set of recommenda-
tions for the Master Plan. Streets which are parallel to the wind direction
should not be longer than 75m. On the other hand, streets that are perpen-
dicular to the wind direction can run through, as the wind will go over the
buildings without getting into the street.
It is interesting to mention the fact that in another phase Foster brought
in another engineering group and a dispute arose. They used the classical
climatic approach: Masdar is in a warm climate and there is a sea breeze
coming in, let’s open up the city with wide avenues to get the breeze throu-
gh the city. However this wind is a hot hairdryer. Fortunately the part of the
city that has been built has followed our design guidelines, and the measu-
rements Foster and Partners have taken prove our climatic approach keeps
the city below ambient temperature.

SB: The history of cities, particularly during the 19th Century, is deeply re-
lated to ideas of bringing air flow and light into the dense cores and urban
 Territorial Atmospheres 214

expansions. But bringing air into the city is not always positive —for instan-
ce, in Masdar the influence of air can be very negative— as we have learned
that air can be poisonous, carrying pollution, bacteria, humidity, etc. How
have these more recent ideas impacted city climate engineering?
MS: In the case of Masdar the wind was negative because it was hot and
humid. Fifteen years ago we worked in an urban scheme for a Mecca
pilgrimage camp. Some years before they had suffered a terrible fire:
some tents burnt and provoked numerous casualties. Since then tents
have been built in a variety of non-flammable materials ranging from
glass fibber and PTFE to Teflon. Our design team built 200.000 tents to
house 3 million people. As Mecca is in the desert and it's hot and very
dry, they introduced evaporative cooling techniques. Each tent had its
own evaporative cooler and urban spaces were sprayed to reduce tempe-
ratures. However, there was so much humidity in the atmosphere those
two weeks that it ended up raining, even though it never rains in Mecca.
This hot and humid air could carry bacteria which, combined with the hi-
ghest density of people you can ever think of, could spread disease. This
was the first time I understood the air has to do not only with a positive
approach but also with a negative one.
The North American social movement against coal energy plants is
fuelled by health considerations. We definitely have to be aware that even
metropolitan areas, without big industrial output (for instance California
that gets the Chinese exhausted air), are affected by other industrial zones.
We are immersed in a global system; it would be good not to pee in our
swimming pool, if we want to dive in it afterwards…
We have to forget the old idea that we can get fresh air coming from
outside of the city. We are dumping foul air in our city that at the same time
is being breathed. To a certain extent this is as a consequence of the smog
problems European cities suffered in the 1960s and 70s. Unfortunately, this
215 Urban Meteorology

lesson has not been applied to other parts of the world where people think
that pollution is the price you have to pay for development. However the
question is: to what extent is social improvement connected to air pollu-
tion? Are there any other alternatives?

SB: Expanding on the previous question, in what ways do you take into ac-
count the quality of air in the climate analysis for both building and city scale?
MS: Masdar needs to consider this factor as it is close to the airport and
is influenced by the natural gas burning in the Persian Gulf oil plat-
forms. Consequently we undertook one year air quality measurements
regarding air quality and noise. And we developed a set of recommen-
dations for our client. It makes no sense to develop a carbon-neutral
city whose air quality is on the other hand negatively influenced by the
airport and the Gulf’s burning gas platforms.
Air-quality has to be taken into account not only in urban design but
also in building design. For instance, the Deutschland Bank in Hannover
is located in a city block which stands side by side a six-lane highway, and
the client insisted in having natural ventilation. This was solved by means
of a double facade which on the one hand provided noise protection and
on the other hand provided fresh air from the block’s courtyard. So users
are opening their windows but they don't get the air from the highway
they look at. The air from the courtyards ventilates their offices and then is
exhausted through the chimneys.

JGG: Simulation tools have amplified the ability of architects to unders-

tand how the environment works. I would like to know in what ways these
quantitative analytical tools contribute to your work and if these leave spa-
ce for intuition. To what extent are your design processes qualitative and
when do quantitative tools get into to scene?
 Territorial Atmospheres 216

MS: The ability to simulate building performance can be considered the

starting point of our company. When I finished university I became awa-
re that some research on building climatic simulation had already been
undertaken which however was not being used in everyday design practice.
As a consequence I spent the next five years researching how to transfer
this knowledge to professional practice. Applying these instruments would
allow us to develop interactive design processes capable of analyzing the
impact of energy, comfort or acoustic performance of a whole building.
It's clear that this kind of analysis always takes time. In a real interac-
tive design process you start running the analysis and when you meet the
architects with the results, these are usually not valid, because the design
has changed —the building might have turned 15˚ and have the windows
bigger— and you have to start the process all over again. And this dynamic
hampers any design process. Therefore you need to develop the ability to
foresee simulation results and to use this information as the base for design
process discussions. This is why I usually teach students it is important
to write down on a piece of paper the expected results before you simulate
a building. If the results are not meeting your expectations, you should
always doubt the results, not your intuition.
However, it is a long process before you develop this intuition. I think
you have to run at least 10.000 simulations before you develop this ability.
Nowadays, after 20 years of professional practice, I am using simulations to
prove my intuition. Something similar happens to an experienced architect
who can imagine a design scheme on the spot without 3D visualizations.

SB: There is a recent trend in your work focused on landscape and urba-
nism. You have shifted from the building scale to the city. Can you explain
why and how you became interested in the urban dimension? Why do you
think it is important to look at the outdoor qualities of cities?
217 Urban Meteorology

MS: This interest started with Masdar. Unlike buildings, designing a city
requires to consider it as an interconnected system. And if you consider a
system, then outdoor comfort and outdoor temperature are connected. In
Masdar, for instance, one central point of discussion was focused on the
maximum distance people can walk outdoor in that climate to reach to the
next public transportation point. Having the ability to rate the outdoor qua-
lities of cities has pushed us into a new field of enquiry. Landscape archi-
tects and urban designers have challenged us with this new demand. Until
recently there has been an interest in the improvement of outdoor qualities,
but unfortunately it couldn't be evaluated qualitatively. Nowadays we have
the tools and outdoor climate can be improved. What we need to acknowle-
dge is that we don’t live in buildings, but in cities, and a lot of enjoyment
takes place outdoors. And if I want to spend good time with my kids I go to
the outdoors; and that’s where we enjoy…
219 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

The Physiognomy of a Landscape

Gernot Böhme (translation by C. Alexander Häusler)

1. Introduction
In this essay, the history of a “physiognomy of nature” is traced as one
part of an intellectual tradition of Natural Knowledge [Naturkenntnis] that
persists from Goethe and Alexander von Humboldt to naturalists and ar-
tists of the romantic era and on to individual personalities of modern Geo-
graphy. This tradition is understood in contradistinction to its use in the
work of Ludwig Trepel1, a writer who placed this concept at the intellectual
origin of modern ecology. This line of interpretation might be valid, but as
Gerhard Hard 2 has shown, is based on a misunderstanding of the Hum-
boldtean concept of a “total impression of landscape”: Humboldt's term
was transmogrified to a systemic term, as it was used as a term for a whole
entity [Ganzheit] constructed through the reciprocity of its parts. On the
contrary, I would like to emphasize the aesthetic side of this tradition
and its proximity to a history of artistic representation. For me it comes
down to the question – and this also applies to contemporary questions of
our relation with nature – of what can be identified, recognized in nature,
through an aesthetic relationship with it.
In order to proceed, a general revision of physiognomy is necessary. If
we define physiognomy, like Lichtenberg, as the recognition of an interior
condition based on exterior indications of something or someone, then
certainly this term has no bearing on Humboldt's approach. Of course it
cannot be denied that there have also been exponents of just such a theory
of physiognomy and these include in particular Paracelsus and Jakob

1_Trepel, L. (1987): Geschichte der Ökologie. Grimm u.a.(Hg.), Prismata. Pullach at Munich.
Vom 17. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart, Pages 129-148.
Frankfurt/M. Hard, G. (1989): Kosmos und Landschaft.
2_Hard, G. (1974): Alexander von Humboldt Alexander v. Humboldts Werk und
und die deutsche Landschaftsgeographie. D. Welterfahrung. Munich Pages 133-171.
 Territorial Atmospheres 220

Böhme with their doctrine of signatures3 . For them physiognomy of nature

reveals actually a true being, or alike, the essence of natural entities - so
for instance minerals, plants and so forth. This view of physiognomy
has certainly also left its traces in the romantic tradition of the natural
sciences. But in this respect in particular, Humboldt is no Romantic, no
more than Goethe was. Humboldt was not concerned with identifying an
essence or character [Wesen] behind or by means of an object's appearan-
ce. When he writes of a physiognomy he is writing of the “total impression
of landscape” received by a person in their affective-sensual concern-
ment. The work of natural physiognomy was, according to Humboldt, the
identification of the characteristic parts, forms and colors responsible for
this total impression of a landscape. He considered this to be the task of
painters and took it up himself in his own experiences of nature insofar as
he traveled with pencil and sketchpad.
As I see it, the transformation of this conception of physiognomy - ne-
cessary for this apprehension - has already been prepared by Lichtenberg,
in his criticism of human physiognomy. Lichtenberg had warned against
the determination of human characters through physiognomy and at the
same time he indicated the inevitability of such characterization in every-
day life and its constitutive role in acting4 . With this background it is
possible to change our conception of physiognomy, by rejecting it as a rea-
ding of outward expressions of interior being [Wesen] and see it far more
as possibilities for [aesthetic] impressions made upon a given observer. In
this sense the physiognomy of a person is understood as what the person

3_Böhme, G. (1986): Die Signaturenlehre bei 4_Promies, W. (Hg.) (1967): Georg Christoph Li-
Paracelsus und Jacob Böhme. G. Böhme: Na- chtenberg Über Physiognomik, wider die Phy-
tur, Leib, Sprache.- Rotterdamse Filosofische siognomen.- Schriften und Briefe 3. Munich.
Studies III, Rotterdam. Pages 15-26. 5_Böhme, G. (1995): Essays zur neuen Ästhe-
221 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

“emanates” —an articulation of their bodily-sensual presence. If the latter

can be called “Atmosphere5” then physiognomy of someone or something
would be constituted by the entirety of objective, specific qualities that
creates this atmosphere. To me it is precisely this understanding physiog-
nomy and of the theory of physiognomy that appears most relevant to
Humboldt's Physiognomy of Nature and is indeed essential to the develop-
ment of an aesthetic theory of nature.

2. Plants and Landscape Physiognomy

2.1. Alexander von Humboldt
In this section we wish to present a tradition in which scientists had des-
cribed the formal, physical qualities of nature in such a way that they ad-
dress the atmospheric effects on humans. In focus come those elaborations
of the particular qualities of nature, which have "spiritual" significance.
Thus the approach is clearly centered in an anthropocentric approach.
The origins of this theory of landscape and plant physiognomy lay in
a short work of Humboldt entitled, “Ideas for a physiognomy of plants6”. In
section II of the second volume of his book Cosmos Humboldt refers to this
early text in a section carrying the title, “Landscape painting, in its influence
on the study of nature – Graphical representation of the physiognomy plants.
– The character and aspect of vegetation in different zones7.” Humboldt's
ideas are rather vague, but we must admit that practically everything,
which will later be written under the heading of “Physiognomy of Nature” —
including the work of Hellpach8 — is already present in this early essay.

tik. Frankfurt/M. transl. by E .C. Otté, London 1849, Page 440

6_Humboldt, A.v. (1807): Views on Nature, - 8_Hellpach, W. (1939): Geopsyche. Die Mens-
transl. by E .C. Otté & Henry G. Bohn, London 1850 chenseele unterm Einfluß von Wetter und Kli-
7_Humboldt, A.v. (1844): Cosmos, Vol. 2., ma, Boden und Landschaft. 5. Aufl., Leipzig.
 Territorial Atmospheres 222

In the background of this tradition we can also identify the thought

of Goethe: what eventually comes out in Humboldt's “physiognomy of
plants” is a typology of different types of plant growth. However in place
of Goethe's primordial plant [Urpflanze] we find sixteen “fundamental
types.” This extension of Goethe's work is obviously motivated by an
encounter with tropical vegetation whereas Goethe's perspective of plants
was still limited by his exclusive familiarity with European and Medite-
rranean flora. Indeed to break free of this limitation is Humboldt’s express
purpose of the work of plant and landscape physiognomy. Goethe's de-
piction of primordial plant types can no longer encompass the vegetative
forms discovered in nature through tropical voyages, therefore a concept
of plant physiognomy becomes necessary in order to bring the endless
amount of new material into a finite number of basic forms. Accordin-
gly Humboldt expresses himself in relation to landscape painting: it is
to landscape painting that he assigns the task of representing the basic
forms of landscape. So far landscape painting had remained, “dwelling only
on the native and indigenousform of our vegetation9”

“That progress which may still be expected in art, from a

more animated intercourse with the tropical world, and
from ideas engendered in the mind of the artist by the
contemplation of Nature in her grandest forms, will never
diminish the fame of the old masters.”

Humboldt, A.v , Ideas of a physiognomy of plants, (1807)10

9_Humboldt, A.v. (1807): Ideas of a London 1850, Page 347

physiognomy of plants; in: Views on Nature, 10_Ibíd. Page 347
transl. by E .C. Otté & Henry G. Bohn, 11_Ibíd. Page 218
223 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

Humboldt assigns Landscape Painting the task of transmitting the

sensual impressions of a foreign and, in particular, tropical landscape to
the European; painting should suggest the “moods” that could be expe-
rienced by beholding a certain place. Considering the purpose of lands-
cape painting as the representation of plant and landscape physiognomy
suggests the whole concept is already superseded by the mediums of
photography, film and tourism.
This objection brings one characteristic of plant and landscape phy-
siognomy into focus: landscape and plant physiognomy from Humboldt
to Lehmann does not deal merely with the having of experience and its
reproduction, but is, in an explicit sense, about the recognition of nature.
Thus the particularities of individual experience are not the concern of
physiognomy, it concerns rather about the general, the typical: “so also does
the general study of the physiognomy of nature differ from the individual
branches of the natural sciences11.”

“As in different organic beings we recognize a distinct

physiognomy and as descriptive botany and zoology
are, in the strict definition of the words, merely analytic
classifications of animal, and vegetable forms ; so there is
also a certain physiognomy nature exclusively peculiar to
each portion of the earth. The idea which the artist wishes
to indicate by the expressions, " Swiss nature," or "Italian
skies," is based on a vague sense of some local characteristic.
The azure of the sky, the form, of the clouds, the vapory
mist resting in the distance, the luxuriant development
of plants, the beauty of the foliage, and the outline of the
mountains, are the elements which determine the total
impression produced by the aspect of any particular region.
 Territorial Atmospheres 224

To apprehend these characteristics, and to reproduce them

visibly, is the province of landscape painting.”

Humboldt, A.v. Cosmos, Volume 2. 184412

This quotation demonstrates quite clearly what is most essential to

Humboldt: the analysis of the elements and parts whose entirety makes
what is most characteristic of an intuitively grasped shape of nature.
So far as we are concerned with the medium by which this knowledge
is acquired, meaning the graphic representation of flora and landscape
painting, the works of Alexander on Humboldt or Lehmann appear quite
dry and devoid of atmosphere in comparison to fine artists' representa-
tions of nature. This fact certainly causes reflection on the proclaimed
unity of art and science. This discrepancy is likely due to the fact that
artistic and scientific talent do not necessarily go hand in hand (from
this point of view the images of Carus may be more closely examined, as
he was truly a double talent), but the reason largely lays in the deliberate
avoidance of the ephemeral and individual in the physiognomic repre-
sentations of landscape and plants.
The relative dryness of Humboldt's artistic efforts should not con-
ceal that he was more concerned with what he called, “the relationship
between the sensual and the intellectual.” In this context the discourse
returns again and again to the “enchantment of nature”, to “mood” and

12_Humboldt, A.v. (1844): Cosmos, Vol.. 2, 14_Humboldt, A.v. (1807): Ideas of a physiognomy
transl. by E .C. Otté, London 1849, Page 456. of plants; in: Views on Nature, transl. by E .C. Otté
13_From the preface of Humboldt, A.v. (1807): & Henry G. Bohn, London 1850, Pages 220,221.
Views on Nature, transl. by E .C. Otté & Henry 15_Hirschfeld, C.C.L. (1779-85): Theorie der
G. Bohn, London 1850. Gartenkunst, 5 Bde. Leipzig.
225 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

to “pleasure.” “A survey of nature at large, – proofs of the co-operation of

forces, – and a renewal of the enjoyment which the immediate aspect of the
tropical countries affords to the susceptible beholder, – are the objects at
which I aim13 ..” The individual particularities and traits can be recognized
as a part of nature's physiognomy by their meaning for the atmospheric,
but not because they grant us insight into their function. In this sense
Humboldt sets himself apart from the designation of characteristics as it
followed in the tradition from Linné.

“In determining those forms, on whose individual beauty,

distribution, and grouping the physiognomy of a country's
vegetation depends, we must not ground our opinion (as from
other causes is necessarily he case in botanical systems) on the
smaller organs of propagation, that is, the blossoms and fruit;
but must be guided solely by those elements of magnitude and
mass from which the total impression of a district receives its
character of individuality..”

Humboldt, Ideas for a physiognomy of plants. 180714

This approach is quiet similar to that of von Hirschfeld in his Theory of

Garden Art15 . Like in Hirschfeld's writing natural forms are identified as
part of the scenic character and this is also the case with Humboldt.

“To revert to more familiar objects, who is there that does

not feel himself differently affected beneath the embowering
shade of the beechen grove, or on hills crowned with a few
scattered pines, or in the flowering meadow where the breeze
murmurs through the trembling foliage of the birch? A feeling
 Territorial Atmospheres 226

of melancholy, or solemnity, or of light buoyant animation is in

turn awakened by the contemplation of our native trees. The
influence of the physical on the moral world – this mysterious
reaction of the sensuous on the ideal, gives to the study of
nature, when considered from a higher point of view, a peculiar
charm which has not hitherto been sufficiently recognized.

Humboldt, Ideas for a physiognomy of plants. 180716

Although Humboldt‘s Natural Physiognomy –in contrast to Natural Scien-

ces-- is clearly concerned on the experience of the atmosphere of nature,
the result can hardly infer the sensation of atmosphere. This appears to
be an unavoidable destiny of physiognomic theory, because although the
medium through which one gains knowledge [Erkenntnis] is atmospheric
sensing, the goal is, paradoxically, the naming of the physical properties of
nature. Thus its conclusions lay closer to Morphology than to Poetry.

2.2. Carl Gustav Carus

The landscape and natural-physiognomy of Humboldt is thoroughly
distinguished from the larger tradition of physiognomy in the sense
that we have described as essential to natural aesthetics. Humboldt
does not ascribe to nature an essential inner being whose expression
could be its Physiognomy. Far more the essence -or the character- of na-
ture are something entirely extrinsic, as in the Italian Landscape. This
is entirely distinct from the second type of landscape physiognomy

16_Humboldt, A.v. (1807): Ideas of a physiognomy 17_Carus, C. G. (1972): Briefe über

of plants; in: Views on Nature, transl. by E .C. Otté Landschaftsmalerei. Reprint of the 2nd
& Henry G. Bohn, London 1850, Page 219. edition of 1835, Heidelberg. Page 108.
227 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

found in the 19thCentury, one which follows from Humboldt, though far
more from Goethe, namely that of Carl Gustav Carus. Unfortunately we
cannot write about his landscape painting and refer here exclusively
to his, “nine letters on landscape painting.” Like Humboldt, he ascri-
bes to landscape painting an essential intellectual function [Erkennt-
nisfunktion]. But painting for him is by no means a representation of
universalized natural types. Rather he believes the task of landscape
painting should be, “the understanding of the mysterious life of that
nature 17.” Thus he also calls landscape painting “Earth-life Imaging”
[Erdlebenbild]. At this point what Carus actually means by the “myste-
rious life of nature” remains relatively unclear in these writings. Given
the romantic background to which Carus belongs, one may assume he
means something like the “elemental spirits” of Paracelsus. This would
be an allegation with the assumption that in Nature Parts and Nature
in its entirety, beings live and act, and only partially come to appearan-
ce. In his letters on landscape painting this “mysterious life” appears
rather in an abstract sense or meaning. In this sense Carus writes
in his sixth letter: The artist should recognize that, “no unregulated,
empty approximation determines the path of the clouds and the form of
the mountains, the forms of trees and the waves of the sea, rather inhe-
rent in all is a higher sense and eternal meaning18 .” In a similar sense
he expresses himself in the fragment, “Indications [Andeutungen]
towards a Physiognomy of Mountains”: “I have noted, that their [spea-
king of trees and plants] overall formation have significant meaning,
much as the physiognomy of a person has meaning for his character, or

18_Carus, C. G. (1972): Briefe über 19_Carus, C. G. (1972): Briefe über

Landschaftsmalerei. Reprint of the 2nd Landschaftsmalerei. Reprint of the 2nd
edition of 1835, Heidelberg. Page 108. edition of 1835, Heidelberg. Page 173.
 Territorial Atmospheres 228

the overall formation of animals has meaning for their internal structu-
re 19 .” The phrase, “meaning for something” as opposed to “meaning of
something” gives us some indication of what Carus intends with the
word “meaning.” Further along in the quoted text he writes that one
must take into account both the interior and exterior of any natural
form, “the exterior appearance gives us a visible idea of the whole, the
interior shows us the parts 20 .” Therefore “Life” would be something not
entirely interior, rather far more part of an outer form, one which has
meaning for the interior, namely the organization of the parts. This
conception of physiognomy is reminiscent of the Aristotelian doctrine
of the soul (as well as that of Ludwig Klages: the soul is the meaning
of the body). With this Carus gives a meaning to the physiognomy of
nature even closer to the natural sciences than that used by Humboldt.
In Humboldt's sense, the physiognomic essence of nature is conceived
as quite anthropocentric. Carus assumes here that the physiognomy of
a natural body carries a meaning for this body itself. At the end of this
fragment, however, the relationship is nearly reversed.
Here, when the text concerns specific statements about the phy-
siognomy of mountains, it turns out that Carus is concerned with the
connection between the mountains and the types of rock that compose
it. Thus the physiognomy of the mountain addresses the outer shape
of the mountain as formed by typical rock formations. Consequently
he talks, for example, of the fact that “a sandstone rock has to show
a different character than a porphyry rock and this one also different
than the granite rock 21 .”

20_Carus, C. G. (1972): Briefe über 21_Carus, C. G. (1972): Briefe über

Landschaftsmalerei. Reprint of the 2nd Landschaftsmalerei. Reprint of the 2nd
edition of 1835, Heidelberg. Page 174. edition of 1835, Heidelberg. Page 176.
229 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

2.3 Herbert Lehmann

Certainly the most significant of the landscape physiognomists is the
geographer Herbert Lehmann. His works are compiled in the book "Essays
on the Physiognomy of the Landscape22". Lehmann is particularly significant
for the physiognomy of landscape and more generally for the physiognomy
of nature at large, not only because he has written detailed physiognomic
description, for example of Tuscany or the Italian or Greek landscape,
but also because he determined the physiognomy of landscape based on
theoretical scientific terms in the context of or in relation to geography.
In distinction to scientific geography, he formulates the physiognomy of
a landscape from a mental or spiritual approach. Yet he is actually devo-
ted to the subjectivist theory of landscape vision though. The unity of the
landscape would be a spiritual achievement23 . But Lehmann points out
that in the landscape itself there are clues for landscape vision. There is a
form of reciprocity operative between the viewer and the landscape. The
earth's surface would possess an expressive potential that would need to be
realized through this process of landscape sight but is otherwise grounded
in its geographical nature. "A still little recognized area of expertise awaits
the ‘geo-psychological’, artistic and, last but not least, also the intellectual
history-educated geographer: the creation of a scientific physiognomy of
landscape or a doctrine of the expression of landscape24 ."
With the term ‘geo-psychological’ he points in the direction of the
work of Hellpach, for which he will later on indicate his own preference.
As can be clearly understood from his writing on landscape physiog-
nomy, Lehmann is not interested in a direct causal relationship, rather

22_Krenzlin, A. und Müller, R. (Hg.) (1986): Wiesbaden.

Herbert Lehmann. Essays zur Physiognomie 23_Ibíd. Page 137.
der Landschaft. Erdkundliches Wissen 83, 24_Ibíd. Page 144.
 Territorial Atmospheres 230

that in the landscape itself objective approaches to the expressive expe-

rience of a landscape can be attained.

"Landscape physiognomy is not so concerned with the

objective content as with the expressive value of a landscape,
to which its duty is twofold, to define which features in the
landscape determine its expressive value and to determine
how they affect the viewer.”

Krenzlin, A. und Müller, R. Essays zur Physiognomie der

Landschaft. 198625 .

Here the term "affect" is not understood in the sense of creating a

mental state, but in the sense of constituting an expression, i.e., an
atmosphere. Lehmann uses the expression ‘atmosphere of landscape 26 ’
explicitly. He defines this term somewhat circuitously with the following
phrase: "The entirety of atmospheric conditions, which the respective
landscape expression determines directly, may be referred to with the
word “atmosphere of landscape”. In the essay containing this quotation,
he also outlines a characteristic example.
In his own writing on the physiognomy of landscape, the task Lehmann
assigns himself as a geographer, that is, as a scientist, is to determine
what we understand as “typical” of a landscape, such as that of Italy. Large
parts of his works are landscape description that is description of what is
“typical” as such. For the completion of his (basically Humboldtian) sche-

25_Ibíd. Page 145. in Essay "On the landscape atmosphere of

26_Ibíd. Page 151. Italy” in Krenzlin, A. und Müller, R. (Hg.)(1986):
27_The analysis of hazy clarity can be found Herbert Lehmann. Essays zur Physiognomie
231 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

me he offers clear examples. The most convincing seems to me to be his

treatise on "hazy clarity," a characteristic which Goethe had identified as
characteristic of the Italian landscape. The expression "hazy clarity" is a
typical atmospheric description and contains a large associative potential,
such as the eroticism of a delicate transparent veil or the enchantment of
an indeterminate luminescence. Lehmann does not phenomenologically
analyze the atmospheric quality of hazy clarity, but asks how it comes
about. Hazy clarity occurs when a clear view is preserved despite hazi-
ness, when due to a strong luminosity the color contouring allows one to
perceive distinctions at a great distance. He has thus specified climatic
facts that are typical for an Italian atmosphere27.
A related example illustrates Lehmann's analysis of the appearance
of Monte Pellegrino near Palermo28 . That he turns here to the singular
aspects of a single mountain may seem strange, since he otherwise consi-
ders - like Humboldt - that the goal of physiognomy to be the elaboration
of what is typical. This confusion is compounded by the fact that in the
afore-mentioned article, Lehmann distances himself from geomorphology
as it was founded by William Davis Morris in 1911. While geomorphology
would examine typical mountain formation as dependent upon rock for-
mations (the agenda of Carus for a physiognomic of mountains!), it would
not address anything regarding the individuality of a mountain shape and
therefore would not contribute anything to physiognomy29 . This contradic-
tion is resolved in the course of the essay by the fact that the Monte Pelle-
grino is understood as an individual form in an Aristotelian sense. In the
article Lehmann is further trying to analyze the impression made by Monte

der Landschaft. Erdkundliches Wissen 83, Herbert Lehmann. Essays zur Physiognomie
Wiesbaden. Pages 151 and subsequent. der Landschaft. Erdkundliches Wissen 83,
28_Krenzlin, A. und Müller, R. (Hg.) (1986): Wiesbaden. Page 159.
 Territorial Atmospheres 232

Pellegrino through an analysis of the form of the mountain's shape. On

one hand this analysis is concerned with geometry but on the other hand
it considers the geometric shape from the perspective of its atmospheric
effect. For example he speaks of the “Towering", the "Balanced", the "Dain-
ty.” Of general importance is that in this analysis he distances himself from
the idea of an "ideal form." This is of great significance because in aesthetic
theory since the Greeks geometric perfection was always closely related
if not entirely interchangeable with beauty itself. Against the ideal form
Lehmann posits the "concise" [prägnante] form:

"We call an expression concise when in its brevity it is

apt and eloquent at the same time. In the visual field,
a shape appears concise if it allows a instantaneous,
holistic comprehension but simultaneously triggers a whole
aggregation of more or less conscious associations and thus
stimulates the imagination."

Krenzlin, A. und Müller, R. Essays zur Physiognomie der

Landschaft. 198630.

The construction of the term "Prägnanzform” (concise form) - which

can also be found in a different context in the work of Schmitz31 who
argues that Aristotelian thought must be understood from this key term
- communicates this contradiction between the universal and the indivi-
dual: the Prägnanzform is the typical, that at same time individualizes.
Prägnanzform is a particularly physiognomic term, as it delineates the

29_Ibíd. Page 160. 31_Schmitz, H. (1985): Die Ideenlehre des

30_Ibíd. Page 164 Aristoteles. Bonn.
233 The Physiognomy of a Landscape

characteristic, visible essence of something. At the same time the term

specifies this essence as existing in an ecstatic state. As something
“concise” or “succinct” [prägnant] the essence is described as something
egressive in and of itself. Interesting is finally Lehmann's assertion that
the Prägnanzform “triggers a whole aggregation of more or less conscious
associations and thus stimulates the imagination32".
In our opinion the “atmospheric” is called out, which emanates from the
Prägnanzform. Hereby the term "associations" explains a hovering diver-
sity of possible interpretations – understood from a subjective theoretical
approach-, which become perceptible in the atmosphere itself. Atmosphere,
grounded in a particular physiognomy, remains shifting and indistinct
because its actual content [Wasgehalt] is not sufficiently articulated and
determined. As Lehmann puts it:

“For the imagination a certain leeway must remain, the (mostly

unconscious) process of comparing, guessing and identifying
may not be completely discarded by the viewer.

Krenzlin, A. und Müller, R. Essays zur Physiognomie der

Landschaft. 198633 .

First published in Geographische Zeitschrift 87, 1999, Vol 2, pp. 98-104, Franz Steiner Verlag
Wiesbaden GmbH, Stuttgart.

32_Krenzlin, A. und Müller, R. (Hg.)(1986): Herbert Erdkundliches Wissen 83, Wiesbaden. Page 163.
Lehmann. Essays zur Physiognomie der Landschaft. 33_Idíd. Page 165.
Campo Mineral (mineral field)
OFICINAA architecture + urbanism

The meteorological fluxes of Lisbon’s climate are the premises for

Campo Mineral’s urban form. The project defines an urban armature
that operates as a ventilation path at the city-scale while providing a
comfortable outdoor experience for the residents. Surrounded by the
Portela airport (north), the Campo Grande urban park (south), and the
Lisbon University Campus and various health institutions (east and
west), the 10-hectare site sits at the end of the Central Axis formed
by the historic avenues and promenades of the nineteenth century.
Influenced by the Gulf Stream and the Atlantic Ocean, Lisbon is
under a continuous flux of breezes and changing weather patterns.
Experiencing the city is being immersed by this dynamic atmosphere.
Mild and temperate most of the year the city of Lisbon, however,
experiences overheating and thermal stress during the summer
season. How can the meteorological phenomena of the wind fluxes
inform urban strategy that not only is able to lessen urban heating at
a largescale but also to amplify delight as one dwells in the city?

Campo Mineral is an urban hub composed by a new avenue and urban

district that continues the existing axial structure in the city while
strengthening its continuous ecological structure. The project sculpts
urban form through atmospheric thinking in a telescopic manner: from
meso to microclimates, from the city to human sensation. The project
responds to the meteorological elements of wind, light, temperature,
humidity, and geological strata as pre-conditions of urban design.

CAMPO MINERAL (MINERAL FIELD)

Authors: OFICINAA architecture + urbanism
Public client: Municipality of Lisbon, Portugal
Date: 2010. 1st Prize Europan 10 biennial competition, Portugal
Climatic Threshold

The site is a climatic threshold along its north-south informant of spatial, programmatic, civic and aesthetic
direction. It connects two different landscape environ- qualities of the project. The threshold condition offers
ments and thermal conditions, such as the airport (hot the possibility to work with flux and exchanges within
and windy) and the urban park (humid and shady). The the meteorological phenomena such as convection,
thermodynamic polarization between different solar conduction, evaporation and reflection. The nor-
radiation, wind speeds, surface properties, and albedo th-south corridor is implemented within the existing
values, is an opportunity for the city. The existing block and a series of outdoor spaces are generated to
thermodynamic tension is amplified and sculpted as take advantage of the new atmospheric landscape.

Radiant temperature gradients (existing) Radiant temperature gradients (potential)

Geological Strata

The geological strata found on site, a deposit of mal mass and high solar reflectance index (SRI-ligh-
sandy loam, sets the material and performative ter color). The visitor experiences a continuous surfa-
identity of the proposal. The mineral quality of the ce of white-colored limestone applied on the ground
project, based on limestone, increases the porosity of the open space and building facades. Expanding
of the ground, drainage and percolation capacity, and on the existing material and immaterial qualities of
humidity in the air due to convective airflow through Lisbon’s urban landscape, the new avenue appears
the voids. It also plays a significant role in promoting as a white valley, a white landscape tinctured with
thermal comfort in the outdoor space due to its ther- the filtered reflection offered by limestone.

Wind velocity gradients (existing) Wind velocity gradients (potential)

Asymmetric Space (site scale)

The avenue is asymmetric as a result of clima- zed to provide a cool atmosphere in summer and
tic-thinking at a scale of the inhabitants and visi- warmth in winter. Its planar geometry resembles
tors. While the new avenue operates as a climatic wind catchers that allow capturing of the maritime
threshold at the city scale (for wind channeling), breezes from the south, and the evaporation from
the 3 pocket-plazas along its length provide the deciduous trees on site and the adjacent urban
smaller and comfortable civic places for gathering park. The combination of shade in summer and
throughout the seasons. Adjacent to the main sun exposure in winter, the evaporative cooling
amenities along the building-wall on the west side from various moist sources (vaporizers, porous
of the avenue, such as the student library, student soil and vegetation) the exposure to breezes, the
dorm and market, the pocket-plazas are sculpted concrete-core heated benches in winter, and ma-
as disruptions of the linear geometry. Informed by teriality in the pocket-plazas provide temperate
simulations on airflow, solar orientation and sea- micro-climates for an everyday living along the
sonal variations the plazas’ geometry are maximi- new avenue and neighborhood.
Bird’s eye view of Campo Mineral Avenue
Interpreted simulation (in summer) that intersects
wind flow with evaporative cooling provided by the
existing and proposed tree canopy.
Masdar City walls. Boris Brorman Jensen.
Masdar
Foster and Partners + Transsolar

Inspired by the architecture and urban planning of traditional Arab

cities, Masdar City includes a northeast-southwest orientation
of the city which makes best use of the cooling night breezes and
lessens the effect of hot daytime winds. The elimination of cars and
trucks at street level not only makes the air cleaner for pedestrians
but also allows buildings to be closer together, providing more
shade but allowing maximum natural light.

The buildings are oriented to provide optimum shade and reduce cooling
loads, and shaded colonnades at podium level exploit the benefits of
exposed thermal mass. Facades are designed to respond to their orien-
tation and photovoltaic installations on every roof are combined with
carefully positioned photovoltaic panels to shade streets and buildings.
Cooling air currents are channeled through the public spaces using a
contemporary interpretation of the region’s traditional wind towers.

There will be green parks separating built-up areas, not only to

capture and direct cool breezes into the heart of the city but also
to reduce solar gain and provide cool pleasant oases throughout
the city. Carefully planned landscape and water features to provide
evaporative cooling will aid in reducing ambient temperatures, while
enhancing the quality of the street. The placement of residential,
recreational, civic, leisure, retail, commercial and light industrial
areas across the master plan, along with the public transportation
networks, ensures that the city is pedestrian friendly and a pleasant
and convenient place in which to live and work.

MASTERPLAN FOR MASDAR DEVELOPMENT

Authors: Foster and Partners Architects, London
In collaboration with: Traffic, Systematica - MIC, Milano; Infrastructure,
water, waste, WSP, London and Dubai; Energy concept, Transsolar,
Stuttgart; MEP, Flack & Kurtz, Paris; Solar systems, ETA, Florence; Cost
survey, Cyril Sweet, London; Landscape, Gustafson Porter, London
Urban Grid and Orientation

Masdar City has a diagonal

orientation which provides
optimal shading, incorporating
long streets on a northeast-sou-
thwest orientation to make best
use of the cooling night breezes,
and short streets —no longer
than 75m— on a northwest-sou-
theast orientation to lessen the
ef¬fect of hot daytime winds.
Urban Block Simulations

The city grid is formed by 200 x 50 x 18m blocks and

short streets interconnected by 30m wide piazzas.
This geometrical model was tested with CFD wind
simulations —in different street widths and wind
scenarios— obtaining wind velocity profiles (m/s)
and temperature distribution (°T), at different hei-
ghts above the ground. Simulations probed that in-
creasing street widths and shortening street length,
reduced wind speeds and street air temperatures,
hence lessening the effect of hot daytime winds.
Street Section

Masdar City street section configuration has been designed to reduce

the heat island effect. Through a combination of street section propor-
tion, orientation, arcades and shading, combined with night ventila-
tion, air temperature is reduced to enable street life.
Comparison of Masdar City and a typical Abu Dhabi
street air temperature and radiant temperature.
Masdar City’s resulting ambient is a result of its
street section configuration. Its shaded colonnades
at street level benefit from exposed thermal mass.
 Daytime and Night-time Winds

During the daytime, warm

desert winds cool as they
flow through the green
open spaces

At night, cool winds

enter the city and are
channeled into the streets

Green public spaces capture and direct the cooled by green landscaping and water to
fresh night breeze cooling the heart of the city. provide evaporative cooling, reducing solar gain
During the day, hot northwest winds are cooled and providing cool pleasant oases throughout
over linear parks providing refreshing street the city. Short streets below 75-100m keep hot
ventilation. These public spaces are further winds above the street.
 The sun enters shaded
spaces, bringing light
but not heat

Photovoltaic panels are applied to

roofs and provide cooler, shaded
roof spaces in the daytime and
power for the building

Parks and green spaces

create cool, green oases and
attractive places to relax

Cool wind enters the traditional

wind tower and is directed into the
street. Warm air is directed away

Landscaped entrance areas

encourage cool air flows and provide
a recognisable point of entry
 250

Afterword

A thermodynamic flow occurs whenever there is an energy difference

—a temperature, pressure or height gradient— between two systems.
For instance, in an air transfer there should be either a pressure or
a temperature gradient between a source and a sink. In addition, all
thermodynamic flow is spontaneous and irreversible: whenever there is a
gradient, an inevitable thermodynamic flow is generated which tends to
equalize the energy difference between both systems.
Accepting these energy flows occur spontaneously and irreversibly, it is
also true that these can be intercepted by devices that either use them or
block them, store them or release them in doses. As a spatial and material
construct, architecture can capture, transport, store and release energy, and
thus modulate the flows of energy which traverse it. As a conglomerate of
space and matter, it interacts thermodynamically with existing phenomena to
provide a varied, healthy, comfortable indoor environment for its users.
In any temperature gradient inside a building, heat is transported by
convection, radiation or conduction. Convection processes transport
energy via the air, so the spatial structure inside a building is important
to understand them. The shape and proportions of the vertical spaces
are crucial to the performance of the convective cell that is created.
Up-draughts influence the temperature distribution and the air speed,
hence their ability to heat, cool or ventilate a space. Similarly, pressure
differences in the envelope of a building can create air currents which,
when suitably channeled through the configuration of the interior space,
can create the desired climate control.
Although these flows can move in any direction in a space, the most
relevant one for architecture is along the vertical plane—the spatial
dimension where buildings are commensurate with gravity, solar radiation
and geothermal gradients. Air also moves along the vertical plane, due to
either temperature gradients or natural or artificial pressure.
251 Afterword

THE BUOYANT LIVING (2007-08)

Site: Murcia, Spain
Program: Social housing
Climatic Typology: Solar Chimney Ventilation
Targeted Climatic Constraint: Summer Air Overheating
Thermodynamic Process: Summer Buoyancy
Physiological Effect: Conductive and Convective Skin Cooling

TAAs + Javier García-Germán

 252

THE BUOYANT STAIRCASE (2014-under construction)

Site: Madrid, Spain
Program: House Renovation
Climatic Typology: Solar Chimney Ventilation
Targeted Climatic Constraint: Summer Air Overheating
Thermodynamic Process: Buoyancy
Physiological Effect: Conductive and Convective Skin Cooling

TAAs + Javier García-Germán

253 Afterword

THE SOLAR SKYLIGHTS (2014 competition)

Site: Reinosa, Spain
Program: Civic Center
Climatic Typology: Direct Gain + Water Tanks Storage
Targeted Climatic Constraint: Winter Cold Temperatures
Thermodynamic Process: Radiant Heat Storage
Physiological Effect: Radiant Skin Heating

TAAs + Javier García-Germán

 254

THE RADIANT ROOM (completed 2012)

Site: El Escorial, Spain
Program: Summer House
Climatic Typology: Ventilative Nocturnal Cooling Room
Targeted Climatic Constraint: Summer Overheating
Thermodynamic Process: Radiant Heat Absorption
Physiological Effect: Radiant Skin Cooling

TAAs + Javier García-Germán

255 Afterword

THE VENTILATED UNIT (2014 restricted competition)

Site: Lima, Perú
Program: Concytec Office Building
Climatic Typology: Single-Loaded Naturally-Ventilated Office Unit
Targeted Climatic Constraint: High Humidity and Solar Radiation
Thermodynamic Process: Wind Pressure Gradient Air Flow
Physiological Effect: Skin Evaporative Cooling

TAAs + Javier García-Germán

 256

Biographies

Iñaki Ábalos is founder and director of Abalos+Sentkiewicz arquitectos. He

currently is Professor in Residence and Chair of the Department of Architecture
at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, and Chaired Professor
at ETSAM, UPM. He previously was Founder and Director of Abalos & Herreros
(1984-2006) and has taught in other prestigious university centers such as the Ar-
chitectural Association, EPFL and Columbia, Cornell and Princeton Universities,
combining academic, professional, and research activity. The developed work
stands out for proposing an original synthesis of technical rigor, formal imagina-
tion and discipline integration between architecture, environment and landscape.

Michelle Addington, Hines Professor of Sustainable Architectural Design at

Yale University, is educated as both an architect and engineer whose teaching
and research explore energy systems, advanced materials and new technolo-
gies. Her articles and chapters on energy, system design, HVAC, lighting and
materials have appeared in several journals, books and reference volumes,
and she co-authored “Smart Materials and Technologies for the Architecture
and Design Professions” and the recently published “Emerging Technologies.”
Addington also taught at Harvard University for ten years before coming to
Yale in 2006. Her engineering background includes work at NASA Goddard
Space Flight Center, where she developed structural data for composite ma-
terials and designed components for unmanned spacecraft, and she spent a
decade at Dupont as a process design and power plant engineer as well as a
manufacturing supervisor. In 2009, Architect magazine selected her as one of
the country’s top ten faculty in architecture. She holds the B.S. in Mechanical
Engineering from Tulane University, the B. Arch from Temple University, the M.
Des and Dr. Des from Harvard University as well as an honorary M.A. from Yale.

Silvia Benedito is an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the

Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD). She received a degree in Architec-
257 Biographies

ture from the University of Coimbra, a degree in Music from the Conservatory
of Coimbra, and a master’s degree in Urban Design from the GSD. Benedito is
the co-principal of OFICINAA, an award-winning practice based in Ingolstadt
(Germany). Her work focuses on the role of the meteorological subjects in
the built environment. Benedito was awarded numerous grants and awards
such as the Luso-American and the Gulbenkian Foundation fellowship, the
Research Grant from the Sciences, Arts and Technology Foundation (EU), and
the prestigious Fernando Távora Prize from Oporto Architects’ League.

Gernot Böhme studied physics, mathematics, and philosophy in Göttingen

and Hamburg, followed by a Ph.D. at Hamburg University in 1965, and a Habili-
tation at Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in 1972. From 1969 to 1977 he
was a research fellow with Jürgen Haberman and Carl-Friedrich von Weizsäc-
ker at the Max-Planck-Institute, Starnberg. From 1977 to 2002, he was Profes-
sor of Philosophy at the Technical University Darmstadt. Böhme was a guest
professor in several universities across Europe, Asia and the USA. Since 2005
Böhme is the director of the Institute for Practical Philosophy in Darmstadt,
and the President of the Darmstadt Goethe-Association. His expertise include
classical philosophy, philosophy of science, philosophy of nature, aesthetics,
ethics, and theory of time. His publications include Ethics in Context: The Art of
Dealing with Serious questions (2001), and Architektur und Atmosphare (2013,
2nd edition). His most recent publication is titled Invasive Technification (2013).

Juan José Castellón is researcher and PhD candidate at the Chair of Structural
Design at ETH Zurich since 2011. He was Adjunct Professor of Digital Culture at
the Barcelona Institute of Architecture (BIArch). Studied Telecommunications
Engineering (ETSETB) and Architecture at the Universitat Politècnica de Cata-
lunya (ETSAB) and obtained his Master in Emergent Technologies & Design at
the Architectural Association School of London in 2011. He has been developing
 258

his professional career from 2001 by collaborating with architectural firms such
as Herzog & de Meuron, Abalos & Herreros, FOA, SHoP and Cloud9. His research
is focused on the integration of structural and spatial principles in contemporary
design methods and on the study and development of architectural prototypes.

Pierluigi D’Acunto received his Diploma in Architecture and Civil Engineering

with Honours from the University of Pisa (Italy) and a Master of Architecture
with Distinction from the Architectural Association School of Architecture in
London (UK). Since 2006, he has been gaining professional experience as an
Architect and an Engineer in private practices in Italy and Japan. He has been
awarded in several national and international architectural competitions. He
is currently a Research Assistant and PhD candidate at the Chair of Structural
Design at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich. His re-
search is primarily focused on exploring the convergence of Architecture and
Engineering within the domain of Emergence.

Javier García-Germán is Associate Professor of Architectural Design at the

ETSAM (since 2007), where he is director of the Energy and Sustainability
module in the Master’s Degree in Collective Housing and director of Ecological
Urbanism module in the Master in City Sciences. He studied architecture at
the ETSAM (Honors), the Oxford School of Architecture and at the Harvard
University Graduate School of Design, where he was Fulbright Scholar. He
received his Ph.D. in architecture in ETSAM (2014). In 2005 he founded TAAs
—totem arquitectos asociados— an award-winning practice based in Madrid
which explores the connections between climate, architecture and users. In
addition García-Germán has authored several articles in international perio-
dicals and edited several books on energy and architecture, among others
De lo Mecánico a lo Termodinámico (2010, Gustavo Gili) and Contextos 2008.
Hacia un Nuevo Entorno Energético (2008, UCJC).
259 Biographies

Jonathan Hill, an architect and architectural historian, is Professor of Archi-

tecture and Visual Theory at the Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL, where
he directs the MPhil/PhD Architectural Design programme. Jonathan is the
author of The Illegal Architect (1998), Actions of Architecture (2003), Immate-
rial Architecture (2006) and Weather Architecture (2012), editor of Occup-
ying Architecture (1998) and Architecture—the Subject is Matter (2001), and
co-editor of Critical Architecture (2007).

Kathleen L. John-Alder is an Assistant Professor and a registered landsca-

pe architect with over twenty years of professional experience. Kathleen’s
research involves the transformative role of ecology and environmentalism
in the discourse of mid-twentieth century landscape design. To date this
work has concentrated on the process-theories and systems approach of
the landscape architects Ian McHarg and Lawrence Halprin. Kathleen is the
author of “The Garden, The Greenhouse, and The Picturesque View, which
appears in Kevin Roche: Architecture as Environment, “A Field Guide to Form:
Lawrence Halprin’s Ecological Engagement with The Sea Ranch”, which
appeared in Landscape Journal, and “Processing Natural Time: Lawrence
Halprin and the Sea Ranch Ecoscore, which will appear in Studies in the
History of Gardens and Designed Landscapes. She was recently awarded a
Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship for the fall of 2013.

Toni Kotnik is Professor for Design of Structures at the Department of Archi-

tecture at the Aalto University in Helsinki. He studied architecture and mathe-
matics in Germany, Switzerland and the USA and received his doctoral degree
from the University of Zurich. Before joining Aalto University, Toni Kotnik
worked among others as senior researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of
Technology (ETH) in Zurich, assistant professor at the Institute for Experimen-
tal Architecture at the University of Innsbruck, studio master at the Emergent
 260

Technology and Design program at the Architectural Association in London,

and as associate professor at the Singapore University of Technology and De-
sign. He has been lecturing worldwide and his practice and research work has
been published and exhibited internationally, including the Venice Biennale,
and is centered on the integration of knowledge from science and engineering
into architectural thinking and the design process.

Kiel Moe is a registered architect and Assistant Professor of Architectural

Technology in the Department of Architecture at Harvard University Graduate
School of Design. He is a Co-Director of the MDesS program, coordinator of the
Energy & Environments MDesS concentration, and Co-Director of the Energy,
Environments, and Design research lab at the GSD. He is author of Insulating
Modernism (2014), Convergence: an Architectural Agenda for Energy (2013), Buil-
ding Systems: Design Technology & Society (2012), Thermally Active Surfaces in
Architecture (2010) and Integrated Design in Contemporary Architecture (2008).

OFICINAA is a design workshop driven by ideas and execution based in Cam-

bridge (USA) and Ingolstadt (Germany). With a strong commitment to intellec-
tual and artistic inquiry, OFICINAA brings together tools and expertise from
the disciplines of architecture, urbanism, landscape and the arts. Founders
Alexander Häusler and Silvia Benedito are trained in architecture and sculp-
ture, in urbanism and music, from Germany, Portugal, and the USA. The work
reflects the breath of the multi-disciplinary approach, and the rigor driven
by the commitment to craft and the user’s experience. OFICINAA’s work has
received several international awards and mentions, and exhibited at Tennes-
see University (2011) and at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2010.

Philippe Rahm is a Swiss architect, principal in the office of Philippe Rahm

Architectes, based in Paris, France. His work, which extends the field of archi-
261 Biographies

tecture from the physiological to the meteorological, has received an interna-

tional audience in the context of sustainability. He was Unit Master at the AA
School in London in 2005-2006, Visiting Professor at the Mendrisio Academy
of Architecture in Switzerland in 2004 and 2005, at the ETH Lausanne in 2006
and 2007, at the School of Architecture of the Royal Danish Academy of Fine
Arts of Copenhagen in 2009-2010, in Oslo at the AHO in 2010-2011. From 2010
to 2012, he held the Jean Labatut Professorship in Princeton University. He
starts to teach architecture design at the GSD, Harvard University, USA, in
Fall 2014. He has lectured widely, including at Yale, Cooper Union, UCLA and
the ETH Zürich. His recent work includes the First Prize for the 70 hectares
Taichung Gateway Park in Taiwan currently under construction, an office buil-
ding of 13000 m2 at La Défense in France for the EPADESA; a convective con-
dominium for the IBA in Hamburg, Germany; the White Geology, a stage design
for contemporary art in the Grand-Palais on the Champs-Elysées in Paris in
2009 and a studio house for the artist Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster in 2008.

Matthias Schüler is one of the managing directors of TRANSSOLAR Energie-

technik in Stuttgart. Born 1958, he was educated as a mechanical engineer
at the University of Stuttgart. In 1992 he founded the company TRANSSOLAR
Climate Engineering. TRANSSOLAR'S focus is on new energy-saving and
comfort-optimizing strategies through an integral approach in building design.
Now, with 50 employees in Stuttgart, Munich, and New York, Matthias Schuler
works on national and international projects with architects like Kazuyo Se-
jima, Frank O. Gehry, Steven Holl, Jean Nouvel, and Renzo Piano. Since 2001,
teaching as a visiting professor at the Graduate School of Design, Harvard Uni-
versity, he became Adjunct Professor for Environmental Technologies in 2008.

Harry Francis Mallgrave is an architect, scholar, editor, and professor of his-

tory and theory and director of the International Center for Sustainable New
 262

Cities at Illinois Institute of Technology. He has written numerous books and

articles on the history and theory of architecture including: Modern Architec-
tural Theory: A Historical Survey, 1673-1968, and An Introduction to Architec-
tural Theory: 1968 to the Present. In recent years Mallgrave’s interests have
broadened, as indicated by his book The Architect’s Brain: Neuroscience,
Creativity, and Architecture. He has more recently followed up on this study
with Architecture and Embodiment: The Implications of the New Sciences
and Humanities for Design, published in 2013. It appeals to the emotional
process of embodied simulation, rejects overly conceptualized approaches
to theory and the objectification of design (viewing buildings as objects), and
argues for a return to the focus of design to where it formerly resided -the
human experience of inhabiting the world.

Rudolf Geiger (1894 –1981) was a renowned German meteorologist, one of the
founders of microclimatology, discipline which studies the climatic conditions
within a few meters of the ground surface. Geiger unveiled the complex and
subtle interactions between vegetation and the heat, radiation, and water ba-
lances of the air and soil. His The Climate Near the Ground (initially published in
German in 1927 stands as a milestone publication in the history of this subject.
Geiger taught and conducted his research at several institutions in Germany
and was director of the Meteorological Research Institute in the Bavarian Fo-
rest Service and of the Meteorological Institute of the University of Munich.
263 Image Credits

Image Credits

01 PHYSIOLOGICAL ATMOSPHERES
Interview “Thermodynamic Space”
Philippe Rahm architectes, The new Olduvai Gorge, Exhibition at the Royal
Academy of Fine-Arts, School of Architecture, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2009.

“Jade Meteo Park”

Authors: Philippe Rahm architectes, Mosbach paysagistes, Ricky Liu &
Associates / Location: Taichung, Taiwan / Dates: 2011-2015. First prize of the
International competition in 2011 / Preliminary design completed in December
2012 / Detailed design completed in June 2013 / Tender design completed in
December 2013 / Construction starts in January 2014 / Completion in July
2015 / Client: Taichung City Goverment / Budget: 90 millions US$

02 MATERIAL ATMOSPHERES
Text “Thermodynamic Materialism”
Photographer Daniel Ibáñez, Teaching Assistant, GSD.

Text “Geometric Diagrams of Energy Flow”

Fig. 1: sources of energy consumed annually in the US and areas of consump-
tion (source: US Energy Information Agency, 2012)
Fig. 2: strategies towards a sustainable built environment (based on Stefan
Behling, lecture, IIT Chicago, 2004)
Fig. 3: The description of various flows of energy by means of calculus of va-
riation reveals the structural similarity within the flows based on three consti-
tutive elements: the overall transfer of energy within the system expressed by
the nabla-operator, the rate of exchange of energy along the boundary and the
change of the exchange rate over time. The similarity in the mathematical struc-
ture hints towards a similarity - at least on a phenomenological level - in the un-
derlying flow systems and, thus, offers a possibility for a conceptual approach
 264

towards the design of flow systems at an early stage of the design process.
Fig. 4: Continuum thermomechanics as unifying theory that brings together
mechanical and thermodynamic properties into a coherent set of interdepen-
dent equations and conditions. This not only enables the study of the inte-
raction of force flow and heat flow within materials but sheds light onto the
conceptual similarities in the study of flow systems in formerly independent
disciplines and the possibility of exchange of methods and techniques. Becau-
se of this, a theory on the behaviour of building structural like plasticity theory
- a theory that evaluates structural systems with respect to the load bearing
capacity based on the resistance of the material - can potentially be put to use
in the study of patterns of energy flows like for example in the transfer of heat.
Fig. 5: Based on plasticity theory the flow of forces can be manipulated fo-
llowing simple geometric operations like the redirection of forces: The direct
flow of inner forces between two external loads (a) can be redirected within
the material by adding an internal force that pushes the flow out of its prefe-
rred line and compensating the additional force to ensure equilibrium in the
system (b). The resulting configuration of forces can be understood as pattern
of turbulent dissipation of energy (c). The discrete turbulence pattern in force
flows resembles in an abstract way the patterns of energy dissipation - visible
in the local increase of wind speed - that occur in the flow of wind around an
obstacle like a wall (d) (Source of diagram d): Blocken, B & Carmeliet, J.: Pe-
destrian Wind Environment around Buildings: Literature Review and Practical
Examples, Journal of Thermal Env. & Bldg. Sci., Vol. 28, No. 2 (2004), 107-159)

Text “The Architectural and Performative Potential of Porous Structures”

Fig. 1: Crane head (left) and femur (right). D’Arcy W. Thompson’s “On Growth
and Form”. 1961. (Source: Thompson,D. “On Growth and Form”. 2008. Cambri-
dge University Press. New York)
Fig. 2: Miguel Fisac. Concrete “Bones”. From left to right, Piece “Cedex”, “Cerro
265 Image Credits

del Aire” and ”Trapecio”.Sections.

Fig. 3: Stress distribution around a hole in wall. Force-Flow analysis. (Source:
Allen, E, Zalewski,W. “Form and Forces”. 2010. John Wiley & Sons. New Jersey)
Fig. 4: Miguel Fisac. Cedex Piece. Analysis of the morphogenetic process of
the cross-section of the “bone”.

Text “Cellular Solidarity: Matter, Energy and Formation”

Fig. 1: [cellular solid wood image near beginning near "The lingocellulose struc-
ture of wood is one example;" ] http://sciencewise.anu.edu.au/article_image_
big/201/heady%20-%20balsa.jpg (contact information on the webpage).
Fig. 2: [two Olgiati photos of his foamed concrete, cellular solid spatial project
in Zernez in the Convergent Design section] http://www.archdaily.com/59578/
national-park-centre-valerio-olgiati/01_eingangshof-3/ http://www.archdaily.
com/59578/national-park-centre-valerio-olgiati/10_treppe-frontal/
Photographer is Javier Miguel Verme [[email protected]]
Fig. 3: [a pic, like the one attached, of Saraceno's Space Time Foam in the sec-
tion on Foam Architecture] http://www.tomassaraceno.com/Projects/Bicoc-
ca/ Photographer is http://camilobrau.com/
Fig. 4: [a pic of variable density cells of a plant stem in the Calibrated Porosity
section] http://plantphys.info/plant_physiology/images/stemvb.jpg from this
site with credits listed: http://plantphys.info/plant_biology/stems.shtml

“Thermodynamic Folly”
Director: Iñaki Ábalos / Dates: 2013- ongoing / Client: GSD Harvard University
GSD instructors: Salmaan Craig, Jianxiang Huang, Kiel Moe, Matthias Schüler,
Renata Sentkiewicz / GSD students: Collin Gardner, Ryu Matsuzaki, Elizabeth
Roloff / In collaboration with the Chair of Structural Design, ETH Zürich Chair
of Structural Design: Joseph Schwartz / ETH Zürich instructors: Juan Jose
Castellón, Pierluigi D' Acunto, Toni Kotnik.
 266

02 TERRITORIAL ATMOSPHERES
Text “Landscape and Atmosphere: The Genealogy of Appearance”
Images taken from the following books:
Fig. 1: Flammarion, Camille, 1842-1925. 1888. L'Atmosphère: Météorologie
Populaire, Paris: Libr. Hachette. P. 163.
Fig. 2: L'Orme, Philibert de, 1515?-1570. 1626. Architecture De Philibert De l'Orme
... : Oeuure Entiere Contenant Onze Liures, Augmentée De Deux : & Autres Figures
Non Encores Veuës, Tant Pour Desseins Qu'Ornemens De Maisons : Auec Vne Belle
Inuention Pour Bien Bastir, & à Petits Fraiz .. Paris: Chez Regnauld Chaudiere. P. 51
Fig. 3: Descartes, René, 1596-1650. Principia Philosophae, Amstelodami, MDCLVI. P. 101
Fig. 4: Zeiller, Martin, 1589-1661., Matthäus Merian 1593 to 1650., and printer
Meriansche heirs. 1700th MZ Topographia Helvetiae, Rhaetiae, Et Valesiae:
This Is Description And Eygentliche Figure The chief place and places in The
Hochloblichen Eydgnossschaft, Graubundten, Valais, And Because of several
facing Orthen: In This Gentiles Edition With sonderm Fleiss Through Come,
And from past mistakes corrects, and increasingly improved. Vol 15]. Franck-
furt at Mayn]: To Truckt run through of which Merianischen heirs.
Fig. 5: "A Balloon Prospect from Above the Clouds" was included (facing page
154) in Thomas Baldwin's Airopaidia: Containing the Narrative of a Balloon
Excursion from Chester, the eighth of September, 1785, taken from Minutes
made during the Voyage . . . (Chester: Printed for the Author, 1786).
Fig. 6: H. Berghaus, 1849, Physikalischer Atlas, vol. I, plate No.1
Fig. 7: Concept diagram by OFICINAA, 2013

Text “Equilibrated Exchange:

An Exploration of The Sea Ranch Bioclimatic Analysis”
Fig. 1: Wind flow sketch by Richard Reynolds. Lawrence Halprin Collection,
The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.
Fig. 2: Lawrence Halprin Associates wind flow diagram from data collected by
267 Image Credits

Richard Reynolds. The Lawrence Halprin Collection, The Architectural Archi-

ves, The University of Pennsylvania.
Fig. 3: The Sea Ranch coastal landscape. Photograph courtesy of Kathleen John-Alder.
Fig. 4: Diagrammatic illustration of the Bioclimatic Chart from Design with Cli-
mate. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. All rights reserved.
Fig. 5: Shade and air flow diagrams from Design with Climate. Reprinted by
permission of Princeton University Press. All rights reserved.
Fig. 6: Lawrence Halprin and Associates solar radiation diagrams. The Lawren-
ce Halprin Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.
Fig. 7: Lawrence Halprin and Associates fence design and wind flow studies. The
Lawrence Halprin Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.
Fig. 8: Lawrence Halprin and Associates conceptual site plan. Lawrence Hal-
prin Collection, The Architectural Archives, University of Pennsylvania.
Fig. 9: The Hedgerow Houses today. Photograph courtesy of Kathleen John-Alder.
Note: Contact information for the University of Pennsylvania Archive: William
Whitaker: [email protected] / Nancy Thorne: nthorne@design.
upenn.edu / Contact information for Princeton University Press: permissions@
press.princeton.edu / Mike Schwartz [email protected]

“Campo Material”
OFICINAA (Silvia Benedito + Alexander Häusler)

“Masdar”
Masterplan for Masdar Development, Abu Dhabi, Foster & Partners
Architects, London in collaboration with: Traffic, Systematica - MIC, Milano,
Infrastructure, water and waste, WSP, London and Dubai, Energy concept,
Transsolar KlimaEngineering, Stuttgart. MEP, Flack & Kurtz, Paris. Solar
systems, ETA, Florence. Cost survey, Cyril Sweet, London. Landscape,
Gustafson Porter, London.
 268

Acknowledgements

Thermodynamic Interactions stems from the doctoral research started at the

Harvard Graduate School of Design (under the auspices of a Fulbright scho-
larship) and later developed at the Escuela Técnica Superior de Arquitectura
de Madrid, and which has resulted in the Ph.D dissertation titled Thermody-
namic Environments (2014 ETSAM, UPM). Whilst the dissertation explored the
historical empowerment of thermodynamics and atmosphere in architecture
across three thermodynamic environments —territorial atmospheres, ma-
terial atmospheres and physiological atmospheres—, this book presents the
contemporary expression of these same three realms, unveiling that current
trends come from a century-long atmospheric history which is necessary to
understand and critically asses to propel present endeavors.

First of all I would like to express my gratitude to José María de Lapuerta. The
opportunity José María de Lapuerta gave in 2011 to direct the Energy and Sustai-
nability module in the Master’s Degree in Collective Housing (MCH, ETSAM, UPM)
has offered an enriching and stimulating testing ground to organize and discuss the
thermodynamic ideas on architecture which evolved from my doctoral research.
This book results from the seminars I directed within the MCH from years 2011 to
2013, making public the discussions which took place within the classroom. Lapuer-
ta’s enthusiasm and support has been instrumental for the publication of this book.

In second place I am grateful to the co-editors Iñaki Ábalos, Silvia Benedito

and Philippe Rahm who, after participating in the MCH seminar, accepted
becoming involved in this book, have enthusiastically supported its develop-
ment and have generously contributed with their essays, academic research
and projects. Their insight has been essential for the development of both the
ideas and contents of each part of the book. By extension, I am also grateful
to the contributors of the book. Their variegated backgrounds and perspecti-
ves has enabled to offer the comprehensive outlook I ambitioned.
269 Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Luis Maldonado, Dean of the Escuela Técnica Superior de
Arquitectura de Madrid (ETSAM, UPM) for granting the support and resources
which have allowed presenting the contents of the MCH seminar in book format.

I would also like to thank ACTAR editors Ramón Prat and Ricardo Devesa for
their vision to promote books on thermodynamics and architecture. Their
con¬tribution has been instrumental to achieve a book which matches the po-
ten¬tial of its contents. Thank you for your ambition, confidence and support.

And finally I would like to express my gratitude to my parents, Pilar and Javier,
who have for decades believed in my work, and have supported with determina-
tion my academic and professional adventures. Above all I am indebted to my wife
Lola: without her daily support this book would not be possible. Thank you Lola!

Javier García-Germán
THERMODYNAMIC INTERACTIONS The Author and Actar Publishers are
An Exploration into Physiological, especially grateful to theses image providers.
Material and Territorial Atmospheres Every reasonable attempt has been made
to identify owners of copyright. Should
Author unintentional mistakes or omissions have
Javier García-Germán occurred, we sincerely apologize and ask for
notice. Such mistakes will be corrected in the
Co-editors next edition of this publication.
Iñaki Ábalos, Philippe Rahm, Silvia Benedito
Copyrights
Editorial Coordination © 2015 Actar Publishers
Ricardo Devesa ¿ ? / Text and Images by the authors

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Copyediting translation, reprinting, re-use of illustrations,
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