The earth quakes, cracks, collapses, erupts, storms, and whirls; its epidermis dampens or dries, warms up or cools down. In the face of the ceaseless and uncontrollable moods of their environment, living beings have no choice but to organize their worlds. They are all developing techniques to make up for their inadequacy and manage to live in the sky, on the land, and at sea. They are tirelessly absorbing, altering, moving, and organizing the elementary particles of the universe. In so doing, the throng of living beings intermingles and constructs the Earth. The Earth is not a fixed and natural décor, but a body being continually formed and transformed by the actions and reactions of all those who, be they livinng or nonliving, bring life to it. The Earth is a site of construction common to all material elements and living organisms. The Earth is an architecture. // The Anthropocene is the proposed name of the era when Earth's climate and atmosphere are affected by human activity. The term Anthropocene was introduced by the geologist Alexei Pavlov and gained prominence eighty years later thanks to the ecologist Eugene F. Stoermer and the atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen. The Holocene would have passed into the Anthropocene as a result of changes in the atmosphere, lithosphere, biosphere, cryosphere and oceans caused by human actions. Following William Ruddiman, ecologists call this epoch the Early Anthropocene. However, the term is not used in the official time scale as used within geology. // ‘Rite de Passage / Rite of passage’: The term 'rite of passage' was introduced by the French anthropologist Arnold van Gennep (1873-1957) in his 'Les Rites de Passage' from 1909. According to Van Gennep, there are three stages in which a rite of passage develops: separation, liminality (transition) and reintegration. The first phase, separation, involves symbolic behavior in which the individual is separated from a previously fixed social status. The old status is first 'destroyed' in preparation for the new one. During the middle stage, the "traveler" is stripped of any manifestation of its rank or role and enters a kind of "liminal" status between old and future identities. A liminal status is an unaccepted or undefined role within a society. Liminality is usually short-lived. Someone who is in a liminal state is usually part of a transition between two accepted roles. During a rite of passage people do not have to behave according to the norms of their environment. On the other hand, they are also often unable to participate in life in their society in that status until the liminality is lifted. One is between two worlds, on the threshold of a transition. This phase is often compared to a (ritual) death, or a stay in the darkness of the womb awaiting birth. In the final phase, the ritual subject crosses this threshold and re-enters society in his new social or religious role. To become the new flesh you first have to kill the old flesh. // ‘Temporary radical individualism’ needs you to believe, at least for the moment; to be different, not to fit in, that you are just ‘someone else’ for a time. Time to stop relying on someone else/smarter/wiser/older. Time to stop being a child. Time to follow a different track, a different trace. Time for a duet between the character and the circumstances. We need to learn to rely on the inner voice. Do not follow the misleading path of the other. An exercise in being completely solipsistic, completely alone, completely original. There is no copy of you… Suddenly we are different. We only fit in the whole as unique. We become irreplaceable particles. We start by disconnecting from the other. Temporary disconnection. Time to create a space for oneself. We must start deconditioning the preliminary educational structures imposed by parents / teachers, that hamper us in the finding of a new order. The divergent strategy before the convergent strategy. In order to start the creative process, avoid inner rest. // ‘Palladian factor’: the divergent factor within a system of order, mostly applied when an external factor is being taken in account; related to the environment, context, or human needs. // ‘FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGY’, deliberately an ambiguous term; it could either refer to a yet-undiscovered method for interpreting the material residue of the past, or to a literal geological excavation of the future. The attitude of ‘FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGY’ is about obtaining, as a designer, a kind of sensibility and sensitivity for the passing of time, the concepts of ruin and loss, the process of entropy and decay, the piecing together of traces from the past and the ability to project them in the future. The reason why this is essential, especially as an architect, is because any architectural manifestation is inevitably confronted with time and destruction or any kind of transformation, from the very moment that it is situated in reality. Which makes most creation temporary, even if it desires to be in a state of permanence, architecture is always subjected to time, so a building or a city becomes a system which is in constant transformation. This makes us responsible. It’s important as a designer to understand the reality of architecture through the destructive process of time, which is rarely considered or used as a constructive quality, in a constructive way. It is time to project in the future, to create flexible constructions with a true kind of sustainability, to consider any architectural manifestation as a future ruin. // ‘The flexible stage containing the artifacts to perform the always renewed daily rituals’ is a type of foundation that stems from the attitude of FUTURE ARCHAEOLOGY. It is a foundation that contains a set of permanent elements, used to perform daily rituals; eating, sleeping, heating up, the usage of water, the storing of water, walking up the stairs,… The idea is that this foundation, which becomes a stage-like construction, is a permanent element that allows different kinds of usage in the future, making it flexible and truly sustainable. The remaining space that is in-between the foundation is then used to create the dwelling of the individual or collective: the temporary elements. The foundation will outlast the temporary elements, the individual and its needs, and eventually the rituals themselves. // ‘Wedge’ is an element; a piece of wood, metal, etc. having one thick end and tapering to a thin edge, that is driven between two objects to secure or separate them, to fix in position. It can be used to create a temporary state of stability or construction. When removed, this condition is reversed. // ‘The (uprooted) home’ used to deal with the feeling of ‘homelessness’, not being rooted or not belonging. It can be percieved as a collection of routine-like gestures. Gestures of the home don’t ask for much thought. It’s a gesture where you put the key in the keyhole without thinking, where you reach for the light switch in the dark, skipping the squeaky step in your staircase, finding your toothbrush and towel without hesitation, the self-made rules to stack plates. They erase themselves while doing them, that’s why they leave space for more important thoughts and worries. The act of living is not an art, it’s a drag. The true art of living is the act of moving around. When you move you can’t find anything back, you have to start all over again, like a child. To move is to alienate, to uproot. The key does not fit in the key lock right away, the light switch is now on the left instead of the right, the route from your bedroom to the bathroom can not be done in the dark anymore. Moving asks for attention, it is accompanied by disruption and confusion, but also with excitement and thrill, everything is again for the first time. The uprooted home becomes a continuous sequence, creating this new space that represents a construction of the memory, a mental maze, a representation of the imaginary, a fine line between reality and fiction. It becomes something that is projected from the mind, something that is not fixed and simultaneously very fragile. It makes us question the value of these domestic places, what they could mean to us and how we look back at them. Space is no longer self-evident, no longer embodied, no longer inherent. The uprooted home is a mental home, and once you let go of the urge to root, it gives you the freedom to move forward. // ‘Umwelten’ In the semiotic theories of Jakob von Uexküll and Thomas A. Sebeok, umwelt (plural: umwelten; from the German Umwelt meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the "biological foundations that lie at the very epicenter of the study of both communication and signification in the human and non-human animal. The term is usually translated as "self-centered world”. Uexküll theorized that organisms can have different umwelten, even though they share the same environment. The term umwelt, together with companion terms Umgebung (an Umwelt as seen by another observer) and Innenwelt (the mapping of the self to the world of objects), have special relevance for cognitive philosophers, roboticists and cyberneticians, since they offer a solution to the conundrum of the infinite regress of the Cartesian Theater. // ‘Spatial life (die moving)’ how we move through space during our life. “The route we call (spatial) life”, to look back at them in order to look forward, to feel mortal while moving, - time will erode my memories, time will erode my spaces, (I die while moving) - // The paradox of the enclosed garden. The ‘Hortus Conclusus’ Etymologically, a garden is a terrain delimited by a braided fence as you can find it in the medieval books.The architectural theorist Norerg-Schulz describes it as follows: The fundamental quality of nature is its extensiveness and the fundamental quality of a man-made place is its enclosure. The enclosed courtyard that Fra Angelico painted has introduced a similar paradox: the infinite finds its expression in the finiteness. The enclosed courtyard is in its seclusion an architectural image of nature that is not visible in its own extensiveness. Due to the enclosure, a piece of nature is being isolated, framed, through which we become focused on the earth as an identity, a bearer of meaning. But the enclosed courtyard also forces the gaze up because the fence hides the horizo. You can only look to the sky. The direct motion from Earth to the sky and vice versa, we can describe as a cosmic orientation of the landscape. Two important archetypes can be distinguished: De Lichtung: an open space in the forest which makes us aware of the infinite density of the forest. And the opposite: the oasis: a small forest in a desert that makes us aware of the infinite emptiness of the desert. Despite the apparent contradiction, both archetypes are related. Due to the nature of their appearance they are cosmically oriented. They emphasize properties of the natural environment by closing her out. The Lichtung and the oasis are the archetypes of the hortus conclusus. The openness of nature finds here its ‘on a human scale-made’ enclosement . Confinement is experienced as pleasant, the openness and its apparent infinity as something frightening. Summary analysis of the enclosed garden: A Dialectical: The garden is in relationship to architecture and nature as an autonomous 'nature box'. B Geo-morphological: The garden is determined by the surrounding nature (TOPOS) and an internal order (LOGOS) C Routing: The garden brings, through a reading route, nature and architecture in a (scale)relationship. D Spatial quality: The garden is verticallly focused and suggests an internal space that is ‘greater’. E Appearance: The garden is an abstract and sensory representation of nature F Meaning: The garden is the expression of the conception of nature that is being hidden behind its appearances. The hortus conclusus is therefore a image, a paradigm for defining nature in a cohesive, graspable and autonomous construction. Spatial analysis of the different parts that can be found in the Hurtus Conclusus in paintings.1) Nature (horizon) 2) Hortus Conclusus (closed garden) 3) Loggia (or portico) 4) Vestiblum (front room) 5) Thalamus Virginis (bedroom). You recognize the enclosed character of the room in every work, the primeval principle of architecture. Therein a distinction is made between Mary's bedroom (Thalamus Virginis) and an antechamber (Vestiblum) from which Mary speaks to the angel. Then you have a room with openings to the outside world, which is described as a Loggia or a portico. As in an open porch, you still have a roof over your head, but you're already outside. One step further, we find ourselves in a walled room without a roof, an enclosed garden or a courtyard, the Hortus Conclusion. You are now completely outside and you have a view of the natural sky vault. Finally, if you look over the garden wall, or by making an opening in it, you get a view of the surrounding nature. Space is unfolded in her parts, as a stage for a theater piece. // ‘Space’ in architecture can be described as the dynamically charged ‘product’ of an architectural object and a person interacting with it. Space can be revealed by the act of wandering or traversal. // ‘The Last Man on Earth’ is an alter-ego in a solipsistic state of being, performing a state of ‘temporary radical individualism’. The Last Man on Earth is the mask I put on during my dissertation, an existential state in which I; think, create and write. A state in which I am. I seclude myself, go live on an island, and build my own house: “The House Where Man's Irreducible Solitude Dwells.” My stay on the island, the liminal phase, becomes a search for what is important in architecture. Perhaps it is better not to speak of architecture as such, but of 'life' and ways of 'dealing with life'. Design as an attitude. Designing an attitude. To be completely driven by listening to the world, which is not about listening with your ears. It's a much more complex way of listening. It is literally observing the invisible in the visible. Observation and empathy with life and nature, these are the real starting points. The isolation allows me to concentrate on my idiosyncratic world views, which I report in images and writing. A game between contemplating and creating. In a sense, these are messages to myself: admonition, self-reflection, putting things into perspective, intended to better understand myself and others. The landscape and my surroundings form the breeding ground for my world of thoughts. I work from an observation post where I can contemplate the world in peace and seclusion and come to harmony with nature. And this not from a nostalgic romance, but from a continuous reflection on how I want and can relate to my environment and the world. // ‘Qi’: A vital life force that flows through all living beings. Qi offers a way to reconstruct our ecological imagination for this era of planetary crisis. It is universal - it describes an indiscriminate force that sustains all fauna and flora on earth as well as human communities. (Creativity) // A space or object that posesses ‘Eigenvalue’, a kind of reality of their own. For example, in everyday Japanese culture, objects are highly valued. They achieve a singular expresiveness through the handcraft that produces them. The sense for the uniqueness of things; this makes one feel that objects may amount to more than their visible aspects and that they may have an inner life (or inner reality). Japanese call this mono no aware, an ‘inner structure’, an ‘absolute individual system of powers’. // Anyone entering on the study of architecture must understand that even though a plan may have abstract beauty on paper, the four façades may seem well balanced and the total volume well proportioned, the building itself may turn out to be poor architecture. ‘Internal space’, that space which cannot be completely represented in any form, which can be grasped and felt only through direct experience, is the protagonist of architecture. To grasp space, to know how to see it, is the key to the understanding of building. - Bruno Zevi, Saper vedere l’architettura (‘How to Look at Architecture’), 1948. // In the plan of the House of the Surgeon, we have that of the ‘fundamental type of Pompeian house’. It opens up on the street with a door and a narrow entrance corridor (ostium and fauces). There is a central court (atrium), covered by a roof with an inward tilt on all four sides (atrium tuscanicum) with an aperture in the center (compluvium), through which the rainwater runs down into a tank beneath (impluvium), whence it is drained into a cistern. Around the atrium are grouped the bedrooms (cubicula) and, on either side, towards the back, lie two other rooms (alae), completely open along their side towards the atrium. At the end of the atrium, we find the tablinum, the most intimate room in the house, and the scene of the family reunions. The tablinum leads to the Hortus behind. Closed all around by high walls without any windows or openings towards the outer world, save for the ventilation loopholes, the house resembles a small fortress. The experience of a journey inside Roman domestic spaces requires the development of a new gaze, by which one can decipher the sense of so much color and of so many representations of places and subjects, midway between reality and imagination. The first key to interpretation concerns the existence of established paths, both physical and visual, in which the choice of decoration emphasized, for those who entered the house, the hierarchy of interior spaces. Wall paintings, an inseparable complement of the walls that they covered, immediately began to imitate further architectures on an enclosed backdrop covered with exquisite marble slabs, suggesting new spatial qualities. // ‘Solastalgia’ is a neologism that describes a form of emotional or existential distress caused by environmental change. It is best described as the lived experience of negatively perceived environmental change. A distinction can be made between solastalgia linked to distress about what is in the process of negatively perceived change and eco-anxiety linked to what may happen in the future (associated with "pre-traumatic stress", in reference to post-traumatic stress). Glenn Albrecht describes it as "the homesickness you have when you are still at home" and your home environment is changing in ways you find distressing. In many cases this is in reference to global climate change, but more localized events such as volcanic eruptions, drought or destructive mining techniques can cause solastalgia as well.Coined by philosopher Glenn Albrecht in 2003, it was formed by the combination of the Latin words solacium (comfort), desolation and the Greek root -algia (pain, suffering, grief). Differing from nostalgic distress on being absent from home, solastalgia refers to the distress specifically caused by environmental change while still in a home environment. In 2015, an article in the medical journal The Lancet included solastalgia as a contributing concept to the impact of climate change on human health and well-being.
