Ariane Lourie Harrison is an experimental architect and former instructor at Yale University. She is the co-founder of the Harrison Atelier architecture studio in New York, one of whose concerns is to develop architectural systems that can accommodate ecological niches that are conducive to the development of biodiversity.
Criticizing architecture’s anthropocentrism, Ariane Lourie Harrison expands on the concept of a post-human architecture, which she teaches at Yale. An interactive architecture thus arises, putting technology at the service of a “new nature” so that façades can provide refuge to birds and pollinators.
Building the city of the Anthropocene era requires taking global environmental issues into account, while also considering all living beings in the actual construction of the buildings. Criticizing the anthropocentrism of architects, Ariane Lourie-Harisson has developed the concept of a “post-human” architect, intended for different species. She advocates an exploration of the possibilities of building according to a wider vision of forms of life that are concerned by the building, redefining the relationships of man with animals and the non-human in general. Thus, an interactive form of architecture is born, in particular with regard to facades, that can — with the help of textured concrete for example — host pollinators or provide nesting spaces in their rugged surfaces. This presupposes a better understanding of the living and of being open to different environmental theories, in such a way as to favor the creation of urban relays for biodiversity, in particular on roofs. Ariane Lourie Harrison is an architect and professor at Yale School of Architecture
Ariane Lourie Harrison, architect, and professor at Yale University tells us about posthuman architecture, a performative and interactive approach to the built environment that addresses multiple species. Scientific technologies have allowed us to increase our knowledge about species (including microbes and bacterias) and establish new ways of communicating with them. This new relationship between human and nature is essential in an architectural context where “greenwashing” often doesn’t actually respect biodiversity and the needs of animal and non-human entities.
Designing an inclusive city implies involving their residents in urban projects, but what is the role of architects and urban planners in this process? For Andrew Freear, the head of the Rural Studio program, they both have the ethical responsibility of getting locally involved via concrete projects. Architectural schools must thus take on training citizen architects by engaging them in learning by doing, and thus have them redevelop a deep connection with context and places, acting as neighbors and activists within communities in order to collectively carry out experimental projects that tangibly improve society and the environment.
The two Lebanese artists and filmmakers were awarded the 2017 Marcel Duchamp Award for Unconformities, a project currently on display at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. This artwork, like their approach, is based on a methodology of investigation and excavation and aims to offer another reading of history and the traces of the past.
Nicolas Nova is a social anthropologist. Inspired by New Media Studies and design fiction, he contends that the future of design lies in recycling and reparation as well as reinventing forms and functions. Did you know that a used flip-flop could serve as a lighter?
The geographer and orientalist Augustin Berque revisits the polysemic dimension of the term “milieu,” and explains the distinction made by mesology—“the area of biology that deals with the relationships between the environments and organisms”—between “environment” and “milieu.” The reality of things differs depending on the environment of each species or culture, the object doesn’t exist in itself but according to its relationship with the subject. In this way, mesology goes much further than the subject/object dualism of modern science. Ontologically “trajective,” the environment is neither objective nor subjective, but firmly between the two theoretical subject/object centers. Berque takes the term “mediance,” meaning the dynamic coupling of the individual and their surroundings, from the Japanese “fūdo,” to which he adds “trajection,” a process that results in the “mediance” of human existence in its concrete surroundings. Taken as a whole, all human environments, distinct from the biosphere through their eco-techno-symbolic dimension, form the ecumene. For architecture, this implies a respect for history and the environment, without mimicking ancient forms, creating from the “mediance” of each place.
Larissa Fassler is a “Neo-Situationist” artist. By exploring places over the course of many hours, she gleans their ephemeral essence, which she then superimposes on the fixed urban master plan. The subjective maps thus generated highlight both urban narratives and history.
Maximum is a design studio that maximizes the value of waste; its material, its form and its engineering. Some materials are transformed in a semi-industrial process while others give birth to unique pieces, such as the glass walls of the Centre Pompidou caterpillar.
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