Architecture(s) of Connection
How can we imagine human inhabitation otherwise? How can architectural and spatial practices facilitate the processes of dwelling from the body, from multispecies care and restoration of bonding with the living worlds? Can spatial practices contribute to cocreation of more embodied, affective and ecologically-respectful structures of support? Which ways of co-habitation can contribute to the world-of-many-worlds as more habitable for all life beings and re-enchanted?
Following these inquiries we engage into conversations and collaborations with spatial practitioners as a path towards constructing low-carbon built environment for Foresta’s becoming in a place, prioritising circular design principles, plant-based and other regenerative materials, adopting to the local context, and facilitating multispecies alliances and spaces of affection.
As part of Architecture(s) of Connection research-as-necessity, here we are contemplating a bigger picture, the wider territorial scales of thought and action, pondering on how a more respectful cohabitation can be real, and what critical perspectives may assist in framing the contemporary architectural practices that promote life, diversity and coexistence. Conversation partners include Alan Organschi (Bauhaus Earth/GOA), Andrés Jaque (Office for Political Innovation/Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture), Ann Light (University of Sussex/Malmö University), Ferdinand Ludwig (Office for Living Architecture/TUM), Gilles Clément (Planetary Garden), Martín Ávila (Konstfack University of Arts, Crafts and Design), and others.
In this episode of the video book we slowly move towards more grounded realities and situated contexts within planetary inhabitations, turning our gaze to potentialities for a renewed relationship with the place. Conversation partners include Gerbrand Burger (Thinking Forest Foundation), Jan Boelen (Atelier LUMA), Jelmer Teunissen (Wetland Communisation), Małgorzata Kuciewicz & Simone De Iacobis (Centrala), Setareh Noorani (Nieuwe Instituut), and others.
In this collective reflection we are looking at the ways in which architectural and design practices are paying attention to the questions of inclusion or exclusion of multispecies communities from human spaces, questioning the anthropocentric constitution of architecture. Conversation partners include Thijs de Zeeuw (Nature Optimist), Thomas Hauck (Animal-Aided-Design), Tsukasa Ono (Bacteria Architect), and others.
We are now turning to material practices that suggest ways in which human-planetary relations can be rearticulated, in our efforts to build human spaces in attentive coherence with and within living ecologies. How does a material project become a project of connection? Conversation partners include Anna Heringer, Daniel Bell, Jakob Travnik, Jörg Depta, Lucas De Man, and others.
Residencies at Foresta-in-becoming
Following these inquiries we engage into conversations and collaborations with spatial practitioners as a path towards constructing low-carbon built environment for Foresta’s becoming in a place, prioritising circular design principles, plant-based and other regenerative materials, adopting to the local context, and facilitating multispecies alliances and spaces of affection.
Architecture in Relation with Studio Inscape
What’s the role of an architect within networked thinking of a living ecology? How can architecture be practiced responding to what is already there, in an entangled relation with a place? As part of Thinking with a garden residency series, we invited Studio Inscape to ponder these questions together with us, to bring their experiences and inquiries into bioregional design, to further experiment with how eco-philosophical theory can translate into practice, how to think the interconnectedness of actors, materials, landscapes and their inhabitants with an intention to story the place of Foresta-in-becoming with architectural potentials.
Regenerative living practices in rural areas with Alberto Roncelli
As part of Thinking with a garden residency series we invited Alberto Roncelli to investigate into the potential impacts of architectural practices in socio/cultural/natural regeneration. Following our long-term inquiry into how can architecture(s) facilitate restoration of bonding with the landscape, Alberto’s residency revolved around potentials of architectural practice to enhance attentive, sustainable, and poetic approaches to habitation.
Agropoetic Pavillion with Atelier POEM
The first physical vessel to hold space for unfurling processes within Foresta’s becoming in a place. An investigation, commissioned by Foresta Collective, designed by Atelier Poem, and built together as a participatory practice, into architecture’s ability to foster connection with and between humans and multispecies. In words of the architects, the structure reinterprets Asturian vernacular architecture and mythologies, reconnecting the cultural link with the landscape through a contemporary lens.
More info:
Thinking with a Garden
residency series
Woods in the Sound
video book / podcast
Images: Foresta Collective