Simone Farresin is the co-founder of Formafantasma, a research-driven design studio exploring the ecological, historical, political, and social influences that shape the design industry. Most recently, the studio participated in Milan Design Week 2024 and Salone del Mobile.Milano with various products and exhibitions. Onsite in Milan, ArchDaily had the chance to speak to Simon Farresin about the studio’s installation for Cosentino at the historic Teatro Gerolamo, and the broader Formafantasma design practice.
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Formafantasma was founded in 2009, and has always embraced an interdisciplinary approach to design, encompassing scenography, interiors, activations, and products. In this year’s edition of Milan Design Week, Formafantasma unveiled the Earthic Lab installation for Spanish surface brand Cosentino. Initially tasked with designing a kitchen slab, the collaboration naturally evolved into a broader exploration of sustainable materials. During the interview, Farresin emphasizes the the project seeks to showcase their commitment to pushing the boundaries of engineers materials. In fact, the installation grew into a sub-brand under Cosentino, focusing on recycled components of Dekton, recycled glass, and bio-waste to minimize the environmental impact.
Courtesy of Cosentino | EARTHIC Surfaces Collection / Formafantsma for Cosentino. Image Courtesy of Cosentino
The project is cosentino is a great example of our practice. When we started working together, we started talking about designing a slab for the kitchen. However, it immediately it became a much larger conversation about what is possible to do to make an engineered material as sustainable as possible. –Simone Farresin
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Formafantasma’s contextual approach is evident in their diverse projects, regardless of the medium or the scale of the outcome. With a strong belief to tailor their work to the specific contexts of each project, their practice is always seeking to be responsive and relevant. For instance, their recent collaboration with Prada created symposiums that add meaningful contributions to the cultural discourse at the wider Milan Design Week.
Sustainability is a core concern for Formafantasma, although they acknowledge the challenges of achieving ecological soundness while still balancing a commercial practice. Farresin explains that their research-based practice, often presented in cultural institutions, allows the studio to investigate critical issues like supply chains and deforestation, then apply these insights to their commercial projects.
Courtesy of Formafantasma | Cambio | Sharjah Architecture Triennial
Our approach is really contextual. Ofcourse we have certain perspectives on things and objects and productions. However, we think that the relevance of an outcome is to be understood in context of who is it for, where was it produced, and where is it going? –Simone Farresin
Courtesy of Cosentino | EARTHIC Surfaces Collection / Formafantsma for Cosentino. Image Courtesy of Cosentino
Additionally, the studio also recognizes inherent political and social dimensions of design. Acting as a reflection of their responsibility as designers, their work is constantly questioning how their practice can contribute positively to wider society. This format extends to their experimental and temporary projects. Looking ahead, Formafantasma is also engaged in various projects, including exhibition designs, product launches, and consultancy roles that emphasize ecological consistency and decision-making. The interview also reveals a new collaboration with companies like Artek to better connect their furniture wood choices with sustainable forestry processes.
Ultimately, Formafantasma aims to broaden the definition of design by encouraging interdisciplinary teamwork and including a variety of viewpoints. Their inventive contributions to the design world are still shaped by their dedication to sustainability, context, and social responsibility. The studio recently participated in the Sharjah Architecture Triennial, presenting Cambio. In 2023, the duo in collaboration with Lombardini22 curated the Salone del Mobile.Milano.
Mud Frontiers. Image Courtesy of Rael San Fratello
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Understanding a discipline from multiple perspectives and intersections is essential for acquiring a deep understanding of it. In architecture, the diversity of approaches to its study enriches our perception by allowing us to appreciate its complexity from different angles. For students and professionals alike, exploring aspects such as history, sources of materials and products, construction processes, implementation of new technologies, and contemporary social challenges is crucial. These aspects intertwine and expand the conventional notion of “architecture,” transcending the mere creation of buildings or the definition of spaces.
Ronald Rael, an architect and the Eva Li Memorial Chair in Architecture at the University of California, Berkeley, exemplifies this vision through his practice, which spans from research to connecting indigenous and traditional material practices with contemporary technologies and issues. As an activist and designer, Rael’s research interests explore additive fabrication, border-wall studies, and earth construction. Co-founder of Rael San Fratello, Emerging Objects, and Forust, his practice shows an approach to architecture that is highly relevant in contemporary times.
Ronald Rael at his conference in the Adrián Gibert Auditorium. Image Courtesy of Universidad La Salle
In the context of the activities for the 60th anniversary of the Mexican Faculty of Architecture, Design, and Communication (FaMADyC), La Salle University held an international congress. Among the speakers were Ryue Nishizawa, Ronald Rael, Productora, Manufactura, and more. In conversation with ArchDaily, Rael shared some reflections on the evolution of his work, the role of technology in the development of architecture, its social utility, and the role of materials in it.
Enrique Tovar (ArchDaily): Architecture is a multifaceted field, and our approaches determine which aspects resonate most with us. Considering your broad practice—which ranges from materials and technology to social studies—, what is the common thread running through your current work?
Ronald Rael: One thing that I think is a common thread through my work today is that I’m very interested in how the material is related not only to construction but also to its material culture. In other words, it’s connected much more broadly. So, a material is [not] simply a material, [but something] that has a much broader impact. It comes from somewhere, it’s traveled somewhere. It’s been processed somehow by certain people. I like to think about the broader culture that material possesses and [its] social and economic impact.
Teeter-totter wall. Image Courtesy of Rael San Fratello
So I think my focus now is related to a particular place, and that is in the form of the current borderlands between the United States and Mexico, and related very much to the material earth and how that material has existed in this area for a very long time. [Also], how we think we might use it to impact the way housing is constructed, people’s relationship to their housing, and if there can be a continued cultural practice that allows people to connect back to particular identities, as well as particular economies. So I believe that technology might be a way forward to do this. Still, I think that line is an investigation around the material of earth, and its broad consequences that are both specific to earth, but also metaphorical to the planet, if that makes sense.
ET (AD): Looking back a few decades, the definition of architecture today is much broader, extending beyond creating buildings or delimiting spaces. Nowadays, we are seeing more architects moving into different facets. Do you believe professional reinvention may be necessary in today’s world?
RR: I don’t think it’s necessary, but I think it’s possible. And architectural education is so broad. It’s such a wonderful education, that teaches students how to do everything from constructing buildings to imagining futures, to inventing materials, to working through computation. And so it’s almost like the profession isn’t capable, or doesn’t use all of the education that an architect possesses after they graduate. So I don’t think an architect must redefine themselves. I think it’s a very defined discipline. But I do think it’s possible for people who have architectural training to do more things in the world. And they’re very equipped to do anything from technology to construction, to thinking about social issues. So I think general design is very broad and has a lot of applications and so that, for me, [is] the beauty of architecture.
Objects by Architects . Image Courtesy of Forust
We serve clients but I think one way that we can transform the profession is to rethink that and how we might serve society, beyond the clients.
ET (AD): It seems that technology, sustainability, and social utility have emerged as central themes in contemporary discourse. What areas do you think students, architects, and designers should prioritize in the current landscape?
RR: For students, I think a lot of [them] find it difficult to be architects because people who have practiced architecture historically have been very limited. And the topics, specifically, [as] it’s been a male-dominated profession, and it’s been a white male-dominated profession. So any student entering into that world can find a lot of challenges in finding their place within that world that’s already very well-established. Students must recognize the power of their becoming, like a pool. Where did they come from? What are the issues and challenges that they had? And how might that apply to them reimagining the landscape, reimagining the future of a profession where you’re changing the world.
ET (AD): With innovative technologies, we’re seeing significant shifts in design geometry as traditional limitations fade. This opens up a realm of experimentation that could be a game-changer. How do you see these new geometric possibilities evolving, and what role will experimentation play?
RR: I really believe in that old Marshall McLuhan saying that “the medium is the message.” So, if you’re drawing with a T-square, you’re likely to design something influenced by that tool. If you’re drawing with a computer, utilizing the incredible tools available today—robots and, in the last year and a half or two years, AI—image production has become extremely influential.
I’m teaching a studio right now, for example, that explores AI workflows for image production. So, I think in the very near future—I don’t think it exists now and I don’t know how long it will take—AI will move from image production to become a highly robust tool in design. We will think through plans; we will think through planning; we will think through structure with the assistance of artificial intelligence. And I think there’s a lot of movement to ignore it or to prohibit it. But I think students and architects will do that at their demise, because it’s so powerful and influential. So how can we utilize that tool, ensuring we maintain control, to shape the world in the important ways I mentioned earlier, considering architecture as a social endeavor, and employing these tools accordingly?
I think in the very near future AI will move from image production to become a highly robust tool in design. We will think through plans; we will think through planning; we will think through structure with the assistance of artificial intelligence.
ET (AD): On the manufacturing side, do you foresee a change in the trend of material production? Will it move closer to a slow architecture or will mass production remain the baseline?
RR: I don’t believe we’re going to move away from steel and concrete anytime soon, despite the evident environmental harm caused by concrete, particularly due to the significant amount of carbon dioxide released during production. Concrete remains the most widely used material on the planet. While it used to be earth—a carbon-zero material—, our construction demands have evolved with taller buildings and growing populations. However, I do believe we can draw from the past and traditional craft technologies to incorporate them into modern architectural and construction practices. Over the past 150 years, there’s been a disregard for these craft practices, leading to the loss of many traditional techniques in wood, stone, earth, and textiles. I think there are opportunities now, not only to reintroduce these practices but also to reinvent them using modern technologies.
Mud Frontiers. Image Courtesy of Rael San Fratello
ET (AD): Although technology works the same for everyone, our access to it and the way we use it will vary, bearing in mind that, depending on location, each region may have a different way of approaching and expressing itself through technology. Could this identity element influence additive rematerialization?
RR: If people from different cultures start using robots, will the outcome vary? Or will it remain the same? I don’t have the answer to that question. However, I believe that AI technologies, for instance, are inherently biased, much like the architectural profession has been biased. These technologies learn from texts and images, and the images available on the planet to date carry inherent biases, influencing the directions and outcomes they produce. In other words, if I use an AI image-making program and someone from India does the same, our results might differ. Additionally, if I use it in English versus Chinese, the outcomes will likely vary significantly. We might even achieve better results in English due to the biases ingrained in the AI’s learning process. These biases are what I’m referring to. Therefore, I think the architectural profession globally needs to acknowledge and consider how to navigate these biases. Otherwise, these tools won’t provide deep understanding; they’ll merely guide the profession without critical insight.
In my opinion, earth is the most advanced material on the planet. Because humans across the planet have been developing it for 10,000 years.
Mud Frontiers. Image Courtesy of Rael San Fratello
ET (AD): To conclude, some global challenges on the horizon could be daunting. What do you think is the potential of architecture and technology for the coming decades?
RR: You know, I see additive manufacturing on the rise, and 99% of additive manufacturing is using concrete. And it seems odd to me that if we think about additive manufacturing being one of the most advanced forms of construction, we use a material that has been detrimental to the planet in the last several hundred years. So I think something that would have the potential for changing architecture is to think about how the materials we use are actually reparative or restorative; that they’re not damaging. Can we find materials that heal rather than destroy, or that contribute rather than take away? I think that’s the direction earth, [as a material], is headed [in].
We’ve only been developing robots for a very short amount of time, relative to our existence on this planet. But we’ve been developing that material in different climates and different regions for different purposes, from floors to walls, to ceilings to roofs for 10,000 years. So, I think the way forward is actually taking a break for a second, slowing down, looking back, and remembering what was good and bringing it forward. We need to do it in a way where it responds to our 21st-century way of life, though; we can’t be romantic and say we’re going to live like we did 10,000 years ago. How can we respond to today? That’s important.
The 15-minute city has become an internationally recognized concept advocating for a people-centric urban model where residents should be able to meet most of their daily needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their homes. The concept was introduced by Professor Carlos Moreno in 2015 following the COP21 conference in Paris, which concluded with the signing of the Paris Agreement. The idea proposes a practical and adaptable framework for introducing low-carbon mobility and creating a vibrant local economy to support more social interaction and more sustainable urban environments. Since then, the concept has been recognized with the 2021 Obel Award and has gained a notable recommendation in UN-Habitat’s World Cities Report. Now, Professor Moreno is publishing the book titled “The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet” to showcase concrete examples and strategies for achieving better cities. ArchDaily had a chance to sit down with Professor Carlos Moreno to discuss these ideas, offering insight into Moreno’s urban thinking and the impact of this model.
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Courtesy of Carlos Moreno
While discussing the pillars of the ’15-minute city concept, Professor Moreno highlighted the need to develop better proximities as an efficient way to fight climate change and to counter the effects of the previous decades of urban segmentation and gentrification. According to him, the potential for change lies in three key areas: the ecology of lowering our reliance on carbon fuels for transportation, the encouragement of local economies to create resilience, and the social inclusivity that follows.
Courtesy of Carlos Moreno
The concept has been developed in response to the climate emergency, as highlighted by the Paris Agreement. “This is not a question of countries, but a question of cities, because cities are the most important places for energy consumption, the most important places for the emission of CO2, and the most important places for economic activities” declares Morena during the interview. Understanding this crucial role played by urban environments, he launched a three-year research program with the University of Sorbonne to develop practical and efficient strategies for improving the cities’ performance both in terms of carbon emissions and of residents’ quality of life.
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The 15-minute city gained even more attention during the Covid-19 pandemic, when companies changed their work programs to accommodate for remote and hybrid work. This led to people gaining precious hours during the day, previously spent for long commutes. The advantages highlighted how developing local economies can generate added value for both people and companies, leading to what Moreno calls “a new economic geography of sustainable proximities.” The concept also proved its resilience during the different crises that followed, including the energy crisis generated by war in Ukraine.
Courtesy of Carlos Moreno
I think that the particular point of the 15-minute city for explaining this amazing success is our capability for developing this convergence to fight against climate change, to develop a more vibrant economy, and to develop more social inclusivity. Ecology means more livability, economy, more viability, and inclusivity, more capability for living together. – Carlos Moreno
Courtesy of Carlos Moreno
Far from being a purely theoretical concept, the 15-minute city has been adopted by mayors from around the world, who are taking the strategies and frameworks developed by Carlos Moreno and adapting them to their local conditions. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, has been among the first ones to put this model in the center of her mandate. During the interview, Moreno discusses the different approaches taken by Paris in implementing this idea, from lowering rents to encourage local businesses, to adopting a long-term bioclimatic plan and increasing the percentage of social housing. The newly published book goes into more detail about the various examples across the world, from the lessons of Asia’s second-largest city to the adaptations of European, Latin American, and African territories, and even a couple of rural communities.
Courtesy of Carlos Moreno
I wrote this book for the whole ecosystem interested in understanding the past of our cities, from Le Corbusier, Jane Jacobs, the new urbanism commitment, Christopher Alexander, the Jan Gehl transformations based on his concept of Cities for people, until now, in this second decade of the 21st century. I wanted to explain that […] this is the continuity of one century of thinkers and doers, in parallel with the massification of the individual car, the segmentation, and the de-personification of cities. […] This book offers a new perspective just for saying ‘Yes we can.’ – Carlos Moreno
Courtesy of Carlos Moreno
The research that fundaments the 15-minute city idea is publicly available for both individuals and local administrations to take inspiration from, adapt the frameworks, and find locally-informed solutions. Closing the interview, Carlos Morenta mentions that one of the most relevant challenges he faced was the switch from a theoretical idea towards concrete proposals, hoping to avoid an empty theoretical pursuit. Instead of suggesting a ‘magic wand’ to fix the most pressing urban issues, he advocates for a journey, informed by both research and local knowledge to create happy proximities, lower the urban carbon footprint, revive local economies, and drive social inclusivity.
No other song on Cowboy Carter, Beyoncé’s latest country music album, transports me to another place and time like “Ya Ya.”
The rhythmic snapping, clapping, boot stomping, and call and response from the theoretical ladies and fellas in the audience evokes a period in Black American history (particularly in the Deep South) that I can visualize in my mind, but as a child of the post–Jim Crow era, have never experienced myself. On one hand, I’m grateful for the sacrifices of my parents and grandparents that allowed certain freedoms and safety they never had, but on another, I’ve wondered what it would be like to spend most of my time in spaces that centered Blackness.
It’s the scene in What’s Love Got to Do with It, the Tina Turner biopic, where Angela Bassett as Anna Mae Bullock takes the stage for the first time at a St. Louis nightclub, or in the 2023 version of The Color Purple when Taraji P. Henson tears down the house in a southern juke joint as dynamo singer Shug Avery. And though these moments take place in a legally segregated America when Black Americans were denied necessary civil rights, it’s clear that the people dancing, drinking, and singing are in their own safe space. A space of unadulterated Black joy.
The Chitlin’ Circuit
My mother is from a tiny town in southwest Louisiana and grew up during the height of segregation. She attended schools for “colored” children, her family mostly patronized Black-owned businesses, and even to this day her town has an invisible yet distinct line that divides it into the Black and white sides of town. I’ll never forget when she said to me, as we strolled around the downtown area (and I use that word very lightly), “Besides access to education, integration was the worst thing to happen to Black people.” My head snapped up and I looked at her like she was crazy.
Then she pointed out the buildings around town that were former Black-owned barbershops, grocery stores, boutiques, and bars, and I started to see her point: Although they weren’t allowed to patronize white-owned establishments, there was a time when the Black community was its own self-sustaining economy. Later, we pulled out 1950s snapshots of my grandparents dressed to the nines heading to Ball’s Auditorium in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where they saw Ray Charles, B.B. King, and other famous Black musicians performing on what was known as the Chitlin’ Circuit: an informal network of Black-centered venues where musicians like Jimi Hendrix, Aretha Franklin, and Little Richard honed their crafts in front of Black audiences when they weren’t allowed in white-owned establishments. The Chitlin’ Circuit (which also gets a Beyoncé shout out in “Ya Ya”) represented yet another time when Black Americans lived in the shadow of white America, carving out physical spaces for themselves to celebrate their talents with a shared sense of dignity.
Po’Monkey’s in Merigold, Mississippi, photographed in 2006. This juke joint was operational until the death of Willie “Po’ Monkey” Seaberry in 2016.
The 3rd edition of Shaping the City, a forum on sustainable urban development, took place in Venice between November 24-25, following successful events in Chicago and New Orleans. Organized by the European Cultural Centre, this forum was running in parallel to the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennial exhibition, Time Space Existence. The event, hosted at Palazzo Michiel del Brusà in Cannaregio, brings together global urban planners, architects, academics, and politicians. Notably, Japanese architect Kengo Kuma was among the experts invited to explore the intersection of nature and the built environment in Japanese architecture.
Over two days, the conference set out to explore crucial themes such as education, urban commons, displacement, nature integration, and the future of architecture media, a subject discussed during a panel talk attended by ArchDaily’s managing editor, Christele Harrouk. While on-site in Venice, the ArchDaily team sat down with Kengo Kuma to discuss his unique approach to nature-inspired and site-specific designs.
During the talk, Kengo Kuma delves into one of the defining principles of his practice: the desire to create buildings by their specific cultural and geographic context. For each place, he strives to find the unique characteristics of a place and enter a conversation with it, allowing the design to be altered and adapted to these unique traits. This concept of prioritizing the context is applied to all the different typologies and scales of projects.
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Creating harmony with the place is the basis of our concept; for each place, we try to find the difference and to respect that difference. We are enjoying the conversation with the place. A conversation with the place is sometimes a conversation with the local craftsman, the local materials, and the climate. For each project, we can enjoy this kind of diversity.
Materiality plays an important role in this conversation with the place. Kuma discusses his preference for wood and natural materials over the use of concrete and steel. As the defining materials of Modernism, these materials symbolize a style that seeks to erase the diversity of a place. In contrast, wood is intrinsically connected to the land. The use of local materials and wood also led to a different type of transparency than the one provided by glass. This is achieved through the gradual displays of materials, creating a fluid transition between the interior and exterior.
By using wood, people can find a friend in the building, because wood and us have a long history. As humanity was living in the forest, the memory of wood is very long and deep.
In the context of the Shaping the City event, Kuma also touched on the changing role of architects, pointing to the need to reshape people’s relationship with the natural world by changing the cities themselves. He talks about the Japanese wisdom of creating small gardens as a way of bringing natural landscapes into urban environments.
Courtesy of Kengo Kuma
All of these principles are visible in the ongoing projects by Kengo Kuma’s studio. Among them, the design of the new Saint-Denis Pleyel train station in Paris, France, strives to break down the scale of the transportation hub by bringing in the natural landscape and creating a natural oasis within the city. Kengo Kuma & Associates has also recently won a competition to design a new visitor center in Butrint National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site on Albania’s Ionian coastline, and is among the shortlisted teams in a competition for a new music theater in Bergen, Norway.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published on December 13, 2023.
Although some circular business models have begun to pop up in recent years to responsibly recycle or repurpose undesired furniture, much of our furniture over the past few decades has more commonly ended up at the landfill or at an incineration facility to burn it for energy. In 1960, 2.2 million tons of furniture and furnishings ended up in the municipal solid waste stream, or the accumulation of everything we want to dispose of, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. By 2018, that amount had risen to 12.1 million tons every year — a 450% increase in about six decades.
Instead of adding to the pile, Rona suggests shopping secondhand and opting for vintage furniture, which could help reduce the exposure to toxins. “If you’re buying old furniture, vintage furniture, you’ve probably got the best chance of bringing something into your home that isn’t jam-packed full of toxins,” she says while noting that even older furniture can have concerning chemicals but that “they’ve been around long enough that most of that off gassing [has occurred, so] you don’t have to be so concerned about it.”
Gas kitchen appliances
According to Consumer Reports, just under 40% of American homes rely on gas cooktops to make their meals. Yet doing so exposes households to harmful air pollutants, including methane—a major contributor to the climate crisis—and benzene, which is linked to cancers. Upgrading from gas to induction cooking appliances reduces the amount of methane and benzene leaking into your home. A study released by Stanford University last year found that “gas and propane burners and ovens emitted 10 to 50 times more benzene than electric stoves,” while “induction cooktops emitted no detectable benzene whatsoever.”
“Most people assume that it’s going to be a major project to move from gas to electricity, and that’s really far from the truth,” says Dan Mock, vice president of operations of Mister Sparky, a nationwide electrician franchise. “Most homes today are equipped to be readily converted to an all-electric home.” That assumes your wiring and electrical panel are newer, and that you can afford the switch. But state and federal financial incentives are available to homeowners; if you rent, tell your landlord about the health and environmental benefits and be sure to mention the subsidies.
Outdated garage fridges
While a fridge is much more commonly found in the kitchen, it’s not at all odd to find one in the garage. But unlike the inside fridge, a garage fridge tends to be an outdated, infrequently cleaned and energy inefficient model that was relocated after a kitchen renovation, used primarily for backstock perishables and excess beer.
Shelie Miller, a professor at University of Michigan focused on sustainable systems claims that the typical garage fridge is “an energy hog,” meaning they’re not helping minimize your energy bills or power demand—meaning more electricity needs to be produced than might otherwise be needed. Instead, she recommends upgrading to a newer back-up refrigerator with better energy efficiency cred; this calculator from the US Department of Energy can help you see your potential savings in terms of both climate and financial benefits. “Do we actually need something that’s drawing power 365 days a year to refrigerate sodas or beers or whatever?” she asked rhetorically.
Large, pristine lawns
America’s suburbs are synonymous with expansive green spaces, but not necessarily the kind full of trees and natural habitat. Frequently referred to as biodiversity deserts, turf grass lawns aren’t inviting homes to native plants and animals. Additionally, that flat, green square of space often has homeowners turning to synthetic fertilizers and lawn equipment that runs on fossil fuels. Shelie suggests thinking about how you can reduce that turf. Instead, you (or a persuadable landlord) could expand planted beds, add more trees or convert the turf into a meadow.
During Laetitia Gorra’s stint as head of interior design at The Wing, she was focused on designing inclusive spaces that centered the people that coexisted within it. “We learned so much as designers for that space [about] how people use physical spaces to build community,” she says. Now, as the founder and CEO of Roarke Design Studio, she caters to clients that want offices that prioritize the happiness and well-being of their employees. “I feel like employers are thinking through employee happiness much more than they were a decade ago,” Laetitia insists. “They’re thinking about it in terms of it being a retention tool and a hiring tool. If you are setting your employees up for success, that’s the ultimate goal. I think so much of success is your surroundings. How are you functioning in these spaces?”
Kara views the corporate fetish aesthetic as an inherent subconscious concept that so many creatives are gravitating toward out of a sense of familiarity. “When you hear the word ‘office,’ I immediately go to fluorescent lights, low ceilings, carpet and a cubicle,” Kara says. “Aesthetically, it also adds to the secure aspect of it. I feel like if we were to shoot in a modern office, it wouldn’t give it that punch it needed.” Obviously, what we’re seeing in this imagery is the “fun” parts of being in the office. But as we, the working class, find ourselves returning to the office at full speed, the reality is that these settings don’t look or feel the same as before the pandemic. What seems to be missing from the equation of the “new normal” that is hybrid working in its current iteration is the structure, routine, and friendships that are attached with the outdated office environment. Instead, what we now have is a void that stems from a need for third places.
According to Laetitia, the main task of the designer is to figure out how to incorporate a company’s culture into how they build out these spaces so employees will actually want to come into the office. Given the growing number of people that are less motivated to return to the office, it’s ironic that the office has still managed to become a modern-day muse. Last year, Globest reported that vacancy rates for offices in Manhattan would rise to 20% through 2026. Rather than working remotely from home, businesses like Houseplant and Ghia are opting to work in homes by converting houses into headquarters suitable for their employees to maintain productivity.
On the other end of the spectrum we still see tech empires going for the college campus style, or as professionals prefer to call it, the corporate campus. As Docomomo states, corporate campus architecture emerged during the postwar boom; as the middle class moved to the suburbs, legacy companies seized the opportunity for “expansive campuses, large parking lots, tax breaks from local governments, and a chance to rebrand themselves.” On this note, Amy asks an important question: “What are the amenities of a [corporate] campus beyond what you need to get your work done?”
LED light strips give Bilal the ick because they tend to look cheap, when that is not the desired effect. “They do not look expensive, they don’t look high-end, they don’t feel like elevated decor,” he says. “They literally just feel like you ordered an LED strip off Amazon and stuck it to your wall. And that’s exactly what it is.”
Vivien of Posh Pennies is particularly averse to battery-operated sconces, detesting the fact that they require remotes and batteries, and that they eventually stop getting used because they require recharging. “If you’re serious about where you want your light, then get it wired, pop in a smart bulb, put it on a schedule, and call it a day! So worth it,” the interior design blogger and YouTuber explains. Bilal agrees that smart light bulbs are a much better alternative, especially if you’re looking for the ability to easily change the mood of a room with lighting.
Focusing on the screen, rather than the big picture of your space
As sharing interior design on social media gains more and more traction, and we become accustomed to seeing beautiful rooms on the reg, it can be tempting to focus only on what looks good onscreen. Imani Keal, a design blogger who specializes in renter-friendly decor and DIY, often wonders what’s going on beyond the frame of a quirky DIY space she sees on TikTok. “They sometimes don’t show the project in the context of the rest of the room or apartment, and it’s often because that project only looks good from one angle or as a vignette,” she explains.
It’s important to make sure a fun project actually works with the rest of your living space, rather than just conforming to the latest trend. “The purpose of creating a beautiful space is so that it looks and feels warm and welcoming in real life and on the internet, not just in five-second clips,” she adds. Garrett Le Chic fully agrees. As an interior designer, he’s all about making updates to your home that are consistent with its architecture.
“Renovating to change the style of your house in the long term doesn’t always make the most sense because it just requires a lot more effort, a lot more money, a lot more work than is really necessary,” he says. “When, if you took the core elements, the backbone of what the architectural style of your house is, and you apply that, it works better in the long term.”
Bland dust-collecting decor
There’s nothing like a good knickknack or piece of art to really liven up a room. With so many affordable online and brick-and-mortar home-goods stores, it’s easier than ever to find what you need to add in a space. This is both a blessing as a curse, as it means that now more than ever, there’s a plethora of mass-produced items with no personality taking up space and collecting dust over time.
On the subject of word art, Phoenix has one question: “Who is buying this?” He continues, “I know the ‘Live, Love, Laugh’ signs of the early 2000s have faded out, but now it’s like very weird quotes on boards that people are spending between 10 and 20 dollars on. The amount of staged homes that I’ve seen from real estate agents that have those too.”
In the small town of Brazil, Indiana, a pair of homesteaders have learned how to create a cohesive home farming system. Kemp Harper, interior designer and digital creator, and his partner, Kevin Boling, a real-estate agent, showcase their homesteading ventures on their Instagram page, The Colonial on Park. There, they share their backyard coop, home to five hens and two turkeys, which they feed kitchen scraps: Kemp says that “this promotes our zero-food-waste kitchen.” “In return, they provide us with eggs and fertilizer,” he adds. The fertilizer is then transferred to their compost bin, along with pruned vegetation and leaves. “This compost enriches our soil in our flower and vegetable gardens making a very happy environment for our honeybee hive.” The couple collects the honey, and the bees pollinate their gardens.
Kevin and Kemp bought their home in 2016 and started their homesteading activities not long afterward. But since then, homesteading has slowly started to become more popular in their surrounding areas. “Lots of people have become interested in backyard hens,” Kemp says. “Our neighbors put in their own coop after seeing the success we had with ours.”
Everything they do is motivated by their desire to be more sustainable, something that wouldn’t be as easily in reach without homesteading. “In our opinion, homesteaders are the people who look to the future, working with their space to reduce dependence on the global food chain and also their carbon footprint,” Kemp says.
One of the couple’s two turkeys outside their backyard coop
Photo: Kemp Harper
Kemp Harper and Kevin Boling’s garden in the winter
Photo: Kemp Harper
Admittedly, however, all the homesteaders do seem to bask in the aesthetic of homesteading. Annette’s Instagram page for Azure Farm looks like a secret garden oasis brimming with baby goats and chicks. Kevin and Kemp took inspiration from 1990s-era Martha Stewart and her legendary first home, Turkey Hill, which they then infused with design cues informed by Ralph Lauren. For her part, Kamaria enjoys slipping back into an old-timey aesthetic too. Through her use of decor and garb, she says she is able to reclaim an African American past.
“The ’40s and ’50s were a tumultuous time for Black Americans and so much of our beauty and contribution to the culture was either ignored or overshadowed by blatant racism,” she says. “So here I sit with my roller set and my circle skirt so everyone can see us and how we live, propped against our patterned wallpaper like a scene out of your favorite golden-age movie. Sans the ‘whites only’ propaganda.”
For this reason and all its sustainable advantages (including combating food insecurity), homesteading doesn’t feel like just another aesthetic movement. “There’s a difference between a lifestyle aesthetic and actually doing it,” Kamaria insists. “French country style and cottagecore go hand in hand with homesteading, because they’ve got that cutesy, ‘I’m at home in an apron baking pies feel.’ Don’t get me wrong, I like to bake from scratch too, but it isn’t homesteading, which requires much work, planning, [and] organization.”
Nicolay Boyadjiev. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
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Over the past years, I’ve had the chance to engaged with architects and others who are leading impact-driven, cultural, and institutional initiatives, who recognize architecture’s role in enhancing quality of life in the built environment and offer frameworks to achieve this. Amidst current global challenges and waning focus on the common good, such institutions are increasingly vital.
During a recent trip to Copenhagen, World Architecture Capital, I delved into the re:arc institute, a newly established nonprofit philanthropic association. Operating at the intersection of climate action and architecture philanthropy, it funds grassroots solutions serving as viable examples to tackle this, with transferable insights. With a “learning by doing” ethos, their Practice Lab conducts a global survey to identify and support practices in bringing prototypes to life. I sat down with Nicolay Boyadjiev, Practice Lab lead, to explore this innovative institutional model and its transformative impact on architectural practice.
re:arc institute Practice Lab. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
David Basulto (ArchDaily): Thank you Nicolay for visiting us today. I am happy to meet again, because in the last months we’ve had very, very interesting conversations and I think that the work you are doing now at the re:arc institute is part of an evolution of something that you have been actively pursuing in the last years. So to introduce what you’re doing today, I would like to maybe go a few steps back and ask you, how did you get here? What have you been doing during these last years that took you into this direction.
Nicolay Boyadjiev (re:arc Institute Practice Lab): Thank you for re-initiating the conversation! Essentially, in the last year I feel as if I’ve attempted to engage in a different mode of architectural practice, informed by first-hand experiences during the first decade of my architecture career. Graduating from a good, but relatively conservative architecture school in Canada in 2011, I spent the last 10 years or so almost perfectly divided between highly practical and normative work within the traditional construction industry across the American east coast, and highly speculative and unconventional work at a renowned design-research institute in Moscow. For the first 5 years upon graduation, I worked within a large corporate architecture firm, contributing design work to large-scale institutional buildings such as libraries, sports venues, university campuses and what I believe at the time was the largest hospital construction project in North America. This project in particular was incredibly formative for me, green and gullible straight out of university, as it provided a highly illuminating and accelerated form of schooling as to other “real forces” that shape and structure the built environment (such as contracts, ordinances, permits, insurance bonds, and good old fashion politics…), many of which extend vastly beyond the remit, influence, agency and I should probably add trained competence of the architecture discipline still ceremoniously performed and re-enacted within academies today… The experience and engagement with these lateral and indirect “design materials” that precede construction was very revelatory, and I became increasingly interested in the institutional formats that enabled these structures and relationships to formalize, genuinely appreciating their conception, transformation and evolution as a valid mode of architectural production and practice no less creative or culturally significant than their glossy built outcomes which are much more easily celebrated in architecture media.
Nicolay Boyadjiev. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
This was also around the same time that I quit my design job to fly halfway around the world and take part in the multidisciplinary design-research program at the Strelka Institute for Media Architecture and Design in Moscow (first as a researcher at the tail end of Rem Koolhaas / AMO’s tenure, then as a Design Tutor and eventually Co-Director with Benjamin Bratton), where I believed some of the most interesting and relevant thinking about the future of architecture practice was occurring. Up until February 2022 when the program was indefinitely suspended due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I believe Strelka was an absolutely unique intellectual environment where architects and non-architects worked collaboratively to bring new perspectives within the design field, yes, but also to train so-called “non-designers” such as journalists, economists, tech developers, lawyers to perceive and practice their own work with the same speculative, projective, creative energy and interest in the impact that they have on the city. While it lasted, this hybrid program allowed multi-hyphenated projects and collaborations to occur at the edge of traditional architecture, many of which would have been difficult or impossible to test otherwise, some of which are still active to this day, but most of which couldn’t be sustained outside the structure and support of the institute.
re:arc institute Practice Lab. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
In short, to answer your question most directly, I think these dual experiences in the last 10 years — both abruptly interrupted for very different reasons — were instrumental both in their exposure to the institutional inertia of the traditional construction sector, but also to the affordances and limitations of speculative design for speculative design’s sake, which when disconnected from reality is frankly no less normative… This sort of “speculative pragmatism” baggage was very useful when in April 2022, I was invited to contribute to the co-design and setup of a new philanthropic organization for climate action and architecture called re:arc institute. In this project, it was very clear very early on that there’s an unrecognized and unaccounted-for space of possibility at the intersection of philanthropy and architecture, which could potentially be transformative in both directions. This is the critical intersection we are currently exploring at re:arc institute’s Practice Lab, which I also happen to lead with my former Strelka collaborator Olga Tenisheva.
DB: An interesting evolution, because I think that for many Strelka set a precedent: an institute focused on architecture, media and the city. With a wide scope, and while very experimental, it aimed to deliver concrete solutions.
NB: Yes Strelka at the time I think was indeed a very inspiring and influential place, I would say not despite but rather because it was far from the hype of more conventional internationally-recognised creative hubs such as Berlin, London, New York etc. The name — institute for “Media, Architecture and Design” — implied not only a flattening but also a nested relationship of focus, where architecture and design could be seen as subsets of media or literally media disciplines. In other words, while architects and designers may have the impression that they are creating large or small objects, you can think of them as actually producing media or communication in the form of plans, drawings, presentations, models, the occasional napkin sketch if they’re a big deal… Architects therefore always produce hyperstitions, speculative design, speculative fictions to mobilize the tremendous amounts of resources, materials, capital, labor, effort etc. required to fold the planet’s crust in this shape rather than that shape… This implies dialogue by default, communication in the original meaning of “making common”. To me this is why Strelka’s approach was experimental and multidisciplinary, both in scope and in focus. In our first program’s eponymous book we expressed that our objective was not only to propose “new normal design projects” at the intersection of software, cinema, strategy and planning, but also to prototype the “new normal design practices” that are needed to respond to the emerging forms of the city that we should now be designing for. Much like the rest of the institute’s work, we defined this approach as “para-academic”: not anti-academic, but “in parallel to” traditional academia, allowing for different forms and formats to emerge. This spirit I believe still persists in the work of the Practice Lab, where we describe our operating model as “para-philanthropic”: not “anti-” philanthropy, not “better” or superficially striving to “fixing” philanthropy, but rather developing models and funding structures in parallel to traditional philanthropy where we can support projects and ways of working that are currently difficult or impossible to realise within the structures and funding conduits that are currently available to architecture.
PAVA Architects. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
DB: As you mentioned earlier, architects essentially function as media creators, playing a significant role by translating societal needs into ideas, images, and projects. However, these ideas are often novel and lack precedent; they have yet to materialize into reality. Therefore, I understand that a para-academic space can offer the time and freedom to delve into these ideas. Coupled with philanthropic support, it can provide the resources needed to bring these concepts to fruition as tangible projects.
NB: Absolutely. I would like to add and build on that, as I think what’s interesting about architecture or architects as public figures with the values you describe is that they can’t get away with talking only about the “whats” and the “whys”: they have to essentially talk about the “hows”, because this is where their credibility lies, if anywhere at all. This emphasis on the how is really critical, in particular at a time where I believe there is no shortage of “whats” and “whys” that are painfully obvious. There is a lot of scientific and social consensus about “why” we need to build differently, why it’s important, why it’s urgent, why it’s critical… And I believe there are many proven and direct “whats” that are obvious, whose existence-of is not unknown to their most immediate beneficiaries, whose expertise in implementation is not lacking… I say this because I think there’s a point where the self-serving artistic or architectural practice of multiplying “whys” and “whats” for their own sake could and perhaps should be interpreted as its own distinct form of “predatory delay”, drowning the signal with more performative noise. As such, I think that for us the actual space of innovation ought to be shifted towards new operative and institutional typologies of the “how”; this is where we want to spend the lab’s focus and creative energy, as we partner with local communities and practitioners who are much more knowledgeable about their locally relevant “whats” and “whys” than us from our perch in Copenhagen.
Region Austral. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
DB: And in a concrete way, how is the re:arc institute structured to accomplish this goal?
NB: At the heart of the organization is the design of an operating model and institutional format which allows the re:arc institute to support distinct communities of users in distinct, specific ways, which together hopefully amount to something greater than the sum of their parts. As such, we define distinct ways of working informed by a plurality of geographies, cultural perspectives… but also of professional and disciplinary backgrounds which together constitute what I perceive as some of the different types of “climate workers” that we need to activate and support. For example, we understand that we need to support the work of grassroot collectives, activists, and community leaders on the ground, which has defined our “Grantmaking” vertical where we allocate direct, flexible, often unrestricted grants to nonprofit organizations such as the CLIMA Fund, Arquitetura na Periferia, or the Climate Emergency Software Alliance. Similarly, we believe in the need of supporting the work of educators, storytellers, community builders and cultural change makers in their effort to help shift the Overton window and promote alternative paradigms for the design of the built environment. This has defined our “Public Discourse” vertical where we support cultural production activities such as public symposia, education initiatives, as well as our own editorial and podcast platform titled revisions.
Non-extractive architecture(s) summit in Venice . Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
Finally, we have also recognised the importance of engaging more directly and deliberately with the professional community most intimately involved in the design of the built environment: namely architects and professional practitioners, but also landscape architects, urbanists, and other related urban designers. This was a critical but also difficult inclusion, due to the fact that most of them technically operate as “non-non-profit” commercial design studios, and are therefore rarely featured or poorly represented in the space of philanthropy despite the “all-hands-on-deck” criticality of the moment, other than perhaps the occasional token award or symbolic pavilion, neither of which takes us very far in my opinion.
We created the “Practice Lab” vertical to respond to this vacuum. What was uniquely interesting to me was the possibility of tailoring a new legal relationship and funding model that could enable the realization of built projects that are needed in response to our current climate crisis, but are difficult or impossible to realise with currently existing traditional funding structures. Arguably, there is a real and urgent need to normalize and scale alternative “self-initiated” ways of working for professional practitioners, beyond simply responding to public or private commissions, gambling on open competitions, or laboriously chasing shrinking symbolic grants from the cultural sector. Currently, there are many reasons why architects are so little represented in the philanthropic sector, despite the 40% of global CO2 emissions footprint generated by the built environment. It is very difficult to fund built projects, and very difficult to report on them. The cycles of the philanthropic sector don’t map onto the construction sector. The administrative burden from both sides is high. And there is a real lack of experience and expertise in both directions about how to work with one another. With the Practice Lab we decided to address these challenges by proposing an experimental space of “learning by doing” where we extend beyond traditional grantmaking and work directly with architects and professional practitioners to help realise site-specific, self-initiated and community led-projects that are needed in their local social and ecological contexts, but for which there is currently no traditional “client” to commission. In our first year of operation we are already working with 16 studios (among which Taller Capital, Region Austral, PAVA Architects, Material Cultures, Social Design Collaborative, and many others) and building 28 built interventions around the world.
Social Design Collaborative. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
DB: What are the key questions and challenges that the re:arc institute is currently prioritizing and addressing?
NB: This is an interesting question because there are obviously many challenges that we need to prioritize and formulate a position and response towards. I think for us, one of them is the periodic recognition that we need to refrain from “parachuting solutions” within a foreign context of which we have very little knowledge of. I’m speaking on behalf of the lab here, but I think it applies to our entire organization when I say that is clear that we have much much more to learn than to teach about any of this work, and that our role and purpose is less to serenade others about our personally-held values and beliefs than to listen, enable and empower in situ communities to respond to the social and ecological challenges they are facing through social and ecological responses that are relevant to them. Of course I wouldn’t say that we are agnostic to the projects and initiatives that they are proposing, because the re:arc institute is guided by a very clear and specific mission. But I believe that in the design of new institutional “hows”, there needs to be a degree of agnosticism and flexibility towards the ends, because this is how we build resilience within the process and how we can scale our legal protocol across more users.
Material Cultures. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
Another important challenge to address is that for better or worse, architecture is actually a profession of precedents, meaning that its great tragedy or catch-22 is the reality that “in order to build, you have to have built”. Indeed the construction industry is among the most conservative and risk-averse in the world, and therefore often, in order for something to exist, you need to be able to point at it elsewhere and say: “look, this is possible”. I mean this not only in terms of structural or architectonic complexity; I mean also in terms of the institutional and administrative complexity of getting anything at all. Within the Practice Lab, we have the opportunity of co-initiating and multiplying a very specific type of precedent, interesting not because of its formal display of acrobatics but because of the self-initiated and community-led / owned process leading to its final realization. This approach is reinvigorating, but any seasoned designer knows that experimentation requires 3 times more structure not 3 times less, which in itself presents its own unique different challenge in itself as well… Nevertheless, to come back to our discussion about Strelka, I think this process is the right challenge to focus on as it results not only in new normal projects, but also in new normal typologies or fields of practice. If in the 20th century we initiated and normalized the architectural typology of the airport terminal, the megatall skyscraper, the data center… what are the new composite, site-specific, socio-ecological landscape-based “hybrid infrastructure” architectural typologies that need to be prototyped in the 21st century? And what are the institutions that need to be created in order to initiate and normalize them? I say normalize again because I truly believe that despite the internal process, the key is to de-radicalise and present our work in ways that are not “experimental”, “exceptional”, “special” but rather “common-sensical”, i.e. appearing as much more common-sensical than the common sense that animates the construction industry at present. Ironically, trying not to be perceived or branded as “radical” presents its own challenge in the given cultural climate, where the word radical is peppered and used almost as a punctuation marker.
Non Extractive Architecture. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
DB: Regarding the curatioral component, the re:arc institute has developed a thorough global survey to identify these specific types of practices.
NB: Yes, the curatorial layer here is integral. I think it’s also a cultural remnant from Strelka Institute as well, where we unapologetically rooted our practical work in design-research, without necessarily emphasizing a strong distinction between both. In the same way that we work with “non-non-profit” practitioners and studios, we partner with individual researchers and academic / non-academic research organizations to assist us in researching and shortlisting possible relevant collaborators. We could probably limit and do this research work internally, but I think there’s value in learning from and catching up to the expertise and experience of these collaborators, also to avoid the modernist impulse of “starting from scratch” or reinventing the wheel at every turn as long as we’re the ones spinning it. I also interpret these research commissions as an added layer or modality for support, geared towards practitioners and practices whose design output clarifies the problem / opportunity space rather than formulating the built response. A good example of a research collaboration during our first year has been the compilation of a joint public Open Directory together with Non-Extractive Architecture, where we combined rolodexes and shared the profiles of the 1000 practices we reviewed and considered for funding during our first 2 inaugural funding cycles with the broader philanthropic and education community.
Material Cultures. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
Another reason why we put some much effort in this curatorial process is that, as mentioned, we want to avoid replicating the competition dynamics of the architecture industry. The 16 practices that were invited to submit proposals in this first year weren’t pitted against one another, weren’t ranked etc. because each one of their proposals responds to highly site-specific conditions. We strive to fund 100% of the proposals that we initiate. For the moment, we’re not looking to publicly launch any call-for-entries or solicit applications “pitches” — these of course have their own pros and cons but would prematurely change the dynamic of the experiment we’re trying to run and learn from. I’m not opposed to more solicited requests for funding in the future, and we are developing a robust model for this very soon, but for the moment we want to prioritize a curatorial process based more on the practice and the relevance of the site / problem space than on an already-developed projects or pitches for funding.
DB: Indeed, it’s a highly trusting process.
NB: Yes. “Trust-based philanthropy” is becoming somewhat of a buzzword but I think it’s applicable in this case, in particular because we’re imposing a very limited scope of requirements on proposals that are submitted: they simply need to stem from the existing expertise of the practice, co-developed with their local community of users, and respond to real clearly identified social and ecological needs in their context. Trust also implies a transparency in the budgeting and documentation process — minimizing the administrative burden of reporting through a streamlined and standardized process we are prototyping with our fantastic pro-bono legal advisors Kromann Reumert — and the explicit invitation to blueprint the project’s outcomes and learnings as a potential case-study for future replicability in other similarly relevant contexts.
Grantees. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
DB: After a case study receives the grant, the next steps involve facilitating not only the realization of the built result but also fostering knowledge exchange.
NB: Yes, the knowledge exchange is a crucial part, which is the last part of the process. I can give an example of the process we are currently going through with the 16 practices from our first year of activity. The first phase — the “Curatorial Phase” — is the phase before we partner with them, where we work with formal and informal research partners such as Space Caviar, Pragma or Kontextur to find and identify relevant practices in response to a range of different research briefs. I would stay that there is no such thing as one type of model practice, but there are patterns in the sense that we are prioritizing mid-sized studios that are neither too established nor too emergent, and rooted in a very specific context where they’ve developed built work in the past so as to establish trusted relationships with a very specific local community of users. These are not “starchitecture” practices “awarded” with a blank check to realise their “dream project”, but neither are they recent grads assisted in realising their first project.
Taller Capital. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
The second phase — the “Proposal Phase” — is where we contact the selected practice, convince them that this isn’t spam, and hire them through a 3-month direct paid commission to work on a site-specific, self-initiated and community-led proposal with a specific local community in their immediate context, with the goal of presenting it back to the re:arc institute and confirm the funding for its realization. As mentioned, this isn’t framed as a competition, and we have frequent check-ins with the practices to ensure that their ongoing proposals fit within our stated mission and available funding. A key component of the approval process is also their strategy for afterlife, maintenance and transfer to their local community, which are ultimately the final owners of the projects. For example, Taller Capital’s proposal put forward the creation of a water-management infrastructure that harvests rainwater runoff for agricultural irrigation, mitigates flooding, and creates a new public space for the peripheral community of San Lucas Xolox (Mexico), which they will operate and animate with the provision of periodic social and recreational services.
Region Austral. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
After approving proposals during our bi-yearly advisory board meetings, the third “Realization Phase” begins where we allocate up to 250 000 EUR for project development, construction and delivery, which can take up to 24 months. We have made a conscious decision not to share project proposals publicly before their completion and unfortunately you won’t find them on our website, but I’m happy to say that 100% of the proposals have been approved so far and that 25% of them are already under construction. For example, our collaborators Region Austral are currently activating over 5100 m2 of public space across 4 sites in one of the 50 informal settlements in Buenos Aires (Argentina), implementing 1200 m2 of inclusive green infrastructure and 150 m2 of rain garden areas for stormwater management.
Finally, to return to your point on knowledge exchange, we see the upcoming fourth and final “Blueprinting Phase” as the phase in which together with each practice we consolidate and package their completed project’s documentation (photographs, videos, documentaries, interviews, but also timelines, budgets, construction drawings etc.) and partner with a local graphic or media design studio to public share the project’s “blueprint”. This open blueprint can be descriptive and informative, but we also see it acting as a potential ”open-call” for future practices to apply and realise a similar project, mentored by the original practice and funded by re:arc within a similar budget. This is very much still in the works as architecture is a slow discipline and we haven’t completed any built projects just yet, but I believe that we can lead by example and put our money where our mouth is by encouraging the use of our own blueprints in this way. Knowledge exchange here therefore also implies applied and amplified knowledge exchange out there in the world.
DB: Interesting, because if we go back to the first concepts that we were talking about, about architects producing media, producing ideas. And now we’re going to the outcome, that is an idea that becomes tangible and visible—an idea realized. However, it’s not just about the final product; it’s about the process and the knowledge gained, which can be effectively transmitted through various formats such as documentation, written material, and documentaries. This ensures the effective transfer of proven knowledge.
NB: Completely. I like this quote or paraphrased statement from Carl Jung where he states that “People don’t have ideas; ideas have people.” What he means is that ideas aren’t proprietary but are held in common, transmitted and transformed and transmuted through people as they pass from one project to another in the same way that buildings evolve over time independently from this or that architects’ intent. As such I think it’s important for us not to lock down one narrative in place but actively encourage the open-ended multiplication and replication of these ideas.
DB: These aspects are interesting because, from my perspective, I’m observing global developments, particularly in terms of the processes driving architecture. This spans from public grants to clients who, at times, act as philanthropists, investing in ideas with social impact despite lacking financial return. Interestingly, this mirrors what one might envision as an architectural incubator, investing in seed stages, MVPs, and focusing on making things happen rather than solely pursuing financial gain in our hyper-capitalistic world.
Social Design Collaborative. Image Courtesy of re:arc institute
NB: Yes, I think we agree that “return on investment” is ultimately an incredibly limited way of thinking about the built environment. I mean, yes, it’s undoubtedly one of the reasons why we may choose to build things, but it can’t be the only incentive or motivation, especially at this time. In this sense, I don’t really think of the Practice Lab as an incubator per se but rather as an alternative or complementary typology of design practice whose purpose is on the one hand to financially support the realization of local site-specific projects, but on the other, to compile learnings and quite literally design an alternative legal and institutional mechanism that allows projects like these to take shape within the nonprofit sector. This institutional project — the design of the lab and its standardized legal blueprint which can be open-sourced scaled across other nonprofit institutions at large — is our design project. And as mentioned early on, we take it as a creative endeavor as equally iterative, stimulating, relevant as any other more easily recognisable design project.
In this sense, we are interested in challenging or triangulating the established and traditionally linear client/architect relationship. In this alternative arrangement, the re:arc institute or the Practice Lab operates as a kind of client, because it provides funding but doesn’t dictate the brief of what needs to be realized. The architecture practice operates as a kind of service provider, albeit not to us, as it deploys expertise and serves its local community of users to uncover a need and formulate a collective self-initiated response. And local users operate not as passive recipients of a top-down outcome, but rather as active co-participants in the design process and ultimately as the ultimate owners and custodians of the project. This triangulated relationship is easy to verbally describe or gesticulate towards, but is much more difficult to formalize and enact contractually… This is therefore the design project we are interested in, distorting terms like “client” or “ROI” beyond recognition meaning that perhaps we now need new terms to describe these new relationships — another design project in itself.
DB: Interesting, because to put it on similar terms as what you mention, this work embodies architecture—it’s just not confined to physical buildings. Its impact extends far beyond the construction of one, two, three, four, or even five buildings, with a wider impact.
NB: Personally, I would say so. At the end of the day, I was trained as an architect, I’m drawn to architecture. I’m interested in shaping the built environment in meaningful and viable ways… And if architecture is a media-based practice, the media I’m interested in extends beyond architectural drawings to include legal standards, protocols, contracts, spreadsheets, all of the “multipliers” — or active forms, to quote Keller Easterling — that transform the built environment when propagated, altering its pattern much more broadly beyond beyond one, two, three, four, five buildings.
DB: This is perhaps a very fulfilling architectural project on itself, very exciting.
NB: I think it’s very exciting. We set up the lab a little over a year ago with multiple staged and nested objectives in mind. Firstly, to fund and help establish a coherent typology of site-specific “hybrid infrastructure” projects, something which we are already doing and exemplifying through a portfolio of 16 projects under development, with 8 more on the way in the next month. Second, to prototype and share a new blueprint / institutional framework for funding in architecture, which is also something we are already circulating to other relevant organizations with the ambition of collectively pooling more resources and establishing a broader philanthropic alliance to support this kind of work. And finally and perhaps most importantly, to promote a different studio culture and ultimately normalize an alternative paradigm for architectural practice, something we will hopefully begin to do more formally over the coming year through more initiatives in education and media.
The reality is that for architects, what we call “climate change” should not only be acknowledged as an irrefutable “process” but also recognised literally as an inadvertent design “project” of the past 400 years. Independent of whichever other cultural or historical architectural narratives, at planetary scale the last 400 years could be bluntly and ruthlessly described as one huge landscape design project in one direction, literally resulting in one huge carbon conveyor belt from the ground up to the atmosphere… For me conceptually this signifies that the next 100 years will require an equally all-encompassing design project, only faster and in reverse. This doesn’t mean at all one large centralized intervention, one top-down solution, one giant carbon capture megacorp… But it does mean a significant and diverse plurality of grounded, site-specific, mitigating and adaptive interventions responding to local social and cultural needs in more viable alignment with the ecological substrates that contain them. We need to design the institutions and ways of working that will enable these interventions to emerge, even and especially if they fall outside comfortable available public/private or profit/non-profit dichotomies. Climate change is not a “puzzle” to be solved because institutionally, we currently don’t have all the pieces. So I’m personally very energized to be working as a designer and architect on this particular layer of the design project.
DB: It’s fascinating because with this final aspect, I believe that amidst these challenging times, architecture has the opportunity to reinvent itself.
NB: Architecture continuously reinvents itself, it can and must continue to do so. It’s a porous, permeable, fundamentally opportunistic discipline in constant state of transformation. So I think given the moment we find ourselves in, it’s important for architecture to drop any remaining internal self-aggrandizing master narratives of “frozen music”, “labor of love” etc. and reaffirm itself quite literally and simply as “work”, i.e. an integral tranche of the tremendous scope of work required in these next 100 years for us to course correct where we’re heading. And not to get too nerdy, but “work” literally means “force” x “displacement”. It’s well known that architects work long hours with great passion and with great force, but what is the vector of displacement? I believe we have a responsibility and role to play in the design and orientation of that vector.
