# An Architecture "des humeurs" by R&Sie(n)

photograph by Matthieu Kavyrchine

I already published some information about R&Sie(n)'s exhibition An Architecture "des humeurs" but I thought it was definitely worth it to introduce less the exhibition in itself and more of the speculation as much as emphasizing the fact that R&Sie(n) is one of the extremely rare architectural offices who offer the totality of documents and information on their website.

As an introduction of Francois Roche's lecture at Columbia last week, Mark Wigley brilliantly elaborated on the fact that a lot of contemporary architects are self proclaimed "experimental", "provocative", "on the edge", "innovative"; however the proper of such characteristics is to disturb people by their novelty and few architectures can be defined as suchnowadays. Wigley then affirmed that Roche was one of those few who lead you in the uncomfortable zones of experimental architectures and narratives.

Only a little has been written about An Architecture "des humeurs", and a lot of us can see in this fact a proof that consensual architecture only is leading the current (non)-debate of ideas whereas true research is being underrated. One could possibly argue that this speculation remains too much on the surface, and that rather than dealing with a dozen of dimensions of the project, R&Sie(n) should have confront with the depth of only of them. Nevertheless, from his own words, Francois Roche prefers to "swim between the surface and the abysses, from speculation to fiction until the negotiation with ambiguous and contradictory forces of the here and now".

As a result, An Architecture "des humeurs" attempts -and often succeeds- to articulate all together neurosciences, robotic, politics, mathematics, engineering, biology, computation and philosophy. To do so, R&Sie(n) spent those two last years working with mathematicians, scientists, robotic designers, artists, philosophers and developed a debate of ideas (see previous article) at the same time than proposed its speculation.

The exhibition was first commissioned by Le Laboratoire in Paris and is currently moving between Basel and Graz.

The official website of An Architecture "des humeurs", as I wrote above is extremely rich and generous in information so I recommend to explore the following categorized links:

Links and Press articles

Synapses Speeches
-Event the 16th of February / Paris / Some transcripts included

Pictures
- Models
- Prototypes
- Exhibition

An architecture des humeurs
- Intro (English/Francais)

Credits

Physiomorphologies
– “Humeurs”
– Temperaments linked to the four “humeurs”
– Bio-chemistry
– Physiological interview through Nano-particles
– Data extracted from Ip(m) / Interview
– Set theory
– Mathematical inputs which affects the physio-morphologies
– Transactional relation operations
– Schemas and formulations
– Morphological definitions
– Morphological stratum
– From mathematical equations to computational procedures.
– Morphologies resultants

Multitude
- Assemblage
- Strategies of aggregation
- Morphologies
- Tribal arborescences

Mathematical operators for structural optimization
- Calculation parameters
- Inputs received via a text file of the morphology
- Forces and constraints taken as system inputs
- Shape optimization
- Protocols of tests
- Calculation on physio-morphologies
- Profile resultant

Alg(s)
- Global+local association

Robotic + Substances
- Robotic Movie
- From the “Algorithm(s)” to bio-knit physicality
- Morphologies-Weaving / Bondage

Bio-cement secretions/ extrusions
- Tooling / Weaving concrete bio-polymer (material expertise)
- Recipe of the bio-component
- Comparison concrete/bio-concrete
- Tests of secretion-weaving concrete bio-polymer
- Structural Computation of weaving
- Y Fragment

Machinisme
- Tooling / Robotic process
- Description
- Definition / Fluidic Muscle
- Research and Development

Script/Computation/Text-files
- Schemas
- Scripts

Other
- Affective Substances
- Natural machine

Credits
…
…
-R&Sie(n) / Le Laboratoire / 2010
-Scénario, design, production : R&Sie(n)

Associé à :
-François Jouve / Process mathématiques
-Winston Hampel, Natanel Elfassy / Computations (with some help of Marc Fornes)
-Stephan Henrich / Process et Design Robotique
-Gaëtan Robillard, Frédéric Mauclere, Jonathan Derrough / Design

et Process de captations physiologiques
-Berdaguer et Péjus / Scénario Nano-récepteurs
-Mark Kendall / Microneedles
-Delphine Chevrot / Takako Sato / “The Lift”
-Candice Poitrey / Interview Physiologique
&
-Chris Younes / Machine Naturelle
&
-Jiang Bin, architecte
-Laura Bellamy
-Rosalie Laurin

# The Oblique Function by Claude Parent and Paul Virilio

Sometimes I like to revisit the classics ! The Oblique Function was first developed in the 60's by Architecture Principe (Claude Parent & Paul Virilio) and since then is still the main element of Parent's architecture (see previous article).
The idea was to tilt the ground in order to revolutionize the old paradigm of the vertical wall. In fact, being inclined, the wall becomes experiencable and so are the cities imagined by the two French architects. The oblique is fundamentally interested in how a body physically experience a space. The slope implies an effort to climb up and a speed to climb down; this way the body cannot abstract itself from the space and feel the degrees of inclination.
Parent and Virilio associated this research with their bunker archeology (see previous article) in order to design the Church Sainte Bernadette in Nevers (France) that I should probably include in a near future article...
Claude Parent demonstrated the quality of the oblique for the French Pavilion at the 1970 Venice Biennale as I already wrote in a former article.

# City of the Future by Cedric Price

the addition of continuous mobility to industrial plants previously considered static

City of the Future is a series of drawings Cedric Price accomplished in 1965 as a summary of the vision of architecture he has been developing with earlier projects like the Fun Palace in 1961. This city is both technophiles and hyper-infrastructural as an architectural manifesto for the 60's and Price followers (Archigram, Japanese metabolists, Yona Friedman, Paul Maymont etc.)

the ability to be aware from both above and below, of the mass of support, shelter and concealment that the city offers

An increasing discontinuity of artificial services as the whole becomes more responsive to both the user and natural conditioning
the height- airspace

and the depth- subterranean and submarine, will increase primarily for global and regional energy transfer & communications

Recognition of the familiar - coloured by alteration of scale & relevance

Air and water will become major structural elements - sheltering, supporting & positioning

Increasing visual acuity amongst citizens combine with miniaturization and task acceleration of electronics should establish a new metropolitan awareness of both speed and interval

The environmental and operational advantages of the coast line -both natural and man made- is likely to encourage future urban development in coastal zones.

The potential of phased movement of goods, shelter and equipment by means of mechanical & magnetic suspension

Existing buildings in new roles - the buried social archeological relic...
... and the recognizable shell prepared for new uses.

The traditional legal and physical union between home/house and the land on which it stands will fragment enabling new variants of ownership & siting.

# Constant's New Babylon / Models

After yesterday's post about Constant's New Babylon's drawings, today is the one about his models. Once again, the same pictures are always visible but it exists a multitude of others; those following are only the visible side of the iceberg.
If you want to read more about Constant and New Babylon, I recommend the excellent book from Mark Wigley, Constant's New Babylon: the hyper-architecture of desire

Those models pictures are excerpted from two books:
- Libero Andreotti & Xavier Costa. Situationists. Art, politics, urbanism. Actar 1996
- Mark Wigley. Constant's New Babylon: the hyper-architecture of desire. 010. 1998

# Constant's New Babylon / Drawings

"The labyrinth as a dynamic conception of space, as opposed to static perspective. But also, an above all, the labyrinth as a structure for mental organization and creative method, wanderings and errors, passes and impasses, luminous breakaways and tragic seclusion, in the generalized mobility of the times (more apparent than real), the grand dialectic of open and closed, of solitude and communion".

Jean-Clarence Lambert. Situationists. Art, politics, urbanism. Actar 1996

I am surprised how much the same images are being dwelled on when one writes about Constant's New Babylon. However, it exists a lot of drawings and models (next post) that are rarely shown and I thought it would be interesting to bring them on.
This issue is actually symptomatic of the fact that most amazing projects are being seen in a very narrow vision forgetting their very essence.

New Babylon is a labyrinthine city that host the nomadic behavior of what Constant calls "the homo ludens" (latin name for the playful human). It is the architectural materialization of Gilles Ivain's Formulary for a new Urbanism, Henri Lefebvre's theory of moments and situations' construction and the Situationist' Unitary Urbanism Bureau that was promoting the "derive continue" (continuous drift) as an experience of the city.

The following drawings are extracted from two (great) books:

- Libero Andreotti & Xavier Costa. Situationists. Art, politics, urbanism. Actar 1996
- Mark Wigley & Catherine deZegher. The activist drawings. The MIT Press 2001