Design Talks

Observations on design

Sustainable lessons from ‘The Art of Earth Architecture’

Posted on February 11, 2020 by Nargess

The city of Yazd is nestled deep in the desert in Iran’s central plain. This world heritage site is home to a mighty collection of domes – structures made entirely from local raw earth bricks and covered in kah-gel, a protective layering of earth and straw. They are intersected with ingenious wind towers too – early air-cons sending cool air into homes. Then, a clever network of wells and underground water channels, known as quanat, provide Yazdis with water collected from mountains and over long distances. There are intricate mansion homes built during the Qajar dynasty (1789-1925) too, some of which have survived the desert climate and even earthquakes. This is urban planning for people and places, with spectacular visceral impact.

The sensually shaped domes of Iran © André Stevens

We didn’t quite make it to Yazd on a recent trip to Iran – harsh desert storms kept us locked away in nearby Kashan. So, it is hugely exciting to leaf through ‘The Art of Earth Architecture’, and explore the pages dedicated to the raw beauty of Yazd. Published by Thames & Hudson, the book presents a panorama of raw earth structures from around the globe, from ancient times to the present day. And it is a fascinating voyage into an area that seems to have been largely neglected from the history of design. ‘Raw earth is the most humble, most ecological, and most accessible of all construction materials,’ writes the author Jean Dethier in his introduction. ‘It is a treasure lying beneath our feet.’

‘The Art of Earth Architecture’ by Jean Dethier © Thames & Hudson

It turns that for some 10,000 years we have been building homes and schools and palaces and forts and more with raw, unbaked earth. Available in abundance, this simple material is extremely durable and ideal for construction. Often confused with cooked earth (which is treated either baked or fired), raw earth is essentially drawn from the mineral undersoil beneath the fertile land which typically grows crops. There are various forms of raw earth construction too: adobe and rammed earth, cob, wattle, and daub. Civilisations have made villages and cities from this earth, and Dethier sees the material as a means of democratising architecture.

Imaginary buildings using concepts of earth architecture © Josep Esteve

With over 800 photographs and illustrations, the author surveys 450 sites from 75 countries across continents. Featured are the temples and palaces of Mesopotamia and Egypt, the Great Wall of China, the Alhambra in Spain, as well as vernacular heritage and historical cities such as Shibam in Yemen, Djenné in Mali and Marrakech.

Dethier observes contemporary raw earth buildings too – the work of pioneers of modern earth architecture, Francoise Cointereaux and Hassan Fathy, as well as those by celebrated architects Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier, Frances Kéré, Wang Su, Norman Foster and Renzo Piano.

Houses in Wadi Dawan, Yemen © Trevor Marchand

‘The Art of Earth Architecture’ brings together archaeology and history, culture and technology with a speculative eye on how we can harness lessons learned from the ancient art of sustainable raw earth building to benefit the now and the future. Dethier is an architect himself, as well as curator, essayist, and activist who has been awarded the prestigious Grand Prix d’Architecture for his contribution to the democratisation of architectural cultures.

He believes raw earth building to be a viable, ecological alternative to current construction methods, noting that the use of this natural material requires neither industrial transformation nor high energy consumption, and it doesn’t produce harmful gases. The author says contemporary earth architecture has proved its worth in terms of relevance, reliability, and quality, making it a convincing substitute for cement and concrete for small or medium-sized buildings.

Rammed earth columns by Steven Jimel for the 2008 Villa Janna, Marrakech © Nic LeHoux

The book sets out a bold ecological manifesto with articles by renowned researchers and practitioners – including those of the CRAterre group, the research laboratory on earthen architecture founded in 1979. They provide a radical yet real argument for earth construction to play a much more pivotal role in the fight against climate deregulation. The history of raw architecture is about need, resources, and skills. Writes Dethier: ‘It is vital that we change the economic logic of the building industry, creating a new model that favours the use of local natural resources.’

Jean-Louis Cohen, Sheldon H. Solow Professor in the History of Architecture at New York University Institute of Fine Arts, says the book ‘convincingly demonstrates that the renaissance of earth architecture is no longer merely a pipe dream, but has become a tangible ecological reality – and this is very much thanks to the active militancy of its authors’.

Artist Silla Camara works on a mural in Djajibinni, Mauritania, 1985 © Josep Esteve

And perhaps the incredible architectural beauty and heritage sites spread across the pages of ‘The Art of Earth Architecture’, including the Yazd that I’m destined to see one day, teach us a valuable lesson: sometimes the best solutions are to be found in the most humble, the most low-tech places. This is the history of buildings and architecture, cities and settlements, of planning spaces for people and places.

‘The Art of Earth Architecture’ by Jean Dethier is published by Thames & Hudson and out on 27 February 2020

Flexi Pix City learns from self-driving cars

Posted on February 9, 2020 by Nargess

We are at a really critical time in history – more than 70% of the world’s population is migrating to cities over the next 30 years, and technology is completely altering our reality. We have to rethink how we live, work, interact, consume … I see this as a hugely exciting time. And there are some very exciting innovators and thinkers and designers working on highly progressive concepts. Here’s the latest one I came across

Brave new word: Reflections on 2019, predictions for 2020

Posted on January 4, 2020 by Nargess

Needless to say, it has been a turbulent introductory decade to the new millennium with so much profound change and so many challenges ahead. Yet, even as dark as it is politically around the world, and hopeless as it feels with our planet’s health and our people’s happiness, we may have climbed the steepest part. Joan Didion wrote, ‘I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see, and what it means.’ Great words. I’ve been writing most of my life, and the decade gone has been the most challenging and possibly exciting. In particular, the last twelve months have pushed me to explore beyond my comfort zone and to stay focused despite the chaos that surrounds us. It is equally terrifying and thrilling visiting new people and places, discovering new ideas and worlds that shift the mindset – question the dogmas.

Citroen Ami One provides a new concept for shared transport electric cars — Citroen’s futuristic electric car Ami One

So, what have I learned? Our lives may not look quite the dystopian vision pictured by the 1980s films ‘Blade Runner’ or ‘Running Man’. Many of us live in homes with doors and windows and refrigerators, and still, drive rectangular cars with four wheels and a conventional engine. But our homes and refrigerators and cars talk to one another and with bigger forces. And, in the way these plots predicted, corrupt elites around the world are gaining power over hopeless populations through media manipulation. The films all have happy endings though.

Extinction Rebellion at the V&A uses bold graphics that are universally understood

This year I met visionary artists, architects, designers, scientists, musicians who are collectively pushing their creative forces to find better solutions for how we live, drive, learn, wear, eat. I drove some conventional motor cars, relics of a bygone era, almost dinosaurs unwilling to give up pleasure when it is clearly killing our planet. I met self-congratulating architects and designers reluctant to part with their egos, still creating work with little social relevance. But then, I also experienced hugely progressive design – community-building, socially-engaged housing projects, and transport ideas envisaged and created by generations embracing change.

Lautre riveimpressions cyanotypes disparaissant progressivement à la lumière du soleil,Irak, Syrie, Turquie, Grèce, Allemagne, Danemark, France, 2011-2017. — Émeric Lhuisset’s ‘L’autre rive’ depicts scenes of the sea where many migrants vanish

Look beyond the headlines and there is much progress out these. Women in art and design are finally getting noticed – as was evident in the number of powerful exhibitions dedicated to lost females of creativity. Vehicles coming off production lines are cleaner, safer and smarter. They may not conjure up the immediate visceral joy of the motor car in its golden age, but why should that matter? Why can’t they instead have their own language to express the new era of clean transport – this brighter future ahead of us. There is huge visceral joy in that. Likewise, with the global population expected to increase to 9.8 billion by 2050, we have to rethink urban planning, architecture, and design, examine health (physical and mental), produce and food, work towards a green economy. And there is excitement in all this. We need to step outside the nostalgia lane and shift our attitudes.

Goldsmith-Street — Mikhail Riches Architects, Cathy Hawley’s RIBA Sterling Prize-winning social housing project

Which brings me to another subject which will increasingly shape the world in this coming decade: movement and migration. Kwame Anthony Appiah writes, ‘cultures are made of continuities and changes, and the identity of a society can survive through these changes. Societies without change aren’t authentic; they’re just dead.’ Towards the final days of the 2010s, I met with a visual artist concerned with the narrative given to the refugee. I am always amazed at how a term, a simple word, can alter the image of a displaced people: émigré, migrant, immigrant, refugee – the first carries such romantic notions, the last such demons. Émeric Lhuisset’s work is a critique of a global culture where facts and truths are in danger of losing all meaning. He offers an alternative story to media photography of war and migrants, with its immediate yet temporary digital age shock value. His is about the power of a photograph, of art to influence humanity’s collective consciousness.

Michael Anastassiades: A Fountain for London — Michael Anastassiades’s ‘A Fountain for London’ are site-specific drinking water fountains

My predictions for 2020? There are huge challenges ahead of us as we figure out how to balance the physical and digital world – how much of our privacy and freedom to give away for security, how to shift our attitude and lifestyle to help better this world, how to be more generous with ourselves and our skills, and towards our planet. And we all need to be involved and be held accountable. Too many rely on others to make things happen. And we need a certain amount of optimism. I am convinced more than ever that, to borrow from the words of another great female Louise bourgeois, ‘art is the guarantee of sanity’. Here’s to a new decade of possibilities.

Take a look at my articles in Forbes Life and Wallpaper*.

Discover innovative, extreme, ingenious urban designs in ‘The Contemporary House’

Posted on February 11, 2019 by Nargess

The Bauhaus, 100 this year, has impacted tremendously on the creative world ideologically and aesthetically. It has transformed how we design our homes, the objects we choose to live with, and urban life. Yet, the 21^st century is facing its own unique and hugely urgent challenges – globalisation, rapid urbanisation and rising environmental concerns. Cities are overcrowded, new buildings must meet stringent energy requirements and negotiate a myriad of planning regulations. They need to address their surroundings; form progressive narratives with history – hopefully. Contemporary urban architecture is, therefore, a complex jigsaw-puzzle with invention, innovation and imagination as critical as ever.

‘The Contemporary House’ takes on this very theme. Written by Jonathan Bell and Ellie Stathaki, both architectural critics and editors at Wallpaper* magazine, and published by Thames & Hudson, this is an insightful study of new city living. It is organised geographically as a way of understanding regional dialogues, and features seventy of the world’s most innovative, extreme and ingenious houses. The book reviews how modern residential design is integrated into the existing urban fabric for a fascinating insight into the variety of contemporary approaches to urban design.

Some of the traditional vernacular forms such as terraced homes, townhouses and isolated villas are being questioned today, as are the repercussions of the 20^th century’s suburban sprawls and their poor land use. ‘The Contemporary House’ sees new philosophies of minimalism replacing some of the more indulgent structures of the past. For instance, it refers to a new shape called ‘the stack’ – one that is compact, space-conscious and insulated. Amidst the fear of homogenisation of cities, there is a tendency for more self-expression in the contemporary homes too. Most importantly, the 21^st century is defined by the urgency for thinking sustainably and imaginatively in reusing resources.

As cities become ever-congested, as we face the challenges of an ageing population and mass migration, and as we work towards a sustainable future – architects, designers and urban planners will need to continue to expand on the principals laid out by the Bauhaus members one-hundred years ago. To quote the school’s founder, Walter Gropius, ‘To have the gift of imagination is more important than all technology.’

All images are under ©. In order of appearance: Lee-Chin Crystal at Royal Ontario Museum by Studio Daniel © Nikreates/Alamy Stock Photo; Amsterdam’s Inntel Hotel by WAM Architecten © Frans lemmens/Alamy Stock Photo; The Shard in London by Renzo Piano © CW Images/Alamy Stock Photo; Glenn Murcutt’s houses Sydney suburb © Paul Lovelace/Alamy Stock Photo; Via 57 West in Manhattan by BIG © imageBROKER/Alamy Stock Photo

Utopian visions: SO-IL’s MINI Living at Salone del Mobile

Posted on April 11, 2017 by Nargess

In 2011, the Japanese architect Sou Fujimoto built a house in central Tokyo designed to break with the traditional codes of living. His House NA challenges ideas of comfort and of privacy – the lightweight living hubs stack one on top of another to be inhabited privately or collectively, and are exposed to the busy surrounding city.

House NA is meant to be provocative, a visual argument for exploring new forms of architecture that respond to a new way of urban living. MINI Living – Breathe reminds me of Fujimoto’s project for it is also exploring living away from the traditional single-family house unit for an imaginative and unexpected dialogue.

Exhibited as part of Milan’s coveted Salone del Mobile and Fuorisalone, Breathe is the third architectural installation in the MINI Living ideas-sharing initiative launched last year. Along with its parent company BMW Group, MINI has been active in investigating the role of the car going forward – questioning its position as a vehicle, looking at how it can respond to our changing lives, going as far as to question private ownership.

MINI Living is taking these ideas further by working with architects to study new utopian solutions. The first of the proposals Do Disturb, shown here in Milan last year, touched on the idea of shared and collaborative living spaces in urban areas. Then Asif Khan’s Forests at the London Design Festival in September offered additional city hubs with communal access. Breathe wants the physical building to connect its inhabitants to their natural surroundings and the environment. And it feels like the most complete study so far.

Here MINI worked closely with New York architecture practice SO-IL to imagine a structure that amplifies the awareness of our physical surroundings and the environment, explains its principal Ilias Papageorgiou as we wonder around the mesh structure that seems to organically work its way through the busy buildings of via Tortona extending high up into the sky.

The mesh skin is semi-transparent, flexible, and self-cleaning; it also filters the air and floods the building with natural light. The inhabitants of Breathe are at once connected to natural resources – to sunlight through the mesh, to water that gets collected on the roof, and to air that is purified by the façade. The building structure is prefabricated and, following the Milan debut, will be dismantled and re-imagined in another city.

Breathe is concerned with the building giving back to life, working on the idea of a home as an active ecosystem that makes a positive contribution to its environment. Papageorgiou says: ‘Our lives are changing; our living is changing. Traditional boundaries between living and work are becoming more blurred and our lives are much more mobile and precarious. So, maybe we don’t need more space but different types of spaces – more shared spaces.’

Breathe dismisses the traditional organisation of the residential house for a vertical stack. The communal lounge and dining areas are positioned on the ground level, a level up houses the sleeping and bathing area replete with a charming open-air shower surrounded by wild plant life, whilst at the top we are greeted by an exotic garden with extensive views over Milan and a chance to peak through some of the roof terrace apartments.

This is a building with no formal narrative as such. Through the manipulation of air, light and water a series of atmospheres, spaces and experiences form organically to be treated for collective experiences or intimate and private activities.

‘We see this as an opportunity to reflect on such pressing issues as the sustainable future of our cities and this idea of conscious living,’ says Papageorgiou. He notes that his practice takes a more holistic approach with all its projects, adding, ‘we feel there are no quick fixes or magic solutions. For us it is more about changing attitudes and the process.’

Breathe feels alive as it changes its mood with every movement of light, constantly evolving, almost teasing with its play on privacy, another reminder of the Japanese house and the use of semi-transparent dividing walls that allow a little exposure but retain a sense of delicate, subtle privacy.

Papageorgiou seems delighted by the comparison. ‘The core of our work involves exploring different relationships between space, the ideas of open and closed, through layering of fabrics, light and shadow to create various experiences from intimate to private to collective.’

Breathe is light, informal and transient. Oke Hauser, architect and creative lead on the MINI Living project, tells me the idea is to break away from the rigidity of architecture that is perhaps too logical, static and ‘glued together,’ he offers. ‘We hope to trigger ideas on what architecture can become, look at new ways of building and how a house can perform in this way – always with a focus on the people who live inside the building. Architecture can be stuck on old ideas and we think we need to come up with new creative solutions.’

Nargess Banks

Read our previous reports from Milan design week