The architectural space

 

The space of architecture is often identified with the soul, a volatile substance of air, in which the user’s life goes on. Among the many components of architecture the space is the most mysterious part of its essence, of the core itself. At the same time it slips out of the mathematical, experimentally verified design methods the most. One gets the impression that such an important part is not designed by the architect to a greater extent, than that of the design of the shape and nature of its boundaries, or the walls. The architecture is seen as a vessel filled with air, and the architect focuses his efforts on the materials, technology and design of the vessel. The building logic is subordinated in the vast majority to the logic of the weight and mass of matter, the border point of this weight and mass is visibility of the matter. The architect usually is aware that throughout the toil of building there is all about the inner emptiness, which is usually not seen with the naked eye, and where the life goes on, but in the design process it is resulted in the matter of the architectural vessel.

 

During the discussion on the contemporary architecture the primary role of the atmosphere of the architectural space is increasingly emphasized, including its analysis and the conscious design in the process of the architectural work.

 

The nature of the interior space is defined from the different points of view, usually as a reservoir of many rich experiences of a man immersed in it. It is a common experience that the life goes on in that inner "emptiness" of the architecture, it absorbs the breath of the people; the words, the voices and odors resound and get absorbed by it, it envelops us and even more than just envelops, it penetrates us. Especially the breath reminds a human about the constant air exchange inside the living body and in the surrounding space. This exchange is at the source of the feeling of the so much intimate and multi-level contact with the space. The experience of the intimate relations of the human and every living organism with the space is confirmed by the poetic intuitions and physical studies at the microscopic scale. The expression of this experience is, for example, the feeling that the space has a memory that captures and retains the past effects of life, and even the unspoken thoughts. The space, therefore, seems not only full of the particles of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen and other elements, but firstly the all energy, related to the work of brain and the whole body of the organisms, immersed in it, according to the law of the conservation of energy. We suspect that once arisen energy wave of thoughts cannot disappear, but remains somewhere and keeps circling. This enigmatic "somewhere" is a space related to a specific place.

 

The nature of the space used to be searched for with the closed eyes to give it for testing the sense of hearing, touch and smell. The light, above all, and sometimes the colors of the gas, which is a component of air, can be seen in the space. One can also see the motion of the space, its current, which entrains the particles of the visible matter, but in this case the sense of touch appears to be more sensitive and reliable. In the Wim Wenders film If Buildings Could Talk the heroes walk at the Rolex Learning Center in Lausanne, stop and close their eyes. You may guess that they come in the intimate contact with the space of the building beyond the sense of sight. The properties of the space such as the heat of light, the vastness of space and the time are better to be experienced by immersing the body in it, listening to it and moving in it.

 

Gilles Deleuze in his classic book[1] from the late 20th century develops the baroque theory of Leibniz and draws the attention to the continuity of matter and spirit in an uninterrupted continuation of the movements in the visible and invisible world. The illustration of the continuity is current for Deleuze the Leibniz model of the house, where the ground floor (the human body) lets the outside world through the windows (the senses) inside, and the floor (the human soul) is a closed box, connected to the ground floor with the stimuli-responsive membrane. In a dark office space the matter stimuli generate the world of consciousness. This model resembles a musical instrument, in which the apparent motion of matter is the source of the invisible sound. The Leibniz fold, set in the context of the modern science, also shows the relationship between the senses of the mind together belonging to the body, and reveals the limits conventionality of the scientific fields that bypass the smooth transition from one state to another.

 

The importance of the invisible space in the architecture was strongly emphasized during the 12th Biennale of Architecture in Venice in 2010, which was curated by Kazuyo Sejima. The Yunyi Ishigami [2]project, presented in Arsenal, exhibited literally "the air architecture", suggesting the participant of the exhibition to tune his perception to cross the border of the visible mass density and, thanks to the work of the mind, to feel, in some sense to "see", the invisible air mass

 

 

The meteorological architecture

 

Crossing the borders of visible in the design of the architecture can be taken as a scientific penetration of the physical and chemical components of the architectural space and the human body, immersed in it. The studies of the space are focused directly on the internal air environment of the building, not on the walls and the architectural matter vessels. They take for workshop the architectural atmosphere itself, which can be understood literally as the design of its air conditions.

 

This method tries to break away from the treatment of the atmosphere of the architecture as simply resulting in the shape and type of the matter of the architectural walls. However, it includes to the scope of the study of the architectural atmosphere the environment of the human body, immersed in the atmosphere. Thanks to the modern science and technology it is possible here to obtain very precise levels of distinctions, flows, responses and predictions. At the same time, such researches are increasingly available. The interpretation of the architectural atmosphere features on a similar principle as explanations of the climate and weather causes a common understanding and rationalization of the methods that are objective, subordinated to the laws of physics and chemistry, and thus freed from the aesthetic and representative workloads.

 

The father of the meteorological architecture, the author of its manifesto, theories, experimental experiences, architectural designs and implementations was a Swiss architect Philippe Rahm, who together with Jean-Gilles Décosterd founded a design office in Lausanne in 1995.  In the manifesto "The Meteorological architecture" Rahm wrote:

 

"The tools of the architecture must become invisible and light, creating this was places like free, open landscapes, new geography, different types of meteorology renewing the idea of form and use between sensation and phenomenon, between the neurological and the meteorological, between the physiological and the atmospheric. They become spaces without meaning, without narration: letting to be interpreted spaces, in which the margins disappear, the structures dissolve and the boundaries disappear. The problem is no longer to build the images and features, but to open the climates and interpretations; the work on the space, the air and its movements, on  the phenomena of conduction, convection, perspiration  as a transitive and variable meteorological conditions, which become the new standards for the contemporary architecture”.[3]

 

The novelty is not in the design of a specific atmosphere in the building, but in an attempt to create such an atmosphere with a minimum participation of the visible architecture. In this case it is dealt with maximization of the process of building the specific climatic conditions that determine the nature and limits of the architectural space. The novelty here is a method of the design of the architecture as the environmental with certain meteorological parameters.  It is extremely the non-aesthetic trend of the architecture, which can be seen as a sign of the decadence of the late 20th century with the mannered implementation of the idea to cross borders, the pursuit of lightness, speed, transparency, accuracy[4]; aiming to free architecture of the weight and mass of the density condensing the image. On the other hand, the meteorological architecture uses the obvious, undeniable phenomena of the atmosphere and aspires to the trend of environmental, economic and practical architecture, rationally managing the laws of the nature. The idea of ​​the Rahms works is the design and building the space as given, expected climatic environment of the precisely generated parameters that determine the "weather". It can be seen that for Rahm the area of experimentation and radical solutions are the systems where he tries his ideas and verifies their operation by the public. In the design of housing and public space Rahm is more pragmatic and limited by the reality of the optimal conditions of the human life. In any case, the architectural spaces and the person staying in them form the only physiological and energy system, in which the flows and changes occur.

The knowledge of the principles that control the environmental climate on the precision levels and ability to manage them are the basis of logic and economics of the Rahm climate projects. Consequently, there is formed the architectural proposal with the intelligent and subtle or even weak affiliations, subordinated to the natural laws physical laws of the environment of the architecture and the human body.

 

In the native language of Rahm one word defines "weather" and "time." French le temps, or Italian il tempo denoting both time and weather shows a deep connection between these two phenomena, the weather at the same time can be seen as a category of time. The weather, the derivative of time, becomes, next to an extent, one of the most important features of the space. Designing weather in the interior of the room is also designing time, the characteristics of which produce a predetermined space, model and change it.

 

 

 

 

Philippe Rahm Architectural atmospheres

 

 

During several years of the architectural practice Rahm explores with the varied intensity the phenomena, shaping the atmosphere. The substance of his atmospheric projects are:

- Radiation and electromagnetic spectrum
- Humidity, evaporation
- Air pressure
- conductivity
- convection
- digestion

 

 

Radiation and the spectrum of light

(the electromagnetic phenomena, the wavelengths of light)

 

At the beginning of his creative work, in 1998-2005, Rahm was building the climate of his spaces mainly by the phenomenon of radiation and the spectrum of light (the electromagnetic spectrum), stimulating the endocrine system, the state of mind and the body of man.

 

Hormonorium, the installation, the 8th Biennale of Architecture in Venice, 2002

 

At the Architecture Biennale in Venice in 2002, Rahm (together with Jean-Gilles Décosterd) in the Swiss pavilion showed the Hormonorium installation, allowing the direct and immediate feeling of the artificially generated climate. The rapidity of the weather changes was so high that it required good health of the visitors. In front of the pavilion the nurses checked the state of the heart and circulatory system of those willing to enter. After crossing the border of the room the eye did not see its edges, because of a bright, glowing white. The sight recorded the brightness of the air more than the shape of the interior of the room. Slowly the other receptors became more important than the sense of sight, particularly those associated with breathing, sense of balance and orientation.

On the white, rectangular and soft benches one could sit or lie down, relax and feel a direct connection of the body with the surrounding space. The climate inside was physically present in every breath that became more and more conscious and shallow.

 

Rahm and Décosterd generated in Hormonorium the atmosphere with a reduced amount of oxygen from 21% to 14.5%, typical for the height of 3000 m above the sea level, or the level of the mountain glaciers. This climate stimulates the human endocrine system in it, and therefore his state of mind and behavior.

 

"Breathing the air with reduced oxygen causes the body state of hypoxia, revealing firstly the confusion, disorientation, and then also euphoria, because of the production of endorphins in the brain. After about 12 minutes of staying in the interior it can be measured the naturally elevated level of erythropoietin (EPO), affecting the work of the circulatory and respiratory systems. EPO is produced by the kidneys and it is the type of protein, which is a hormone that stimulates the production of red blood cells, increasing the supply of oxygen to the muscles. The oxygen reduction has the effect of doping and it can improve the efficiency of the body up to 10%."[5]

 

The source of light locating in the floor simulated the sunlight, reflected off the white snow and glacier. This effect was achieved by placing under the floor of the Plexiglas the 528 fluorescent lamps emitting the light of the spectrum of solar UV-A and UV-B rays with an intensity of between 5,000 to 10,000 lux. The floor source of the lighting directly affected the position of the eyes, which were instinctively avoiding the contact with glaring gleam, and the reactions of the eyelids and pupils.

 

It stimulated the eye retina and led to a reduction in the secretion of melatonin in the body, which in turn eliminated the feeling of sleepiness and fatigue and made the body more energized and the mood more stable. Similarly, due to the presence of UV-A rays, a sense of satisfaction rises in people. However, UV-B rays affect the synthesis of vitamin D, which is necessary for the maintenance of good health. The intense light was spread on the white surfaces of the room uniformly at any point, affecting the weakening of orientation in space.

 

Hormonorium constituted a climate that directly affected the physiology of the body submerged in it regardless of the geography and context. In this case, the meteorological architecture is de-geographical and de-contextual, bringing to generate the artificial climate island. In Hormonorium one can test the Deleuze principle of the continuity of the animate and inanimate matter. One can see its activities in the continuation of impact of the environmental substances on the physiology of the living body and the vital processes of the human. The spatial environment of Hormonorium interior and the human physiological environment form a system of the connected vessels.

 

Despite the immediacy of impact on the human body the system was devoid of the references of meaning and aesthetic, shaping the perception of the architecture through the reflection and the intellect apparatus. However, it effected in the strengthening of the social welfare. Hormonorium demonstrated experimentally the impact of the atmosphere and environmental climate on the relationships between people, as it was the public space at the same time. The people stayed there showed the behavior and the state of mind typical for the hammam and the temple at the same time. A curiosity of another person while holding the body by the action of harmony and balance, and a sense of the purification of body and mind has become typical for that atmosphere.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jardin D'Hybert Winterhouse, Vendée, France, 2002

 

The project of a private house for Fabrice Hubert in Vendee in the southern France proposes the subordination of the parent body to the functions of light, heating and ventilation installations, which make the atmosphere inside the house. Rahm interprets the space of the house as the climate island with the humidity on the optimal level of 50% and a temperature of 20 degrees by Celsius throughout the year, regardless of the outside temperature, eg. 5 degrees by Celsius in winter in Vendee. However, Rahm does not stop the design of the atmosphere of the house on three parameters and three installations, but he goes further in the process of building of the many complex components of weather typical for the climate zone, in which the temperature, humidity and brightness have been identified, namely the tropical zone. The basis of generating such the complicated atmosphere is the ground of a certain temperature, chemical and biological composition, in which naturally the certain exotic plants grow, in turn stimulating the appearance of the specific mineral substances and microorganisms in the air. The light installation here is to simulate the sunlight, typical of subtropical with its intensity and duration. In this way Rahm has achieved in the project the architectural atmosphere of the house close to the weather, typical for a completely different geographical location and climatic zone.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ghost Flat, Center of the Contemporary Art Kitakyushu, Japan, 2004

 

The Ghost Flat installation represents the living interior subordinated to the climate and electromagnetic phenomena to the extent where they by definition do not have the specific physical dimensions. This uncertainty is obtained by shifting the viewer's perception from the typical size of recorded vision and metrically measurable to the new dimensions, simulated by light. Thus the obtained ambiguity, continuity and interchangeability of the space synchronize the presence of spatial sizes in an apartment beyond the metrically measurable sizes. The apartment program, including a bedroom, living room and bathroom occupies the same space by the weight and inches, but it changes its size in the spaces of light, in the fractions of the electromagnetic spectrum. The bedroom appears in the electromagnetic fraction in size between 400 and 500 nanometers, the living-room - between the wavelengths from 600 to 800 nanometers, the bathroom in the electromagnetic spectrum between 350 and 400 nanometers, which is in the ultraviolet.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The second Summer Temporal distortion Eybesfeld’s Island, Austria, 2005

 

This project concerns the place of the creation of a climate of the nonstop summer, lasting beyond the astronomy, climate and natural environment of this Austrian corner. This is (according to Rahm) the design of time more than the design of the space. The project assumes the creation of the climate island in the area of ​​200 square meters. The warm ground is the generator of the artificial summer here, it is held at 8-12 degrees by Celsius throughout the year. This heat has to provide the ground with its interior with the help of the ground-water pump fitted with a geothermal poll, recessed in the ground at the level of 160 meters. This poll is connected to a water circuit, recessed at 25 centimeters below the surface. Thanks to the poll the water is 35 degrees by Celsius and warms the earth to the needed temperature. "In the winter, a strange plant population will grow there (...), stray in this incredible summer." [6]– Rahm writes. The project of the island of the nonstop summer in the Austrian environment assumes also the creation of light, typical for the summer solstice on June 21, with its duration and brightness. Thus, the day on the island will be throughout the year equally long and last 15 hours and 53 minutes. The every day morning will be at 5.03 and the night - at 23.51, even if in the winter outside the island it will be the long dark night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jour Noir, the installation shown in Gdansk in 2005

 

Jour Noir project, which is a provocative negative of the phenomenon Nuit Blanche ("the white night" as a sleepless night) proposes the time shifting in the area of Szopa ans Kamienna streets in Gdansk. Rahm wants to create night in the middle of the day by his project in a specific location of the city and to induce the conditions triggering the pedestrians. "It is the perverse response to the continuous day created by modernity, internet and the modern globalization" – Rahm says[7]. The effect can be achieved by placing six special lamps emitting the cold and invisible electromagnetic radiation, similar to the one that is sent by the night sky. The nocturnal light lamp has the black emitter absorbing the light spectrum and the glycol water at a temperature of about 0 degrees by Celsius. The place for the cooler is predicted under a nearby bridge. The lamps produce so black and cold light giving the effect of a mini-night during a bright day. An extension of the project was to be the installation of city bed, allowing sleeping during the day on the streets. "At the head of the bed two loudspeakers exude The Nocturnes for piano by Frederic Chopin, as well as the pieces by other composers and musicians such as Debussy, Glinka and John Field ..."[8] – Rahm writes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Interior Weather installation, the Canadian Centre for the Architecture in Montreal, the 2006 Biennale of Contemporary Art Manifesta in Italy, 2008

 

This installation presented the researches on the possibility of applying the set of the meteorological parameters in the living interior as the software architecture elements. The interior is here formulated not as the homogeneous and functional space, but such the atmosphere that is constantly changing as the weather of the place. Instead of designing the structure, materials and colors, the temperature, the relative humidity and light are designed here. In the space, which seems apparently and "by eye" homogeneous, there are the climatic zones with the different variations of light, temperature, humidity, creating the richness of this area and stimulating the program for its use.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Split Time Cafe, Graz, Lebring, Austria, 2007

 

The installation of The Split Time Cafe on the FOC Eybesfeld is based on the time-space relativity, in which, thanks to the electromagnetic stimuli, a person can experience a sense of three different times, the natural one and the two simulated. The yellow room stimulates the eternal night; the blue one reduces the production of melatonin and creates the eternal day. In addition to the yellow and blue rooms there is one, which is colorless, neutral, letting inside the current climate from outside. The furniture emphasizes the different times of the day; in the yellow interior it is similar in character to the bed, the chairs in the blue one – to the night bar chairs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Humidity

In 2005-2008, Rahm built the spaces based primarily on the degree of humidity and the evaporation phenomenon.
 

The National Museum of Estonia, the project

 

According to Rahm the designing museum is not to be a form of representation of the idea or the aesthetics, or the incarnation of pure usability and the functionality with the cultural importance. It is not also to be the symbolic references, or a metaphor and the character. “The architecture does not serve here really nothing more than a gradual reduction in the value of the certain components of the ambient climate, such as the level of humidity, the intensity of ultraviolet light or the light intensity. The aim is to meet the needs of the museum for the protection of the materials, of which are made the pieces of art stored here, by isolating them from the certain natural chemical and physical conditions, accelerating the destruction.

The protection of the works, due to their organic or mineral origin, requires the specially defined microclimate. For example, the metal must be kept in conditions of very low humidity, between 15 and 30%, not to be subjected to rust by the oxidation. The organic materials, on the contrary, require higher humidity to 60%, so not to be subjected to the excessive dryness. However, its level cannot exceed 75%, otherwise mold can occur. In a similar way the limits of the light intensity are adjusted for each material. The light causes the changes in the materials at the molecular level destroying them both by photochemical processes in the case of short wave, such as ultraviolet, as well as by heating the materials in the case of the long-wave near-infrared radiation”.[9] Therefore, the paper must be stored under very low light, up to 20 lux. However, the wood and metals can withstand the greater intensity. The museum is organized as a set of the different atmospheres changing on the direction from outside to inside towards the interior as follows: from the wettest to the driest, from the lightest to the darkest, from the most illuminated by the UV light to the weakest. This reduction was achieved thanks to the selective filters, eliminated the chemical and physical factors destructive for the materials. The block of the museum is thus a series of the concentric layers of the glass apertures, through which the visitor passes from outside to inside, from the natural local environment to both most artificial for the geographical climate and neutral for the specific materials. Thus, the visitor of the museum stays in the five different climate zones, in which the light intensity decreases from outside to the centre, from 5000 to 10 lux, and the humidity is in turn: 76%, 60%, 35%, 30%, and 20%.

 

Here's how Rahm analyzes the architecture of his project:

"The nature of the architecture materializes thanks to and despite of that is invisible (...) The pieces of art are no longer seen only by sight but also by the physiology of the space and the body (...) There is invented a new way to visit the museum here, through the physical phenomenon of the maintenance, the perception of the climate, as if it removes the time, the climate, in which the process of the chemical decomposition gradually disappears, where the visitors begin to feel the architectural form of surviving."[10]

 

The Mollier House, Limousin, France

 

This house establishes the close physical and chemical relationship with the climate of the Vassiviere Lake in Limousin, France. The level of the atmosphere humidity of the natural surrounding of the house is a starting point for creating the program and areas of its use. Rahm tries to use the naturally increased humidity of the environment in an appropriate set of the house function and then to reduce it with the appropriately modeled cross-section and the architectural barriers. He states that in the interior, where the man lives, and where the hot water is used, always the water vapor is produced “leading to the risk of condensation and thus to the structural damage. While at present the only way to get rid of the excess of the water vapor is a simple technical operation of the ventilation systems, we form in our project the configuration of the space occurring to the water vapor bringing the deep and complex relationships between the people, their bodies and space, in accordance with the physical and chemical nature”.[11] The designed for living space grows according to the percentage of the humidity in the air, from 10% to 100%. The humidity of each area corresponds to the humidity of the human natural environment in a particular activity.

 

The data on the humidity emissions by humans in the different behavior are useful in the design of such a house atmosphere. For example, the sleeping person emits 40 grams of the water vapor per hour (data needed to design the optimum humidity level in the bedroom), while during the daily activity he produces 150 grams per hour (the characteristics of the living room). In the bathroom during its use it is produced 800 grams per 20 minutes, and in the kitchen - 1500 grams per hour. The spaces of The Mollier House are designed from the driest to the most humid, from the best ventilated to those of dead air, that is in a line from the bedroom climate to the bathroom climate.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The convection

In 2008 and 2009, Rahm used primarily the phenomenon and the "shape" of the convection, the atmospheric and marine currents and the air pressure.

 

The Archimedes House, Vassiviere en Limousin, France, 2005

 

It is the project of a house, which living function is distributed according to the natural changes in the air properties, its density, temperature and flow in the vertical cross-section of the entire space of the house. The natural phenomenon of the convection is resulted in the "verticality" of the project, which enables the use of the natural air layers for the certain residential features and the human activity. The project resembles a kind of air chimney, which includes the entire height of the house and takes the shape according to the function associated with the certain parameters, mainly the air temperature. In the natural arrangement of the temperatures there is 16 degrees by Celsius on the ground floor, 18 degrees - on the first floor, 20 - on the second floor and 22 degrees on the top floor. Thus, the functions are arranged according to the vertical axis of cold at the bottom and warm at the top. They carry out the prescribed temperatures in the Swiss building standard SIA 3842, by which the Swiss tend to the economical use of the energy. The standard provides the following: the optimal temperatures for the human health in the Celsius degrees:

living rooms   20
bedrooms        16-18
bathrooms        22
kitchens          18-20
hallways, restrooms  15-18
stairwells, laundries, drying rooms   12

 

In the Archimedes House there is the bathroom and laundry on the bottom, the bedroom on the first floor, the living room and kitchen on the second floor and the bathroom on the top floor. It is worth to note the large difference of the indicated temperatures for the toilet and bathroom, which functions in Polish building standards are often combined in one room.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Digestible Gulf Stream Architecture Biennale in Venice, 2008

 

In 2008, at the Venice Biennale Rahm presented the installation The Digestible Gulf Stream, in which the architectural space was built on the principle of convection. It was part of the curator exhibition of Aaron Betsky, who invited Philippe Rahm to formulate the one of 25 architectural manifestos of our time. The architectural topic beyond the building got to the heart of the Rahm searches.

 

The presented at the Arsenal installation was heralded already from a distance by the pleasant and inviting sounds of musical instruments and singing girls. When the visitor stood at the edge of the installation, he could get the feeling of contact with the stretched along the Arsenal room populated "landscape". The eye wandered along the white platform similar to the narrow and long footbridge at the different levels, bathed in light. A bridge space formed a kind of a bubble that was filled with the warm light and a life of the few naked people. Their free motions introduced the visible movement throughout the construction of the installation and strengthened the feeling of the landscape genre scene. The naked figures with a natural behavior and an expression of satisfaction define the installation space as an environment with a pleasant temperature, humidity and brightness, maintaining the persistent state of the body in harmony with the environment and in the state of active vitality. The visitor could enter this space with the artificially fashioned "weather" and felt its impact on his body. Rahm has created a specific environment, different in relation to the entire interior of the building and clear in perception, but visually minimally limited only by the expression of the plastic platform and clear lines of the climate generator installation.

 

The climate Technology of The Digestible Gulf Stream was based on the polarization of the space by the combination of production of two radiators with the different level of the temperatures: one, which generates 28 degrees by Celsius, the second - 12 degrees by Celsius. This resulted in a continuous movement of the air by the phenomenon of convection, the natural drift of warm air up and cold air down, and with the chosen temperatures made the effect of the miniature Gulf Stream Ocean current. In addition to the generation of the homogeneous and certain climate the particular importance here was to obtain the dynamic air landscape with a help of voltage and space polarity, in which the musicians of the AIR Syd Matters group moved. This has led to the metrological construction as the landscape extending between 12 and 28 degrees by Celsius, in which the resident could freely move and choose a place with a climate suitable for his clothes (or lack of it), food, activity, or social needs. Physically the architecture here was the air structure, based on the design of the atmospheric current.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Interior Gulf Stream project, a village near Paris, 2008

 

The installation Digestible Gulf Stream can be considered as a field of experience for the project The Interior Gulf Stream including an apartment and a studio for Mrs. Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, designed in Paris in 2008. The house space is here treated as an inhabitant body migration structure up and down between the warmer and cooler zone, the winter and summer periods, a place, where the body is naked and where it is dressed, between the programs of the different activities. The principle of the balance between the body needs and the environment includes, in addition to the temperature, the quality of light and determines the order of the space structure. As an indicator of the optimum temperatures the Swiss standards SIA 3842 were adopted, which were mentioned above. In The Interior Gulf Stream the individual functional areas are arranged in the house in such a way that recommend air characteristics, temperatures in particular, were reached in a natural way by the phenomenon of convection. To ensure the conventional movement in the house space Rahm suggested here the two sources of heat: the first, cooler, at a temperature of 15 degrees, placed on the highest level of the apartment, and the second at a temperature of 22 degrees, placed on the lowest one. The convection creates the stretched in a space, dynamic construction with a vertical landscape, just similarly as it has been in the system The Digestible Gulf Stream. A continuous flow of the air ventilates the room at the same time. The shape of the house has to correspond to the shape of the air current allowing a smooth air flow vertically. This affects mainly the modeling of the vertical cross-section of the house, especially the ceiling allowing the existence of an air chimney inside the house.

 

The convection phenomenon has also been used in the project The Convection Museum in Wroclaw in 2008, in the project of the climate landscape The Megroscia House in Ticino, Switzerland in 2008, in the house project The Convective Apartments in Hamburg in 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Digestion

 

The current Rahm searches concern the urban form as a physiological need and feed as a source of heat or cold, as a form of the edible architecture.

According to the Philippe Rahm concept the architecture is organic, mineral and biological.

 

The Lung Space, the installation in the exhibition 'The Radical Nature' at the Barbican Art Gallery, London, UK, 2009

 

Explaining "The Lung space" Rahm recalls the opinion of Hegel, who considered the music as the highest of the arts, but the architecture as the lowest. The nineteenth-century philosopher recognized as a measure of the value the degree of dependence of the arts from the matter, or rather the degree of the art release from the matter. Today, this division cannot be maintained if only because of the knowledge of the matter. We suspect that Hegel has had in mind the matter so heavy and dense that it is visible to the human eye. Today it is commonly known that the air is material, although it is mostly invisible. The matter is also a word spoken with the warm breath by the speaker, the physics of the voice wave and the chemistry of the exhausted air content. This approach is an extreme shift of attention from the meaning of the word to its physical, chemical, biological materiality and from the beauty of the music to its physical, chemical and biological nature. Rahm is provocative in this experiment trying to unmask the physiological side of the ephemeral, fleeting arts. He exaggerates the digestive, metabolic side of the sounds production to make noticed what you do not usually recognize by sense or mind. Rahm as usually in the installations uses the artistic intensified measures to increase the awareness and, even more, to let multisensual feeling the invisible matter, being able to expand with the mind the possibilities of the sensual penetration and the limits of the ordinary experience. As in the previous researches he considers the environment and the human immersed in it as the one physiological system.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The final reflection

 

Philippe Rahm was in Cracow in June 2003 with a lecture “Decosterd / Rahm: electro-architecture, the matter of void" in the course "What is the architecture?”. He seemed to be a man all the time continuing his experiment. Particularly he valued his stay in a salt mine in Wieliczka, where the exceptional climatic environment has made the clear, specific reactions of the human body (confirmed by the medicinal properties of the mine microclimate applications used in a sanatorium for people with allergies). The Rahm installation projects for Gdansk and the Wroclaw's museum can be an expression of the good agreement of the architect with the environment of the Polish artists and the potency existing in the Polish reality of the architectural changes and the freshness of the first decades after the political thaw. The avant-garde nature of the Rahms experiment requires from the recipient the respective mental independence and open mindedness. The independence of the architectural proposals built on the principle of the climate design makes it free from a variety of the social codes including related with the representation. One can see the meteorological architecture as the fundamentally anti-bourgeois and anti-political. Thanks to it one penetrates the popular consciousness valuation of the architecture in terms of its atmosphere and climatic environment equal with the traditional aspects of design. The climatic architecture can be seen as a turning point for the contemporary architecture, enveloped with the formal exaggeration, the excessive hypertrophy aestheticism and the semantic effects growth. The meteorological architecture moves the attention of the user directly into the interior space of the architecture allowing to experience its rich nature and to consciously draw the life-giving resources from it.

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Gilles Deleuze, Le Pli. Leibniz et le baroque, Les Éditions de Minuit, 1988 Paris

 

[2] Junya Ishigami, Architecture as air: study for château la coste, Arsenal, 12 Biennale of Architecture in Venice, 2010

 

[3] P. Rahm "The Meteorological architecture", the manuscript of Ákos Moravánszky "In addition to signs, the atmosphere in the Swiss architecture," in Self-Portrait 3 [35], 2011, p.34, ed. MIK

 

[4] Italo Calvino in "The American Lectures", written in 1985, mentions the lightness, speed, accuracy, transparency and diversity as the five characteristics of the contemporary literature at the time, which would like to recommend future (current) millennium. These features can refer more broadly to the field of the architecture; more, than used by Calvino, belong to the tradition of the architectural terminology.

 

[5] B.Stec "Architecture meteorological Philipe Rahm" in Selfport.3 [35] in 2011, senses / perception, ed. MIK, Cracow, 2011, p.40, 41

 

[6] Philippe Rahm "The Direct Architecture" in: What is the architecture? Edited by Adam Budak, vol.2, Manggha 2003, p 547.

 

[7] The same, p 549

 

[8] The same, p 551

 

[9] The same, s.553, 555

 

[10] The same, s.557

 

[11] The same, s.559