Seeking to explore power as crucial factor in the design of the built environment, we will look at energy systems and related objects, from sites of generation to spaces of consumption, from distribution networks to control rooms.
Tutors: Filip Geerts and Sanne van den Breemer
Director of Studies: Salomon Frausto
Contributors: Santiago Ardila, Juan Benavides, Daniella Camarena, Stef Dingen, Marco Fusco, Jack Garay Arauzo, Theodora Gelali, Shaiwanti Gupta, Hao Hsu, Marianthi Papangelopoulou, Felipe Quintero, Gent Shehu, Siyuan Wang
@theberlage.nl
Photo-auto-trophs
Idealization of a system, Biomass, Waste, National, Earthquake, Technology, Economy, Manifesto
"This is a city where integration does not require synthesis",1 yet it does require photosynthesis. The pursuit for idealized systems has always followed Tokyo. The perpetual destruction can be attributed to Tokyo's urban resilience. Hence, the built fabric is unconcerned with its final days as long as the system as a whole keeps flowing. Tokyo is built to be destroyed, yet with each rebuilding, its metabolic rate – the rate on which it viciously converts input to power – emphatically grows.
However, Tokyo's dream of Metabolic Metropolis is still unfulfilled. The capsule's final days teach us one thing about Tokyo; valuable things are meant to withstand both nature and culture’s blows. The architectural metabolism vanguard failed miserably in the echoes of its metaphor. Tokyo has no time and place for a rhetorical metaphor – Tokyo needs to grow. Tokyo strives for a reaction. Tokyo is used to fighting back. And in its ultimate fight against nature, Tokyo decides to work with it rather than against it. In the breakdown of molecules, Tokyo dreams of obtaining Energy. In the dawn of metaphors, metabolism rises again, only to perform its own scientific - photo-auto-trophic play.
Just like its multiple incineration plants scrapping the silhouette of the city, Tokyo waits for the humbleness of biochemicals to take over and produce energy. Tokyo needs to produce, consume, burn, absorb and sweat its energy. Each cycle of ‘city death’ has accentuated the importance of the breathing city. Each cycle of nature’s panic attacks, has magnified the peacefulness of the Japanese gardens. With a little control – but let the trees grow gracefully. Self-sustained and self-assured, the Metropolitan dizziness surrendering to nature’s tranquility.
1. Ulf Meyer, Architectural Guide Tokyo (DOM Publishers, 1911), p. 26.
See ephemera: 05 & 75
Idealization of a system, Biomass, Waste, National, Earthquake, Technology, Economy, Manifesto
"This is a city where integration does not require synthesis",1 yet it does require photosynthesis. The pursuit for idealized systems has always followed Tokyo. The perpetual destruction can be attributed to Tokyo's urban resilience. Hence, the built fabric is unconcerned with its final days as long as the system as a whole keeps flowing. Tokyo is built to be destroyed, yet with each rebuilding, its metabolic rate – the rate on which it viciously converts input to power – emphatically grows.
However, Tokyo's dream of Metabolic Metropolis is still unfulfilled. The capsule's final days teach us one thing about Tokyo; valuable things are meant to withstand both nature and culture’s blows. The architectural metabolism vanguard failed miserably in the echoes of its metaphor. Tokyo has no time and place for a rhetorical metaphor – Tokyo needs to grow. Tokyo strives for a reaction. Tokyo is used to fighting back. And in its ultimate fight against nature, Tokyo decides to work with it rather than against it. In the breakdown of molecules, Tokyo dreams of obtaining Energy. In the dawn of metaphors, metabolism rises again, only to perform its own scientific - photo-auto-trophic play.
Just like its multiple incineration plants scrapping the silhouette of the city, Tokyo waits for the humbleness of biochemicals to take over and produce energy. Tokyo needs to produce, consume, burn, absorb and sweat its energy. Each cycle of ‘city death’ has accentuated the importance of the breathing city. Each cycle of nature’s panic attacks, has magnified the peacefulness of the Japanese gardens. With a little control – but let the trees grow gracefully. Self-sustained and self-assured, the Metropolitan dizziness surrendering to nature’s tranquility.
1. Ulf Meyer, Architectural Guide Tokyo (DOM Publishers, 1911), p. 26.
See ephemera: 05 & 75