"Living" rooms: The hypernaturalization of the interior

Author: Blaine Brownell Year: 2018 Source type: chapter (Ch. 30 of The Interior Architecture Reader, ed. Gregory Marinic, Routledge)

Raw file: raw/chapters/brownell-2018-living-rooms-hypernaturalization.md

Summary

Blaine Brownell — architect, University of North Carolina at Charlotte professor, and co-author (with Marc Swackhamer) of Hypernatural: Architecture's New Relationship with Nature (2015) — argues that architecture is changing course from Le Corbusier's 1923 mechanization ideal toward a "hypernatural condition": "a state defined by the aspiration to extend, amplify, or transcend natural capacities by partnering with nature in a focused and intensified manner." Where the machine-for-living "signified the ultimate separation between a synthetic interior environment and the natural world beyond," today's design "is not a machine for living, but rather a living machine." The chapter organizes the field's intersections with the natural sciences under three approaches — properties (structure and composition of elements: living walls, animal architecture, seed banks), processes (natural fabrication: additive printing by wasps, barnacles and silkworms; subtractive carving by termites and a calf), and phenomena (transformational qualities: simulated clouds, rain, and daylight; circadian and humidity-responsive surfaces) — and closes on the control question: hypernatural design requires "relinquish[ing] some control," making the designer "a director of the design experiments they set into motion" rather than a manager of all details.

Key Claims

• The Le Corbusier reversal: "the house is a machine for living" (1923) named "the ultimate separation between a synthetic interior environment and the natural world beyond"; today "the house is not a machine for living, but rather a living machine, insofar as architecture has become a testbed for the application of natural materials and phenomena to create animate, responsive, and sentient surfaces and spaces." See machine-for-living, mechanization, hypernaturalization.
• Hypernatural defined: the "hypernatural condition" is "a state defined by the aspiration to extend, amplify, or transcend natural capacities by partnering with nature in a focused and intensified manner" — not nature restored, and not nature refused, but nature intensified through partnership. The term is Brownell and Swackhamer's own (note 1, Hypernatural, 2015). See hypernaturalization, unnatural-nature.
• The driver is convergence: "the design and construction fields are changing course in response to a new global influence: the rapid convergence of technology and the natural sciences" — architects harnessing fluid dynamics, engineers growing algae facades, furniture from fungus — and "a deeper knowledge about natural systems and processes is considered critical to making responsible environmental choices in design." See ecology, sustainability.
• Three approaches frame the field: properties ("the structure and composition of elements, including their inherent physical and chemical attributes"), processes ("natural methods of fabrication and construction"), and phenomena ("transformational qualities of environments over time… or in natural organisms' responses to their physical contexts"). See hypernaturalization.
• Properties — "environmental surfing": Vivian Loftness's term for embracing natural systems' resource-efficiency while enhancing health — e.g. the CASE/SOM Active Phytoremediation Wall System, where "hydroponic plants absorb interior toxins through their exposed roots, meanwhile releasing beneficial oxygen," assisted by low-power fans; plus interior photovoltaics (moss-powered biophotovoltaics, Melchiorri's Silk Leaf) harvesting light "from indirect and electric sources, making them suitable for interior applications." See biophilia, ambient-conditioning.
• Animal architecture as a design realm: "structures created for the habitation of non-human species" — MATSYS' Chrysalis III (barnacle packing), Buffalo's Elevator B beehive tower ("space below for human visitors to occupy the structure and witness the insects' activities"), and the University of Minnesota's Artificial Thicket, "a dense, multidimensional wall composed of reclaimed driftwood, designed to support bird and insect populations along the ecologically critical Mississippi River corridor." Animal architecture "may be embraced to create resource-efficient constructions with compelling visual qualities." See animal-architecture, nonhumans.
• Structuring natural knowledge: interiors as archives of nature — Heatherwick's Seed Cathedral (UK Pavilion, Shanghai 2010) as "an occupiable and spatially cohesive seed bank" of 60,000 acrylic rods, its "womb-like, undulating interior cavity… a physical archive of botanical wisdom in which visitors could be completely immersed"; the Lithuanian Pavilion (Yeosu 2012) exhibiting Baltic amber within backlit translucent surfaces "that resembled the fossilized resin substance." See hypernaturalization.
• Natural processes vs industrial processes: "Since the Industrial Revolution, material fabrication has generally been carried out in a highly resource-intensive, inefficient, and polluting manner. By contrast, natural processes use resources effectively and generate byproducts that may be reutilized. In this way, even natural waste is a resource for another process." See sustainability, mechanization.
• The control inversion: "Industrial logics and traditional design approaches mandate near total control over design and manufacturing, leaving nothing to chance. However, the incorporation of natural processes in design introduces a new kind of material agency in which biological, chemical, or physical processes are allowed to run their course and subsequently alter the final results." The designer becomes "a director of the design experiments they set into motion" — "a partnership with nature – rather than traditional brute consumption of natural resources." See authorship, nonhumans.
• Additive processes borrowed from zoology: potter wasps' layered nests as the model for WASProject's 3D-printed earthen structures (up to six metres); the barnacle that "effectively 'prints' its chitinous shell over time"; MIT's Silk Pavilion, where "6,500 live silkworms" spun "a fibrous curtain of silk" over a scaffold, later removed "to showcase the entirely animal-constructed textile skin." See nonhumans, 3d-printing.
• Subtractive processes: termite digestion as panel fabrication ("each one uniquely crafted by termites" — plywood designed "to anticipate particular patterns of termite digestion" producing acoustical panels of varying absorption); Ensamble Studio's Truffle house, whose hay-bale formwork "a small calf" was "encouraged to eat," the animal growing "to be a mature cow of over 600 pounds… symbolizing the conversion of a residual building material by a metabolic process."
• Mineral processes: Roger Hiorns's Seizure — a London apartment "immersed in a water-based solution with copper sulfate" for a month, revealed "entirely encrusted with blue crystals"; UMN students' borax-crystal pavilion whose modules "demonstrat[e] their capacity to hold 100 times their own weight." Crystallization as a construction method needing no labour and no waste.
• Phenomena brought indoors: CoeLux daylight simulation ("accurate daylight color temperatures" cycling "to represent natural diurnal and seasonal cycles… the simulation of sky dome illumination"); Tetsuo Kondo/Transsolar's Cloudscapes ("users experience different atmospheric strata at varying heights"); FogScreen; rAndom International's Rain Room — "a heavy rainstorm indoors without getting wet, thanks to a grid of sensors that turn off valves directly above occupant positions." See interactive-architecture, sensorial-interior-landscape.
• Responsive organisms as models: phototropism and circadian response (Oxalis opening by day, closing at night) as design logic — DOSU's Bloom pavilion in thermobimetal ("when sunlight intensifies… bimetal strips peel upwards to introduce ventilation and shade"), Decker Yeadon's Homeostatic Facade (electroactive polymers inspired "by the way that muscle tissue flexes and relaxes"), Achim Menges's HygroSkin (wood petals opening above 60% humidity, "inspired by spruce tree cones"), RVTR's Stratus ceiling combining "illumination, ventilation, acoustic dampening, and sensing in one integrated structure," delivering "traditionally separate services in a more targeted way within a singular, atmospheric surface." See interactive-architecture, performative-ornament, sentient-spaces.
• The serendipity defence (Yoshioka, quoted): "The fact that creation is not entirely controlled by human beings; beauty is born out of serendipity… This production method highlights the boundary between the physical world and the world of the imagination. In this sense, the process broadens the boundaries of creativity." See hypernaturalization.
• The trade-off stated honestly: "Giving away control is counterintuitive to a design community trained to manage all details of a project" — but the advantages (self-shading surfaces "without the need for mechanical equipment," pollution-neutralizing plants, "construction tasks that are executed superbly by non-human species") outweigh "the downside of micromanaging all aspects of the work," provided "designers establish the right conditions for a project at the outset."
• The honest caveat: "interior architecture's recent incorporation of natural processes and principles remains in an early stage of experimentation; a comprehensive accounting of environmental, social, and economic effects has yet to be conducted." Yet "the idea that we might collaborate with nature – rather than merely exploit it – suggests a more thoughtful and meaningful form of design."

Connections

Concepts: hypernaturalization · animal-architecture · machine-for-living · mechanization · ecology · sustainability · biophilia · nonhumans · interactive-architecture · sentient-spaces · performative-ornament · ambient-conditioning · sensorial-interior-landscape · unnatural-nature · 3d-printing · digital-fabrication · authorship · artificial-grotto · atmosphere · domestic-interior

Authors: brownell-blaine (author) · marinic-gregory (Reader editor) · satterfield-blair-swackhamer-marc (co-authors of Hypernatural, 2015, the chapter's note 1) · cited: Le Corbusier, Vivian Loftness, Achim Menges, Tokujin Yoshioka, Roger Hiorns, Thomas Heatherwick, Neri Oxman (MIT Media Lab)

Debates: nature-vs-culture (the hypernatural as partnership producing nature-culture hybrids by design programme) · climate-change-and-architecture (the hypernatural as an upgraded "technological fix" that partners rather than substitutes) · ornament-vs-purity (responsive, living surfaces against the purified machine aesthetic) · static-vs-dynamic-architecture (circadian, humidity-responsive, transforming interiors vs the static box)

Related source notes: Garófalo-Khan — Sensorial interior landscapes — the closest neighbour in the Reader: biophilia, ambient conditioning, and performative ornament as the grotto register of the same nature-turn; Brownell supplies the materials-science and fabrication register (what the living interior is made of and by whom), Garófalo-Khan the typological-sensorial register (the grotto); Satterfield & Swackhamer — Swimming upstream — the same Silk Pavilion, re-read: for S&Sw it evidences repositioned authorship along the production stream, for Brownell it evidences hypernatural process; co-authorship of Hypernatural (2015) makes the two chapters sibling statements; Jacobus — Toward the immaterial interior — the mechanization history Brownell's reversal answers: where Jacobus's mechanization "drove material sensibilities to the brink of the immaterial," Brownell's hypernatural turn drives design back toward material liveliness; Gattegno & Johnson — From ambient environments to sentient spaces — "animate, responsive, and sentient surfaces" is Brownell's phrase for what G&J theorize as sentient spaces; Taylor — Shape shifting — the responsive-interior paradigm Brownell's phenomena section instantiates (HygroSkin, Stratus, thermobimetal); Olsen — On technological limits — Emerging Objects-style material hacks and the university-studio fabrication experiments both chapters inventory; Manack — Fabricating interiority — digital fabrication vs natural fabrication as the interior's two contemporary production regimes; Treadwell — Oceanic interiorities — the Anthropocene caveat shared: "nature" as a category already entangled with the human.

Direct Quotes

"The vision of a structure embodying the full attainment of mechanization signified the ultimate separation between a synthetic interior environment and the natural world beyond."

"Today, Le Corbusier's axiom would be that the house is not a machine for living, but rather a living machine, insofar as architecture has become a testbed for the application of natural materials and phenomena to create animate, responsive, and sentient surfaces and spaces."

"This transformation points to a hypernatural condition, a state defined by the aspiration to extend, amplify, or transcend natural capacities by partnering with nature in a focused and intensified manner."

"the rapid convergence of technology and the natural sciences" — the global influence changing the design and construction fields' course.

"Innovative thinkers in these and other disciplines seek a closer relationship with nature to advance work within their fields. In addition, a deeper knowledge about natural systems and processes is considered critical to making responsible environmental choices in design."

"When designers and architects consider the properties of design elements in a rigorous and sensitive way, they can create interior architecture that is more attuned to scientific principles."

"The womb-like, undulating interior cavity delineated by the staggered filaments served as a physical archive of botanical wisdom in which visitors could be completely immersed." (on Heatherwick's Seed Cathedral)

"Since the Industrial Revolution, material fabrication has generally been carried out in a highly resource-intensive, inefficient, and polluting manner. By contrast, natural processes use resources effectively and generate byproducts that may be reutilized. In this way, even natural waste is a resource for another process."

"Industrial logics and traditional design approaches mandate near total control over design and manufacturing, leaving nothing to chance. However, the incorporation of natural processes in design introduces a new kind of material agency in which biological, chemical, or physical processes are allowed to run their course and subsequently alter the final results."

"What is effectively a partnership with nature – rather than traditional brute consumption of natural resources – presents an intriguing opportunity for designers, who assume the role of directors of the design experiments they set into motion."

"Over time, the insects spun a fibrous curtain of silk over the formwork, which was later removed to showcase the entirely animal-constructed textile skin." (on MIT's Silk Pavilion)

"During this time, the animal grew to be a mature cow of over 600 pounds in weight, symbolizing the conversion of a residual building material by a metabolic process." (on Ensamble Studio's Truffle)

"Phenomena concern the transformational qualities of environments over time, as experienced in changes of weather or fluctuating seasonal patterns – or in natural organisms' responses to their physical contexts."

"In some ways, interactive and responsive architecture enables greater user control than in conventional interiors. In other ways, however, continually transforming environments signify an unpredictable departure from traditional, homogeneous spaces."

"The 20-foot-tall, open-air structure is composed of thousands of strips of thermobimetal (a lamination of thin alloys with different thermal expansion rates). When sunlight intensifies along the outside surface, bimetal strips peel upwards to introduce ventilation and shade to the sheltered space within." (on DOSU's Bloom pavilion)

"The project illustrates the capability to deliver traditionally separate services in a more targeted way within a singular, atmospheric surface." (on RVTR's Stratus)

"The fact that creation is not entirely controlled by human beings; beauty is born out of serendipity… This production method highlights the boundary between the physical world and the world of the imagination. In this sense, the process broadens the boundaries of creativity." (Tokujin Yoshioka, quoted, from Matter in the Floating World, p. 243)

"On one hand, designers engaging in this kind of work must relinquish some control by prioritizing natural processes and principles – whether it be empowering silkworms to weave textile surfaces or growing building blocks from crystals. Giving away control is counterintuitive to a design community trained to manage all details of a project."

"As long as designers establish the right conditions for a project at the outset, the benefits of hypernatural design outweigh the downside of micromanaging all aspects of the work."

"To be certain, interior architecture's recent incorporation of natural processes and principles remains in an early stage of experimentation; a comprehensive accounting of environmental, social, and economic effects has yet to be conducted."

"Nevertheless, the idea that we might collaborate with nature – rather than merely exploit it – suggests a more thoughtful and meaningful form of design, and the ensuing work will deliver refreshingly unconventional results."

Open Questions

• Is the hypernatural a third category beyond natural and artificial (alongside Eisenman's unnatural nature), or a rebranding of biomimicry? Brownell's definition — "extend, amplify, or transcend natural capacities by partnering with nature" — implies intensification beyond both poles, but every example (plants purifying air, silkworms spinning silk, crystals growing) is nature doing what nature does, directed by designers. Where exactly does "transcend" begin?
• The chapter's caveat is unspent: "a comprehensive accounting of environmental, social, and economic effects has yet to be conducted." Does hypernatural design's sustainability claim survive that accounting — e.g. the energy cost of CoeLux's sky simulation, the acrylic of the Seed Cathedral's 60,000 rods, the displacement of a calf's life into a construction schedule?
• Is "collaborate with nature – rather than merely exploit it" a real difference in kind or in rhetoric? The calf "encouraged" to eat formwork and the termites deployed as panel-fabricators are still instrumentalizations of animal labour — the partnership's terms are set entirely by the human partner. Cf. nonhumans and the silkworm question in Satterfield & Swackhamer.
• The reversal thesis ("not a machine for living, but rather a living machine") keeps the machine metaphor. Is the "living machine" an escape from mechanization (mechanization) or its culmination — a machine whose parts are alive? Does the living machine house, or farm, its occupants?
• Brownell writes of the interior but most exemplars are pavilions, facades, and installations. What is the domestic hypernatural — and does "living rooms" (the title's pun) promise a domestic programme the chapter's exemplars don't yet deliver?
• Yoshioka's "beauty is born out of serendipity" against "designers establish the right conditions for a project at the outset": how much serendipity can a discipline that certifies, warranties, and codes its products actually afford?