Domus India – March 2018

(Chris Devlin) #1

9898 Meteorology


Why do we need architecture? Why
are we constructing buildings?
It may seem ridiculous to ask this
question, but the answer – covered
over time by so much history, so many
cultural circumvolutions, habits and
automatisms – is sometimes difficult
to state simply: it is to protect
ourselves from the sun when it is too
hot, from the wind when it is too cold,
and from the rain when it falls.


Essentially, there’s no other reason.
Architecture is basically the design
of the atmosphere.
This fundamental reason was largely
ignored during the last century,
thanks to the enormous amount of
fossil-fuel energy consumed by
buildings for heating, hot water, air
conditioning and refrigerators. And
this immoderate consumption,
starting almost two centuries ago,
has led to global warming, which
today is forcing architects to
reconsider their plan to fight
this phenomenon.
Global warming represents a brutal
overhaul of the architectural
discipline, applied to itself and
because of itself. It corresponds to a
violent re-focusing of architecture’s
objectives concerning its

fundamental mission, i.e. to build
artificial climates that are more
favourable to human nature, creating
domestic atmospheres or indoor
weather by means of a roof and walls,
thus putting distance between us
and the excesses of outdoor weather.
We now have to return to this
fundamental aim of architecture and
pursue it in an ecological manner.
This is certainly an opportunity for
the discipline to develop a new
language, a new style, where the usual
categories, until today confined to
the visual, the abstract and the
geometric, open up to the invisible,
the sensitive and the meteorological.
Rather than reasoning in terms of
grid, structure, symmetry and form,
we must learn to reason in terms of
convection, conduction, emissivity

and effusiveness. Rather than
working in brick, concrete, steel or
wood, we have to work with light, heat,
shade or moisture. To do that, we must
know or re-acquaint ourselves with
the fundamental tools of our
discipline, which are – we have
certainly forgotten – those of
meteorology, thermodynamics
and climatology.
In this column, we will be focusing
on the architecture of our new
climatic regime, unveiling project
methods and highlighting new
principles of architectural
composition and design. The aim is
to build an innovative and sustainable
world, also able to refound aesthetics,
politics and a social link to the reality
of our existence on the Earth and in
its atmosphere.

Meteorology


is a critical design


column about the link


between architecture


and climate.


Edited by Philippe Rahm

Free download pdf