PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
INTERTWINING OF CULTURES/ INTERTWINING OF NATURE AND ARTIFICE
This project for an experimental living unit attempts to take a new look at the relationship between culture/man and nature.
Traditionally, eastern cultures have embraced nature as part of life, incorporating it almost seamlessly into the culture.
On the other hand western thought has most commonly understood nature in clear opposition to culture. With the rapid industrialization of the east and the equally rapid, and unfortunate, assimilation of western thought, the relationship between nature and culture must come into question.
This living unit proposes an artificial garden as the main space and organising element of the home. Programmed areas are not conceived of as autonomous elements connected by halls or other so-called neutral spaces, but rather in spatial continuum and coexistence with nature; intertwining nature and artifice. Equally important is the proposition of a green expansion of our cities and towns from the inside out; artificial gardens from within the home expand outwards into the city and towns - as opposed to bringing small patches of green into our home in the form of planted pots.
Hybridizing nature and artifice opens a vast array of new conceptual possibilities as well as bringing forth previously un-encountered problems that seek new technical solutions which need to be both economically and environmentally viable.
The expanding consciousness regarding our environment has inevitably been the social and cultural motor for invention of new techniques, such as eco-tech and the investigation of new materials. The project aims to incorporate these techniques with the use of new materials that are recycled and recyclable materials with sustainable methods of production.
