Atmosphere Anatomies: Body as Parameter for Climate Design | CVSZ No.81 Air Politics Series No.02

CVSZ No.81

Air Politics Series No.02

Atmosphere Anatomies: Body as Parameter for Climate Design

Co-organizer: Design Society x CVSZ

Host: Yixuan Cai

Guest Speaker: Silvia Benedito, Zherui Wang

Planning/Text: Daedalus Guoning Li

Time:

June. 26th (Saturday)

Central European Time: 14:00-16:00

Beijing Time 20:00-22:00

Location:

ZOOM Conference

https://zoom.us/j/97292747221?pwd=N1JPUlFqcFduK1R3NVJLZGZrcVEyQT09

Meeting ID: 972 9274 7221

Passcode: BYRZ8j

Air Politics Series Public Program:

The series is extended from the exhibition “Vibrating Clouds”, aiming to bring topics to different cities through various forms such as forums, screenings and workshops. The series is devised through a set of subtopics, from meteorological design, climate engineering under machine vision, energy cycle and geopolitics, to QiWu (various forms of Tao).

Exhibition: Vibrating Clouds

Panel Synopsis:

Architectural Designer and researcher Zherui Wang forecasts a dystopian narrative in the face of atmospheric degradation in urban centers: human beings live in a heavily polluted atmosphere where air has become unbreathable. Therefore, he designed a Baleencoat, which filters air pollutants when activated. If public policies alone can’t resolve the crisis, it rests upon human capital to confront environmental change through the agency of design to extend human survival.

The speculative design raises a question: though modern architecture and environment management technology are like layers of skins wrapping around us, the body is still the frontline against atmospheric crisis.

Some of the most important population migration and production activities in human history are affected by climate change. About 12,000 years ago, agriculture started as the temperature gradually increased in the Neolithic period. When temperature dropped during the Little Ice Age, Norwegian moved south to Copenhagen, the British migrated to the Bordeaux region, which indirectly caused the hundred years of war between Britain and France. During the fourth Little Ice Age in the late Ming and early Qing Dynasty, drastic drop in temperature caused drought in the north and food production reduction, resulting in severe social turmoil and warfare for decades….. We are accustomed to perceive the world from economic, political, and cultural perspectives, but forget that the relationship between humans and the world is based on “materials”. Our climatic needs are the most basic “physiological”needs.

How will the human body, collective and individual, cope with the estimated increases in global air temperatures and in the earth’s corresponding thermal stress? Silvia Benedito’s newly released book Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation offers an in-depth examination of design strategies that situate the body and its bioclimatic milieu at the core of their spatial formation. Drawing upon ten paradigmatic projects in urban design and landscape architecture – from Rousham Gardens, Oxfordshire, to the city of Chandigarh in India – the book investigates the designers’ bioclimatic aims and their spatial outcomes.

This dialogue is organized by the exhibition team of Design Society "Vibrating Clouds". The curator Cai Yixuan will start from the exhibition and introduce the relationship between the atmosphere and the human body. We invited architect Silvia Benedito to talk about her new book, "Atmosphere Anatomies: On Design, Weather, and Sensation", on how to treat the weather and atmosphere as the basic components of space. Through a series of precedents, she will explore and discuss with us why climate and atmosphere are an indispensable part of individual and collective experience. We also invited architect Wang Zherui. He will focus on his work "Climate as a medium" to explain how he explores the issues of environmental uncertainties through design, research and making, and creating speculative designs for the existing environmental crisis.

Guest Speaker Introduction

Silvia Benedito

Sílvia Benedito is a Design Critic in Landscape Architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design. She also serves as Co-Chair of the Sensory Media Platform at the GSD. Benedito's research and practice are focused on the role of atmosphere—the meteorological envelope and space for sensory acquisition—in the built environment.

Benedito received a degree in Architecture from the University of Coimbra, a degree in Music from the Conservatory of Coimbra, and a master’s degree in Urban Design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design. As former Senior Associate at James Corner Field Operations (NYC), where she led many public and private urban design and small-scale public projects. Benedito is the co-principal of OFICINAA, an architecture, landscape and urban design practice based in Cambridge, Massachusetts and Ingolstadt, Germany. Benedito was also the cofounder of Home-Room, a “saloon” space in Lower Manhattan for artists and designers to present their work, research and ideas publicly.

Zherui Wang

Zherui Wang is [pron. zee-ray] a New York based designer and researcher. His works explore the issues of environmental uncertainties through design, research and making; and have been exhibited and featured in New York, Toronto, Shenzhen, and Buffalo, NY.

Wang has taught design studios and seminars at the University of Pennsylvania, Princeton University, Pratt Institute and the University at Buffalo; and has contributed to the design and research endeavours at various offices and institutions, including Barkow Leibinger, Princeton Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment, and Columbia C-lab. He is the 2020-21 Peter Reyner Banham Fellow at SUNY Buffalo.

Wang holds a BArch from Pratt Institute, a post-professional MArch and Media+Modernity Certificate from Princeton University, where he was awarded the Lee & Norman Rosenfeld Award and the Suzanne Kolarik Underwood Prize.

CVSZ总第81期

空气政治 系列论坛 第2期

解剖大气----身体作为气象设计中的生理传感器

主持人: 蔡艺璇

嘉宾: 王哲睿 × Silvia Benedito

策划/文：李国宁

时间

6月26日（周六）

北京时间：20：00-22：00

欧洲中部时间：14:00-16:00

线上地点

ZOOM Conference

https://zoom.us/j/97292747221?pwd=N1JPUlFqcFduK1R3NVJLZGZrcVEyQT09

Meeting ID: 972 9274 7221

Passcode: BYRZ8j

联合主办单位

设计互联 x CVSZ

系列概述：

“空气政治”系列活动由展览《振动的云层》延伸而来，通过论坛、放映、工作坊等多种形式，将议题带到不同城市。系列活动延伸出若干子议题，从气象设计、气象工程与机器视觉、能量循环与地缘政治、齐物生息、以及空气的哲学含义，等多角度切入。

展览：振动的云层

对话概述：

建筑师王哲睿预测了一个城市中心面临大气退化的反乌托邦叙事：人类生活在一个重度污染的大气环境下，空气已经变得无法让人呼吸。由此，哲睿设计了一件可以净化空气的大气行走夹克。如果仅靠公共政策不能解决危机，则只能依靠人力资本通过设计来应对环境变化以延长人类生存。

这件作品引发了一个问题：纵使现代建筑和环境管理技术如同一层层衣服包裹着我们，身体依旧是我们直接对抗大气危机的前线。

人类历史上若干重要的人口迁移和生产活动都受到气候变化的影响：距今约一万两千年前的新石器时代，随气温逐渐升高，人类开始了农业种植；小冰河时期的降温，致使挪威皇室向南迁移到哥本哈根，英国葡萄酒产量遭受损失，大量人口迁移到波尔多地区，也间接引起了往后的英法百年战争；明末清初的第四次小冰河期，气温剧降造成北方干旱，粮食大量减产，形成几十年的社会剧烈动荡和战乱......我们习惯以经济、政治和文化的视角思考世界，却忘记了基于“物质”的传统奠定了人与世界的关系，人类对气候环境的需求是最基本的“生理”需求。

与此同时，环境也牵扯着隐晦的生理及情绪变化：“不管我们喜欢与否，我们都是各种形式、颜色、空间环境的奴隶，是天空和大地的臣民。阴雨连绵时候的情绪，和清空万里时候的情绪截然不同。在湿气重的日子里，人会感到心情忧郁；也因雷电可以增加大气中的负离子，暴雨前的人们通常会异常活跃和兴奋。” （Fernando Pessoa, The Book of Disquiet）

在这个背景下，身体如何活动并调节于不同的气候系统？如何从身体出发进行气象设计？本次对话，《振动的云层》策展人蔡艺璇将从展览出发，介绍大气与人体之间的关系。我们也邀请了建