FORM FOLLOWS CLIMATE
book presentation by Philippe Rahm
Thursday 9th November – 19:00
+++ the lecture will be in English and in live streaming +++
Climate Change is an opportunity to rethink architecture and urbanism with the climate in mind, to shift our focus away from a purely visual and functional approach towards one that is more sensitive, more attentive to the invisible, atmosphere-related aspects of space. Slipping from the solid to the void, from the visible to the invisible, from metric composition to thermal composition, architecture as “form follows climate” opens up additional, more sensual, more variable dimensions in which limits fade away and solids self-dissociate.
Philippe Rahm will present at CAMPO the book “Form follows climate” which features the Jade Eco Park design for the City of Taichung in Taiwan. The project reveals how climate can be at the base of a masterplan, adding sensorial qualities to the city at the same time as saving energy and meeting the objectives of Sustainability.
The park’s design composition is based on climatic variations, from warmer to colder, from wet to dry, from polluted to cleaner, generating a diversity of microclimates and a multitude of different experiences open to the free will of the visitors. The park’s buildings are also based on climatic issues, by dissolving in separate layers the different climatic missions of the facade, towards sun, heat, rain and pollution. Philippe Rahm architectes purpose is to say that if today climate is the problem, climate can be also the solution, by basing the design on physics, by rethinking the architecture and the urbanization of a city from an atmospherical point of view, more ecological, providing new quality of life to the inhabitant, more comfortable, more sensual.
Philippe Rahm is a swiss architect, principal in the office of Philippe Rahm architectes, based in Paris. His work, which extends the field of architecture from the physiological to the meteorological, has received an international audience in the context of sustainability. His recent work includes the 70 hectares Taichung Gateway Park in Taiwan, the Agora of the French National Radio in Paris, a 2700 m2 Exhibition architecture for the Luma Foundation in Arles, France. He has been visiting professor at GSD Harvard University and is exhibiting in 2017 at the Chicago and Seoul Architecture Biennials.