08.12.2022
After Comfort
On Architecture and Climate with Daniel A. Barber
Since the advent of modern architecture, we in the West have relied heavily on fossil fuels to create stable interior environments, by either heating or cooling our buildings. One of the consequences of this self-imposed dependence on technological solutions is that we have lost the ability to adapt ourselves and our architecture to the climate. Now that it has become clear that this model has become unsustainable, architecture faces major challenges.
In collaboration with OASE, journal for architecture, which is publishing an issue on ecology and aesthetics this autumn, we are organising an evening in which we explore ways in which the built environment could become less, not more, dependent on sophisticated technological fixes. In what ways can we embed climate-oriented measures in architecture itself? What consequences does this have for how our buildings look? And should we also adjust our expectations regarding the comfort offered by our houses and offices?
Participants
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Daniel A. Barber
Daniel A. Barber is Professor of Architecture at the University of Technology Sydney and a Research Affiliate at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin. His research and teaching focus on how the architecture practice and pedagogy are changing to address the climate emergency. His most recent book is ‘Modern Architecture and Climate: Design before Air Conditioning’ (2020) following on ‘A House in the Sun: Modern Architecture and Solar Energy in the Cold War (2016)’. His essay ‘After Comfort’ forms the basis for an exhibition at the 2023 COP meeting in Dubai.
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Janna Bystrykh
Janna Bystrykh is Head of Architecture at the Academy of Architecture Amsterdam. Previously, she was Associate at AMO/OMA, where she led the Small Hermitage and Tretyakov Museum transformations, helped launch the Strelka education program and the Countryside research project, including the Harvard GSD Rotterdam studios, culminating in the 2020 Countryside exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum.
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Pauline Lefebvre
Pauline Lefebvre is FNRS Research Associate at the Faculty of Architecture at Université libre de Bruxelles. She investigates, amongst others, architects’ engagements in the run of the design process, with a specific focus on the forms of practice emerging when architects engage more directly in fabrication and construction. Her current investigation focuses on the social, political, and environmental commitments involved in architects’ increased attention to building materials.
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Sereh Mandias
Sereh Mandias studied Architecture at the TU Delft and Philosophy at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. In her work she oscillates between theory and praxis, with a specific interest in the creation of the contemporary city. She works as an independent writer and researcher, is the founder of architecture podcast Windoog, editor of Journal for Architecture OASE and teaches at the Chair of Interiors Buildings Cities (Faculty of Architecture and the built Environment, TU Delft) and the Rotterdam Academy of Architecture.