As function, symbol and form have lost their validity as drivers of the architectural project, we examine a recent reemerging interest in more phenomenological and ephemeral qualities of our physical world. Words like cloud, atmosphere, environment and realm are becoming increasingly ubiquitous in a post-icon era. This meteorological terminology tries to describe projects which are less formal and less defined. A fascination with weather not only informs architecture, also contemporary design, for instance in the work Tokuin Yoshioka, and artists such as Olafur Elliason take the weather as a point of departure. Other than in the past, where architects as Coop Himmelblau and Diller Scofidio explored weather in relation to mechanical systems, current explorations within architecture typically have as goal to re-examines the relationship between climate and architecture in order to create a “truly sustainable architecture and design, founded on the creation of new conceptual patterns, which recognize the primary role of physical and meteorological phenomena in architecture, economy, design, the media and every aspect of our society”
This studio tries to steer clear from the noble and calculable connotations that reside within the meteorological metaphor - the weather forecasters so to say – but rather is interested in the more unpredictable, the unstable and the extreme conditions weather can create. Daily we are confronted with the sheer force of the weather and its effects on our lives. We find these forces frightening yet fascinating. This fascination stems from the notion of the sublime, a category of aesthetics.
If good weather architecture would be about control, about comfort and about sustainability, what would bad weather architecture be? Can we achieve an architecture that is as powerful and effective as the worst storm? Can architecture achieve a new subliminal state?
http://www.arch.columbia.edu/work/courses/studio/su10-idenburg
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