Archives - Page 2
-
(Spring 2018) | BOTTEGA
No. 02In the last fifteen years we witnessed a new ethnographic wave of studies that focused on practising architecture. This body of research aimed at grasping the socio-material dimension of architectural practice. They all relied on the assumption that architecture is collective but it is shared with a variety of nonhumans. These “new ethnographies” generated “thick descriptions” of the knowledge practices of different participants in design. This issue of “Ardeth” collects contributions that will address the ecology of contemporary architectural practice, scrutinizing it as involving actors with variable ontology, scale and politics; exploring empirically different formats of design and reflecting on the importance of ethnography for understanding contemporary architectural practices.
-
KEY WORDS. Beautiful, Sustainable, Together
No. 12 (2023)In the backdrop of the New European Bauhaus, our time presents the European designer with three pivotal keywords: beautiful, sustainable, and together. The central question that this issue of “Ardeth” seeks to address is how to employ these three keywords in the best possible way. In essence, it grapples with the question of how to use but not abuse the checkpoints they provide us with to truly grasp the intricacies of their intended applications. The aim is to prevent hastening the transition from words to designs and, ultimately, from designs to the artefacts that make up the space of our day-to-day human existence.
-
Time. As content for designing
No. 14 (2024)In the realm of hard sciences, time is seen as moving forward towards the future, providing a framework for navigating the entropy and disorder of systems.
Time is seen subjectively in the humanities, as Bergson describes it in terms of recursive cycles exposed via sentient experience. From both angles, humanity is inevitably susceptible to time; either they die from entropic dispersion or depersonalizing repetition.
Much like science, myth reminds us that time ultimately devours life. But it also points to a possible escape: though Cronus eats his offspring, except for the youngest one, Zeus, who is saved by a stratagem “devised” by his mother Rhea – that is, replacing the baby with a stone. The image of the father suppressing the next generation is then replaced by the myth of the future emerging from the past, when all children are regurgitated by means of another of Zeus’ tricks. Thus, the myth implies that intellect (the trick) and intellectual works (the stones) can transcend time: if human beings cannot endure their extreme transience, they can endure the lesser transience of their “constructions” in time. Born to last either physically or as collective memory, the very essence of architecture engages in a (titanic) survival endeavour. Yet, in an era anchored to the myths of perennial youth, shall we also allow the right to be forgotten?
