Figure 6 - uploaded by Marie Davidova
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Jaali, Delhi (hot semi-arid climate), India, 1605-1627, Houston Museum of Fine Art, USA (photo: Davidová, 2016).
Source publication
This article seeks the qualitative synthesis of schools of thought from extreme climate regions that could support urban biodiversity and climate change adaptation through architectural design. It proposes that climate comfort and biodiversity are closely related. This article suggests a possible systemic urban metabolism within a built environment...
Contexts in source publication
Context 1
... jaalis appear either in the form of breathing walls, carved stone (see Figure 6) or latticework screens with a wide range of porosity. The size of the openings and the selection of material depends on the targeted climatic performance and the availability of the material in the region. ...
Context 2
... or not, nature, such as plants or insects and smaller animals, penetrates through such screens, and such coliving situations are overly understood as part of the Indian culture, being symbolic for different shrines or integrated into traditional cities' metabolisms (i.e., sacred cow milking on the streets, rat shrines, etc.). The detail from the gigamap (see Figure 7) shows speculated ecosystemic performance of the jaali in the picture above (see Figure 6). In the not too dry conditions of Delhi with monsoon rains, it does not cover too much of the humidifying performance. ...
Citations
... A study by [17] describes "breathe" as a biomimicry strategy to collect water through a façade. Another study by [18] interprets "breathe" as an interaction between the building with the world, which had similarity to [19] 's investigation that "breathing" is not the only connection between the indoors and outdoors air, but also includes other elements surround the building such as climate, landscape, another organism, etc., which as well as the meaning of breathable as permeable boundaries that allows outdoor elements to go through inside the building. Additionally, "breathe" in [20]'s study means allowing the air to ventilate indoors aims to energyefficiency and remove indoor contaminants. ...
Indoor air quality is essential in improving indoor well-being since most people spend their time there. The breathing Architecture concept promotes a strategy for designing indoor space to maintain the indoor air quality. This concept has various challenges, such as indoor pollutants determining the indoor environment to be healthy and decent. This study aims to identify the relationship between IAQ variables related to Breathing Architecture and air pollutants based on secondary sources of past and existing research ten years ago. The review identified 16 articles collected by selecting several relevant keywords in ScienceDirect and screening the title and abstract. Content analysis was conducted to analyze the relationship between IAQ variables and pollutants and their potential association with the breathing architecture concept. The results show that air exchange rate, volume of spaces, relative humidity, and indoor-outdoor temperature are the most potential variables and have a possible relationship while implementing the BA concept. Using these variables, the optimal condition might be perceived since the possibility of lower pollutant contamination might be lower, and the purpose of breathing architecture might be obtained. However, the relationship between other variables and pollutants requires future studies since it is undescribed or may impact other variables.
... Esto puede complementarse con la incorporación de materiales de alta masa térmica, como concreto o ladrillo, en el diseño del edificio para ayudar a estabilizar las temperaturas interiores al almacenar calor durante el día y liberarlo lentamente por la noche [6]. Es importante, además, integrar sistemas de calefacción y refrigeración eficientes y de baja demanda energética, como bombas de calor de alta eficiencia, para mantener temperaturas confortables cuando sea necesario [7]. El uso de la tecnología también puede ayudar para incluir sistemas de control de temperatura automatizados que ajusten la climatización según las condiciones ambientales y las necesidades de confort. ...
The research will explore how the design and construction of nearly zero-energy buildings can be addressed from a bioclimatic perspective, considering factors such as orientation, natural ventilation, sustainable materials, and energy efficiency strategies. Some case studies in different climates and regions are presented to understand how bioclimatic principles adapt to various environmental and geographical conditions. The documentary methodology focuses on reviewing articles published in Scopus database journals, mainly from recent years. The main results show that sustainable constructions are necessary for conserving the environment but also favor human life and the reuse of biodegradable raw materials.
... This project searches how architecture can integrate more-than-human habitats and edible landscapes through screens, envelopes, walls and semi-interior spaces. Parallel vernacular architecture investigations were done by more authors on an architectural scale, mainly focusing on historical references and the possibilities of application of their schools of thought to recent practice (Davidová 2021;Davidová and Raková 2018;Hensel and Turko 2015;Ludwig et al. 2019;Sunguroğlu Hensel 2020). AI with object recognition is, for instance, used for animal species detection as an initial step to mitigate the negative impacts of wildlife-human and wildlife-vehicle encounters (Ibraheam et al. 2021). ...
The Systemic Approach to Architectural Performance (SAAP) looks at an ecosystem as a more-than-human community and searches for its synergy. It integrates Systems Oriented Design (SOD) and its tool gigamapping methodology for multi-stakeholders and multidisciplinary cocreation amongst humans, a ‘real-life codesign laboratory’ with more-than-human stakeholders and reflection. These appear in feedback loops. SAAP focuses on more-than-human edible and habitable landscapes in urban environments and their social and generative agendas. Therefore, it is using tools such as prototypical urban interventions such as insect hotels, their DIY recipes and mobile applications to introduce a more-than-human economy, bridging the interventions, their DIY recipes and more-than-human social engagement. Therefore, a community member can be paid for reproducing a DIY recipe of an insect hotel, as well as the insect can be paid for its ecosystemic performance, such as pollination. Artificial intelligence is being used to recognise such performance for associating value. This should generate resilient communities of Post-Anthropocene where humans and nonhumans coperform in synergy. We are all dependent on the overall ecosystem. However, recent economic models and our urban environments do not reflect it. Therefore, we are facing Anthropocene Extinction which is, of course, also destructive to humans. This paper mainly reflects on an ongoing project COLife.
... This article discusses research-by-design [17,18] work that is achieved through historical case studies and its knowledge application to practice. Researching historical and vernacular case studies to inform contemporary practice has been argued by many authors across the architectural, urban and landscape design fields [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. This has always been approached through a "reflective practitioner" [29] perspective rather than as any historical or conservation study [26,27]. ...
... Researching historical and vernacular case studies to inform contemporary practice has been argued by many authors across the architectural, urban and landscape design fields [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27][28]. This has always been approached through a "reflective practitioner" [29] perspective rather than as any historical or conservation study [26,27]. The mentioned authors focus on either climate or biodiversity support or both through the traditions that have been developed over generations. ...
... Several historical and vernacular studies have been performed on Norwegian svalgangs (see Figure 1), skuts (see Figure 2) and their breathing envelopes (see Figure 3) by Davidová and Raková [26,27]. These studies focused on various semi-interior spaces and their envelopes, which were further investigated in a larger context (see Figures 4 and 5). ...
The research's main objective is to explore and encourage modes of architectural practice that can foster multispecies co-living to reduce biodiversity loss and increase the quality of life for both human and nonhuman inhabitants of architecture. This is achieved through conceptual discussions , comprehensive architectural case studies and work-based design explorations that support cross-species co-living in the context of Eastern Norway (Østlandet)-a geographical region of southeastern Norway consisting of the counties Vestfold, Telemark, Viken, Oslo and Innlandet. A pluralistic method builds on analytical, critical and work-based explorative studies consisting of two parts: (a) historical and contemporary case studies in Norway that support modes of cross-species co-living and (b) design explorations by the second author investigating the operational potential of kindness in architecture. The notion of kindness in this research is built upon an understanding of the amalgam of concepts: solidarity, kinship and being kind, explained in the article's introduction. The potential for designing with and for nonhumans to reinvigorate modes of co-living and support existing habitats is investigated, focusing on the ways three bird species relate to a specific building in Eastern Norway due to their habitat needs in the region: Cyanistes caeruleus, Eurasian blue tit (blåmeis in Norwegian); Passer montanus, Eurasian tree sparrow (pilfink in Norwe-gian); and Delichon urbicum, northern or common house martin (taksvale in Norwegian). The research contributes to ongoing discussions within architectural discourse regarding multispecies in-habitation and architecture's role in the current biodiversity crisis and provides insight into both historical and contemporary/ongoing design solutions for multispecies co-living.
... This project searches how architecture can integrate more-than-human habitats and edible landscapes through screens, envelopes, walls and semi-interior spaces. Parallel vernacular architecture investigations were done by more authors on an architectural scale, mainly focusing on historical references and the possibilities of application of their schools of thought to recent practice (Davidová 2021;Davidová and Raková 2018;Hensel and Turko 2015;Ludwig et al. 2019;Sunguroğlu Hensel 2020). AI with object recognition is, for instance, used for animal species detection as an initial step to mitigate the negative impacts of wildlife-human and wildlife-vehicle encounters (Ibraheam et al. 2021). ...
The Systemic Approach to Architectural Performance (SAAP) looks at an ecosystem as a more-than-human community and searches for its synergy. It integrates Systems Oriented Design (SOD) and its tool gigamapping methodology for multi-stakeholders and multidisciplinary cocreation amongst humans, a ‘real-life codesign laboratory’ with more-than-human stakeholders and reflection. These appear in feedback loops. SAAP focuses on more-than-human edible and habitable landscapes in urban environments and their social and generative agendas. Therefore, it is using tools such as prototypical urban interventions such as insect hotels, etc., their DIY recipes and mobile applications to introduce a more-than-human economy, bridging the interventions, their DIY recipes and more-than-human social engagement. Therefore, a community member can be paid for reproducing a DIY recipe of an insect hotel, as well as the insect can be paid for its ecosystemic performance, such as pollination. Artificial intelligence is being used to recognise such performance for associating value. This should generate resilient communities of Post-Anthropocene where humans and nonhumans coperform in synergy. We are all dependent on the overall ecosystem. However, recent economic models and our urban environments do not reflect it. Therefore, we are facing Anthropocene Extinction, which is, of course, also destructive to humans. This paper mainly reflects on an ongoing project COLife.
... In light of the pressing challenges, we discuss the potential of urban green infrastructure [24][25][26][27][28][29] to mitigate urban heat islands and biodiversity loss, and to prepare for a paradigm change towards more-than-human conviviality in cities. We use the example of vertical walls as a complementary habitat-forming element to act as bioclimatic layers [30] that benefit flora, fauna and humans alike [31,32]. Green infrastructures do not contribute to climate protection and biodiversity in cities per se, but need to prove their functions in this regard and move away from a utilitarian view of nature as a resource that can be manipulated indefinitely. ...
... The aim of our study is to reflect on the potential of green façade systems to act as bioclimatic layers [30] and as a revolutionary infrastructure for fostering urban transformations and more-than-human conviviality in the context of the Anthropocene and manmade ecological crises [3]. In order to conceptualize the infrastructural relations and functions that would be required for this paradigm shift to take place, a general understanding of infrastructures and a differentiation of infrastructure types is introduced: Infrastructures are commonly understood as "a system of substrates" [37] (p. ...
... This synergy can also be described through the concept of "bioclimatic layers". Davidová [30] uses this term to describe architectural elements such as walls, envelopes, and screens in the urban context that act as penetrable boundaries with a multitude of effects: connecting and separating both species and functions, enabling symbiotic co-living practices, catering to the specific needs of species through stratification, providing nutrition and shelter, as well as cooling and shading indoor and outdoor spaces, thus creating beneficial microclimates. For the context of green façade systems, this would mean that designs would need to overcome conventional limitations of green walls mainly serving the human desire for ever-green ornamental vegetation. ...
This study analyzes the growing trend of urban green infrastructures, particularly green façade systems, in terms of their infrastructural relationships between nature and culture and their potential to act as bioclimatic layers mediating between the needs of flora, fauna and human habitation. An interdisciplinary approach is taken by combining the perspectives of social and engineering sciences to discuss the contribution of green façade systems for more-than-human conviviality in cities. Green infrastructures can support this endeavor by enabling functions that help to integrate the heterogeneity typical for semi-natural structures into urban ones, especially regarding microclimatic and biodiversity-enhancing functions. The theoretical distinction between “gray”, “green”, and “revolutionary” infrastructure is used to differentiate between conventional and posthumanist conceptualizations of urban naturecultures. The performance of the UNA TERRA living wall prototype as a green and revolutionary infrastructure is evaluated. The results show that the living wall has beneficial microclimatic effects and adds a heterogeneous habitat structure that supports biodiversity in the urban context. By adhering to “egalitarian humility” in design, the uncertainty and openness of more-than-human conviviality are acknowledged. The study finds that green infrastructures such as green façade systems can fulfill the criteria of revolutionary infrastructure if the contribution to local biodiversity and structural complexity is prioritized and the heterogeneous interrelations between human and non-human actors are taken into account.
... Employing RL and MOO can lead to improved decision making and novel or adapted design options that put human and non-human existence at the forefront. Thus, computational methods need to holistically encompass more non-human agents such as plants, animals, and the climate to truly contribute to a healthful ecotopia ( Davidová, 2021 ). In other words, we will need to imbue computational systems with an awareness of and adaptability to ecology, which might or might not be achievable with simulated environments. ...
