CONCEPT
Every building is a prediction and every prediction is wrong.
Stewart Brand — ‘How buildings learn’
Instead of trying to anticipate the perfect building for a specific moment in time, Autarkytecture proposes flexible constructions that can adapt over time.
A built environment that is no longer the product of radical architectural theory, but rather builds further on preceding architectural practices.
Exploring successful patterns of the past in order to translate them into guiding design principles for the future.
This research is about shifting our attention, from how buildings look towards how they feel.
It is an attempt to integrate time into design. It aspires to create a built environment that can evolve, ages gracefully and just feels right.
AUTARKYTECTURE DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Forget about eternity
A building will most probably survive its present owner and/or its original intention.
The point of delivery only marks an end to the architect’s involvement, but is just the starting point for an
unepredictable series of users and uses.
Keep it simple
The more sophisticated integrated systems and techniques are, the more likely they are to break or to be one day out-of-date. A transparent and understandable construction as well as an accessible infrastructure will make life within easier.
Enable adaption
An open building program allows later change and adpation.
It will invite people to alter and play around with over time and is designed for growth.
Imagine reconfiguration
Modularity on all scales and the integration of time into design ensures that building materials and components can be taken apart, altered and changed without being wasted.
Consider tactility
There are materials that age gracefully and others that don’t. Since a building is not a rendering nor an architectural photography, it’s real life is actually starting after the picture is taken.
Allow imperfection
Perfection can be intimidating - or dead, whereas imperfection leaves room for an own interpretation.
Even failure can be a necessary step in a larger learning process and reveal unforeseen possibilities.
Respect tradition
By listening and observing at what is there already and why it is there the way it is, the wisdom of the past can be integrated it into a contemporary practise, that makes use of local material, methods and considers site specific knowledge.
Mix everything .. carefully
If materials, functionalities, ownership, occupants’ age etc. are well mixed they create synergies:
a system in which all these components complement each other and as a whole create a dynamic balance.
AUTARKYTECTURE BUILDING PATTERNS
- Modular building units
- Long thin structures
- Connected buildings
- Positive outdoor space
- South facing
- Arcades / Balconies
- Open stairs
- Connection to the earth
- Thin window frames / Small panes
Openstructures / Creative studio