The Ill-tempered Farm

The ill-tempered farm refers to the general micro-climate of the farm. These climates rather than being effected by the weather or the seasons are increasingly defined by human intervention and the built material environment. The space of the farm has become more and more enclosed or technologically controlled. This has largely been driven by normalized notions of comfort and productivity, as well as more recently by standardized definitions of sustainability. While this development may have produced a well-tempered interior climate, it has tragically also created an ill-tempered, contentious relationship with our surrounding environment.

Departing from the site of the farmstead this studio will take a detailed look at how the micro-climate of the farm is defined and created and critically examine the role architectural design plays.

The ill-tempered farm will look at how we can intervene with architecturally, and not only with technical, means into the micro-climate of the farm. The studio approaches architecture from a decidedly ecological perspective, where this not only includes the environmental but also the social and the mental, looking at different ways in which our bodies engage with our environment, how we are affected by it as well as how we affect it, within the space of the farm.

The site of the farm is a particular pertinent case study as farms historically have not been designed by architects. Despite the occasional foray of architects such as Le Corbusier (La ferme radieuse) or Cedric Price (Westpen) farm buildings have generally been conceived and constructed by craftspeople and more recently with industrialized prefabricated elements. On the other hand, the farm has been a test bed for numerous experiments that go “beyond sustainability” such as permaculture. This makes the confluence of architecture and agriculture an especially relevant place to study alternatives to a more ecological architecture.

The studio is broken down into three phases. The first phase, the Critique, is broadly concerned with notions of thermal comfort and will take a critical look at how this comfort is defined and represented in architecture and theory by reading relevant texts. Different means and methods that control the micro-climate of the farm will be researched, by way of diverse reference projects that explore the relation of architecture and agriculture. The Critique phase will conclude with a collected archive of reference images and texts that acts as a shared resource for the semester.

The second phase, the Analysis, will build on the Critique to frame a specific view(point) on thermal comfort, and define a concrete location to engage with the micro-climate of the farm. An existing farmstead, in the Belgian countryside, with several underused buildings, will be used a case study by the studio. We will visit the farm and analyze the buildings, the micro-climate, the cultural, historical, and social context, the materiality and architectural typologies, from the perspective of thermal comfort and production. Special focus will be put on the invisible flows that keep the buildings active and interrogate how our bodies and social interactions depend on and impact these different flows in and around a building, such as water, energy, air, circulation, and production. The analysis will be developed both theoretically and empirically, through observation and experimentation. Special emphasis will be put on the documenting, recording, and describing of the space and the experience of the farm and its flows. Through this act of representation an aesthetic language should be developed that communicates your personal viewpoint and that will inform the final phase.

Equipped with research, analysis, and representations of the farmstead, students will identify a focus on areas of discomfort on the farm to be addressed. This need not be limited to exclusively thermal discomfort, but should also expand to and include other areas of our relationship to and with the environment which may exceed the conventional definitions of comfort, such as alternate forms of community, food production and food distribution, or multispecies co-habitation. With this focus relevant habits and conventions will be examined and questioned, to take a critical position in relation to an approach to the (thermal) climate of the farm, and associated notions of comfort within the broader framework of the state of the world, and the current state of architecture specifically.

In the last phase, the Design, specific architectural interventions for the studied farmstead will be developed. These interventions can take on different forms and media but should articulate a specific engagement with the micro-climate of the farm, connecting to specific notions of comfort. The designs should approach the question of architecture and ecology beyond a technical narrowing of the topic and consider the question rather from a cultural perspective. Interventions can examine design, organizational or material processes, as well as their connections to specific forms of life. Special attention should be paid to the interplay of various design tasks, including those relating to building materials and construction and production, going beyond the primarily visual, and connecting with the domain of sensual experiences and bodily practices, as well as the social and the societal.

The representation of the project should build on the aesthetic language explored in the analysis phase. The manner is which the project is represented and communicated will play a crucial role in defining your position and in advancing a convincing design.

By focusing on the micro-climate of the farm an ecological architectural project will be developed, looking for alternatives to conventional practices, intervening on the architectural, as well as the environmental level. Through means of observation, documentation, analysis, design and ultimately representation the projects will build different narratives that inform architecture through the global historical processes that shape our environment.

Excursion/study trip/…? (+ timing):

2-day workshop at a farm in Attenrode, Belgium.

First week in October.

photo credit: Bertrand Cavalier