Article 24

June 12, 2014, 12:40 am

≫ Next: From Urban Acupuncture to the Third Generation City

≪ Previous: MARCO CASAGRANDE VIIDETTÄ KERTAA VENETSIAN BIENNAALIIN

Title: Taitung Ruin Academy
Year: 2014
Artist：Marco Casagrande
Medium: wood, tatami, solar panels etc.

Artist’s Interpretation:

The Ruin Academy in Taitung, Taiwan is situated in an old sugar factory out of duty. The Ruin Academy is an organic machine. It has grown into the abandoned industrial machinery like an architectural creeper and is now producing humane sugar: creativity.

The Ruin Academy is continuing its bio-urban research on the multidisciplinary design methodology of the Third Generation City, the organic ruin of the industrial city, urban scale organic machine. The research is tied with local knowledge and is operating freely in-between different disciplines of art and science within the general framework of bio-urban built human environment.

Ruin Academy is an avant-garde fragment of the International Society of Biourbanism, a laboratory which is focused on the biological restoration of the industrial city through punctual interventions as a form of bio-urban acupuncture.

Ruin Academy is hosting a series of workshops for Taiwanese and international universities and citizen groups. It is producing multidisciplinary research and design for real-life cases in Taitung and Taiwan at large. As a creeper the Ruin Academy can slowly grow to occupy and activate new corners of the Sugar Factory machine. We are industrial insects and the Sugar Factory is our hive for insect architecture.

In the Sugar Factory the Ruin Academy operators are working and living in a machine. The industrial control is opened up in order to let nature to step in. The machine is now growing bamboo, vegetables and fruits. Openings on the roof are letting rainwater to irrigate the different organic layers growing on the machinery. The concrete slab on the floor is penetrated with big holes so that bigger trees can root in the original ground. There is a traditional Finnish sauna in one of the big processing tanks.

Together with Taitung County Cultural Affairs Department

臺東廢墟學院工作坊志工招募
【機構名稱】臺東縣文化處、臺東糖廠
【職務名稱】臺東廢墟學院工作坊志工
【職缺類別】志工
【招募人數】20名

【工作內容】
本計劃擬招募20名，對台東廢墟學院有濃厚興趣之學生或社會人士為志工，參與整個計畫空間改造工程的建構。參與者可近距離觀察並協助知名建築師兼藝術家馬可 • 卡薩格蘭（Marco Casagrande）如何將台東糖廠之局部改造發展成台東廢墟學院的整個過程，並對其以「第三代城市」、「生物城市」等概念為核心的未來城市想像有所認識。

【工作坊時間】
2014年7月15日－2014年7月30日，每日9:00~18:00
午休時間：12：00－13：00；周末全日休息
【工作坊地點】
台東糖廠，臺東市中興路二段191號
【志工招募條件】
1.年滿18歲以上
2.對建築藝術文化有高度興趣
3.需全程參與本活動(2014/7/15~7/30)
4.需協助建築施工，故具服務熱忱、耐心與良好體力者為佳
5.需自行處理/支付往返台東交通、住宿
6.無學歷需求或限制，具日常英語會話能力者尤佳
7.男女不拘
【志工福利】
1.擔任志工期間享有保險
2.工作日中午便當(周末不供應)
3.實習證書索取（開放自行申請）
【薪資待遇】
無薪資。
【報名程序】
1.填寫下頁「志工報名表」(電子檔)
2.於2014年6月30日前，回傳電子郵件與志工報名表，主旨請以「臺東廢墟學院工作坊志工招募+個人姓名」，寄至phebea@gmail.com，沈小姐收
3.信件寄出24小時以內，專人回信確認信件收覆，若未接獲回覆，煩請再次郵寄報名表
4.2014年7月10日前，專人通知您錄取本活動志工，無錄取者不另行通知

志工報名表所需資料
若需電子檔，請來信至phebea@gmail.com索取

三個月內近照
姓名
出生日期
手機
e-mail
市內電話：
學校 / 服務單位
系級 / 職稱
語言能力中文英文(請簡述聽、說能力)
緊急聯絡人：關係姓名手機
保險受益人
用餐 □ 葷素

↧

From Urban Acupuncture to the Third Generation City

September 28, 2016, 7:09 am

≫ Next: Article 0

≪ Previous: Article 24

Casagrande, M. (2016). From Urban Acupuncture to the Third Generation City. Journal of

Biourbanism, IV(1&2/2015), 29−42.

From Urban Acupuncture to

the Third Generation City

Marco Casagrande

Ruin Academy, C-Lab, and International Society of Biourbanism, Finland

ABSTRACT

The crisis of urbanism is analyzed as a vital phenomenon that prepares the Third Generation City—its connection with nature and its flesh. The industrial city is, on the contrary, fictitious. The example of the settlement of Treasure Hill, near Taipei, is given. As an organic ruin of the industrial city, Treasure Hill is a biourban site of resistance and an acupuncture point of Taipei, with its own design methodology based on Local Knowledge. This ruin is the matter from which parasite urbanism composts the modern city. Another example is offered by observing the daily life in Mumbai’s unofficial settlements. Urban acupuncture, the Third Generation City, and the conceptual model of paracity speak to the community that rests in the hands of its own people.

Keywords: urban acupuncture, biourbanism, Third Generation City, ruins, parasite urbanism,

paracity, Local Knowledge

INTRODUCTION

Missis Chen is 84 years old. She has lived together with the Xindian River all her life. Her family used to have a boat, like every Taipei family, and a water buffalo. Sometimes the kids would cross the river on the back of the buffalo. Sometimes an uncle might end up so drunk, that they hesitated, if they could put him back on his boat after an evening together. Children, vegetables, and laundry were washed in the river. The water was drinkable and the river was full of fish, crabs, snails, clams, shrimp, and frogs to eat.

Missis Chen used to work for sand harvesters, who dug sand out of the river bottom for making concrete. She made food for them. Many of the sand harvesters lived in the Treasure Hill settlement together with Missis Chen’s family. In the past, the hill had been a Japanese Army anti-aircraft position, and it was rumored that the Japanese had hidden a treasure of gold somewhere in their bunker networks inside the hill—hence the name Treasure Hill.

Xindian River was flooding—like all Taipei rivers—when the frequent typhoons arrived in summers and autumns. The flood was not very high, though—the Taipei Basin is a vast flood plain and water has plenty of space to spread out. Houses were designed so that the knee-high flood would not come in, or in some places, the water was let into the ground floor while people continued to live on the upper floors. In Treasure Hill, the flood would also come into the piggeries and other light-weight structures on the river flood bank, but the houses with people were a bit higher up on the hill. All of the flood bank was farmed, and the farms and vegetable gardens were constructed so that they could live together with the flood. Flooding was normal. This pulse of nature was a source of life.

Missis Chen remembers when the river got polluted. “The pollution comes from upstream,” she says, referring to the many illegal ‘Made in Taiwan’—factories up on the mountains and river banks, which let all their industrial waste into the river. “Now not even the dogs eat the fish anymore.” At some point, the river became so polluted that Taipei children were taught not to touch the water or they would go blind. The flood became poisonous for the emerging industrial city, which could no longer live together with the river nature. The city built a wall against the flooding river: a 12 meters high, reinforced concrete flood wall separating the built urban environment from nature.

“One day, the flood came to Chiang Kai-shek’s home and the Dictator got angry. He built the wall. We call it the Dictator’s Wall,” an elderly Jiantai fisherman recalls sitting in his bright blue boat with a painted white eye and red mouth and continues to tell his stories describing which fish disappeared which year, and when some of the migrating fishes ceased to return to the river. In one lifetime, the river has transformed from a treasure chest of seafood into an industrial sewer, which is once again being slowly restored towards a more natural condition. The wall hasn’t moved anywhere. The generations of Taipei citizens born after the 1960s don’t live in a river city. They live in an industrially-walled urban fiction separated from nature.

TREASURE HILL

In 2003, the Taipei City Government decided to destroy the unofficial settlement of Treasure Hill. By that time, the community consisted of some 400 households of mainly elderly Kuomintang veterans and illegal migrant workers. The bulldozers had knocked down the first two layers of the houses of the terraced settlement on the hillside. After that, the houses were standing too high for the bulldozers to reach, and there were no drivable roads leading into the organically built settlement. Then the official city destroyed the farms and community gardens of Treasure Hill down by the Xindian River flood banks. Then they cut the circulation between the individual houses—small bridges, steps, stairs, and pathways. After that, Treasure Hill was left to rot, to die slowly, cut away from its life sources.

Roan Chin-Yueh of the WEAK! managed so that the City Government Department of Cultural Affairs invited me to Taipei. She introduced me to Treasure Hill’s impressive organic settlement with a self-made root-cleaning system of gray waters through patches of jungle on the hillside. Treasure Hill was composting organic waste into fertilizer for the farms and using minimum amounts of electricity, which was stolen from the official grid. There was even a central radio system through which Missis Chen could transmit important messages to the community, such as inviting them to watch old black and white movies in the open-air cinema in front of her house.

At that point, the city had stopped to collect trash from Treasure Hill, and there were lots of garbage bags in the alleys. I started to collect these garbage bags and carried them down the hill into a pile close to a point that you could reach with a truck. The residents did not speak to me, but instead they hid inside their houses. One could feel their eyes on one’s back, though. Some houses were abandoned and I entered them. The interiors and the atmospheres were as if the owners had left all of a sudden. Even photo albums were there and tiny altars with small gods with long beards. In one of the houses, I could not help looking at the photo album. The small tinted black and white photos started in mainland China, and all the guys wore Kuomintang military uniforms. Different landscapes in different parts of China, and then at some point the photos turned to color prints. The same guys were in Taiwan. Then there was a woman, and an elderly gentleman posed with her in civil clothes by a fountain. Photos of children and young people. Civil clothes, but the Kuomintang flag of Taiwan everywhere. A similar flag was inside the room. Behind me, somebody enters the house, which is only one room with the altar on the other end and a bed on the other. The old man is looking at me. He is calm and observant, somehow sad. He speaks and shows with his hand at the altar. Do not touch—I understand. I look at the old man in the eyes and he looks into mine. I feel like looking at the photo album. The owner of the house must have been his friend. They have travelled together a long way from the civil war of China to Taiwan. They have literally built their houses on top of Japanese concrete bunkers and made their life in Treasure Hill. His friend has passed away. There is a suitcase and I pack inside the absent owner’s trousers and his shirt, both in khaki color. I continue collecting the garbage bags and carry the old man’s bag around the village. The next day the residents start helping me with collecting the garbage. Professor Kang Min-Jay organizes a truck to take the bags away. After a couple of days, we organize a public ceremony together with some volunteer students and Treasure Hill veterans, and declare a war on the official city: Treasure Hill will fight back and it is here to stay. I’m wearing the dead man’s clothes.

We have a long talk with Professor Roan about Treasure Hill and how to stop the destruction. He suggests that Hsieh Ying-Chun (Atelier 3, WEAK!) will join us with his aboriginal Thao tribe crew of self-learned construction workers. I start touring at local universities giving speeches about the situation and try to recruit students for construction work. In the end, we have 200 students from Tamkang University Department of Architecture, Chinese Cultural University, and National Taiwan University. A team of attractive girl students manage to make a deal with the neighboring bridge construction site workers, and they start offloading some of the construction material cargo to us from the trucks passing us by. We mainly get timber and bamboo; they use mahogany for the concrete molds.

With the manpower and simple construction material, we start reconstructing the connections between the houses of the settlement, but most importantly, we also restart the farms. The bridge construction workers even help us with a digging machine. Missis Chen comes to advise us about the farming and offers us food and Chinese medicine. I am invited to her house every evening after the workday with an interpreter. She tells her life story and I see how she is sending food to many houses whose inhabitants are very old. Children from somewhere come to share our dinners as well. Her house is the heart of the community. Treasure Hill veterans join us in the farming and construction work. Rumors start spreading in Taipei: things are cooking in Treasure Hill. More people volunteer for the work, and after enough urban rumors the media arrives suddenly. After the media, the politicians follow. Commissioner Liao from the City Government Cultural Bureau comes to recite poems. Later Mayor Ma Ying-Jeou comes jogging by with TV crews and gives us his blessings. The City Government officially agrees that this is exactly why they had invited me from Finland to work with the issue of Treasure Hill. The same government had been bulldozing the settlement away 3 weeks earlier.

One can design whole cities simply with rumors.

Working in Treasure Hill had pressed an acupuncture point of the industrial Taipei City. Our humble construction work was the needle that had penetrated through the thin layer of official control and touched the original ground ofTaipei—collective topsoil where Local Knowledge is rooting. Treasure Hill is an urban compost, which was considered a smelly corner of the city, but after some turning is now providing the most fertile topsoil for future development. The Taiwanese would refer to this organic energy as “Chi.”

URBAN ACUPUNCTURE

After the initial discovery in Treasure Hill, the research of Urban Acupuncture continued at the Tamkang University Department of Architecture, where Chairman Chen Cheng-Chen under my professorship added it to the curriculum in the autumn of 2004. In 2009, the Finnish Aalto University’s Sustainable Global Technologies research center with Professor Olli Varis joined in to further develop the multidisciplinary working methods of Urban Acupuncture in Taipei, with focus on urban ecological restoration through punctual interventions. In 2010, the Ruin Academy was launched in Taipei with the help of the JUT Foundation. The Academy operated as an independent multidisciplinary research center moving freely in between the different disciplines of art and science within the general framework of built human environment. The focus was on Urban Acupuncture and the theory of the Third Generation City. Ruin Academy collaborated with the Tamkang University Department of Architecture, the National Taiwan University Department of Sociology, Aalto University SGT, the Taipei City Government Department of Urban Development, and the International Society of Biourbanism.

Urban Acupuncture is not an academic innovation. It refers to common collective Local Knowledge practices that already exist in Taipei and other cities, self-organized practices that are tuning the industrial city towards the organic machine—the Third Generation City.

In Taipei, the citizens ruin the centrally governed, official mechanical city with unofficial networks of urban farms and community gardens. They occupy streets for night markets and second hand markets, and activate idle urban spaces for karaoke, gambling, and collective exercises (dancing, Tai-Chi, Chi-Gong, et cetera). They build illegal extensions to apartment buildings, and dominate the urban no man’s land by self-organized, unofficial settlements, such as Treasure Hill. The official city is the source of pollution, while the self-organized activities are more humble in terms of material energy-flows and more tied with nature through the traditions of Local Knowledge. There is a natural resistance towards the official city. It is viewed as an abstract entity that seems to threaten people’s sense of community, and separates them from the biological circulations.

Urban Acupuncture is Local Knowledge in Taipei, which on a larger scale, keeps the official city alive. The unofficial is the biological tissue of the mechanical city. Urban Acupuncture is a biourban healing and development process connecting modern man with nature.

THIRD GENERATION CITY

The first generation city is the one where the human settlements are in straight connection with nature and dependent on nature. The fertile and rich Taipei Basin provided a fruitful environment for such a settlement. The rivers were full of fish and good for transportation, with the mountains protecting the farmed plains from the straightest hits of the frequent typhoons.

The second generation city is the industrial city. Industrialism granted the citizens independence from nature—a mechanical environment could provide everything humans needed. Nature was seen as something unnecessary or as something hostile—it was walled away from the mechanical reality.

The Third Generation City is the organic ruin of the industrial city, an open form, organic machine tied with Local Knowledge and self-organized community actions. The community gardens of Taipei are fragments of third generation urbanism when they exist together with their industrial surroundings. Local Knowledge is present in the city, and this is where Urban Acupuncture is rooting. Among the anarchist gardeners are the Local Knowledge professors of Taipei.

The Third Generation City is a city of cracks. The thin mechanical surface of the industrial city is shattered, and from these cracks emerge the new biourban growth, which will ruin the second generation city. Human-industrial control is opened up in order for nature to step in. A ruin is when the manmade has become part of nature. In the Third Generation City, we aim at designing ruins. The Third Generation City is true when the city recognizes its local knowledge and allows itself to be part of nature.

“To find a form that accommodates the mess, that is the task of the artist now” (Samuel Beckett).

PARASITE URBANISM

The emerging biourban cities are not homogeneous platforms for single cultures, races, economical doctrines, timelines, or other ways of life or being. They are urban composts where organic knowledge is floating into the cracks of the industrially developed surroundings. This organic knowledge has the ability to treat and heal the surrounding city as a positive parasite. It can suck in and treat urban and even industrial waste, and it is able to build bridges between the modern man and nature. It can grow to places where the industrial city cannot go and through punctual interventions, it can tune the whole urban development towards the organic; built human nature as part of nature.

This symbiotic coexistence between the “official” and “developed” city, and the unofficial, self-built and organic parasite biourbanism has been existing already for a long time with slums, favelas, camps of migrating workers, unofficial settlements, urban enclaves of resistance, community gardens and urban farms, and even refugee camps. These strongholds of urban nomads are harvesting the surrounding city from what it calls waste, surplus material streams of the industrial life. Without these urban nomads, these material streams will end up in nature as what we call pollution. The unofficial is the buffer zone between development and nature—trying to save the city from itself.

This parasite urbanism should be encouraged to grow on the expense of industrial efficiency. It should eat the urban industrialism away up until a point, where the city is in tune with the life-providing systems of nature. Within this new biourban human mangrove, the relicts of the industrial hardness will emerge as islands, ridges or hills, maybe volcanoes. This urban compost is the Third Generation City. It already exists in many places and on many scales, from Jakarta to Rio, and from the collective urban farms of Taipei to the buffalo sheds of Mumbai. It is not a utopia, but a way in which the different material cycles of cities have coexisted for much longer than industrialism.

For example, in Mumbai there have always been countless buffalo sheds along the monsoon floodwater streams. The respected animal gives fuel (dung-cakes) and milk to the surrounding city. Here, the river or stream is an essential part of this symbiosis. The buffalo dung is pushed to the low water stream, where women mix it by foot with straw before it gets transported back to the sheds for the making and drying of the dung-cakes. The buffaloes also need to get washed every day. The buffalo caretakers are living on decks above the animals.

People have always brought their household waste from the surrounding city to the buffalo sheds in exchange for the milk and energy. The first one to eat from this organic waste is the buffalo, which will pick up the best parts. Then comes the goat, which can even eat paper. After the goat comes the dog, who goes through the possible small remnants of bones, skins, and meat. The last one in the chain is the pig, who will eat even rotten meat and already digested material. The surrounding city cannot live without the buffalo sheds. This chain of animals worked perfectly before the age of industrial materials. Then, materials started to appear in the trash bags that even a pig could not consume—plastics, aluminum, et cetera. The city needed a new animal: man.

The slums of Mumbai have grown around the buffalo sheds. Millions of people have been transported from the poorest areas of India to take care of the developed city. Only in the Owhiwara River chain of slums is there estimated to live some 700,000 inhabitants. The recycling stations and illegal factories are situated here, just next door to Bollywood. What cannot be recycled or treated ends up in the river, just like in Jakarta it ends up in the bay. Monsoon will flush the toilet.

The buffalo sheds are the original acupuncture needles of Mumbai. Now, together with slums, they present a strong culture of parasite urbanism. The harvesting, processing, and recycling of the urban waste is harmful for the people who do it and for nature. The Third Generation City is looking towards a situation where the parasite urbanism has reached another level presenting a biourban balance between the rivers, slums, and the surrounding city.

PARACITY

Learning from the cases of Taipei and Mumbai, we have developed a conceptual model to further study the possibilities of parasite urbanism: Paracity (2014).

Paracity is a biourban organism that is growing on the principles of Open Form: individual design-built actions generating spontaneous communicative reactions on the surrounding built human environment. This organic constructivist dialogue leads to self-organized community structures, sustainable development, and knowledge building. Open Form is close to the original Taiwanese ways of developing the self-organized and often “illegal” communities. These micro-urban settlements contain a high volume of Local Knowledge, which we believe will start composting in Paracity, once the development of the community is in the hands of the citizens.

The agritectural organism of the Paracity is based on a primary wooden three-dimensional structure, an organic grid with spatial modules of 6 x 6 x 6 meters, constructed out of CLT (cross-laminated timber) beams, and columns. This simple structure can be modified and developed by the community members. The primary structure can grow even in neglected urban areas such as flood plains, hillsides, abandoned industrial areas, storm water channels, and slums. Paracity is perfectly suited for flooding and tsunami risk areas and the CLT primary structure is highly fire-resistant and capable of withstanding earthquakes.

Paracity provides the skeleton, but the citizens create the flesh. Design should not replace reality—Flesh is More. Paracitizens will attach their individual, self-made architectural solutions, gardens, and farms on the primary structure, which will offer a three- dimensional building grid for DIY architecture. The primary structure also provides the main arteries of water and human circulation, but the finer Local Knowledge nervous networks are weaved in by the inhabitants. Large parts of Paracity is occupied by wild and cultivated nature following the example of Treasure Hill and other unofficial communities in Taipei.

Paracity’s self-sustainable biourban growth is backed up by off-the-grid modular environmental technology solutions, providing methods for water purification, energy production, organic waste treatment, waste water purification, and sludge recycling. These modular plug-in components can be adjusted according to the growth of the Paracity, and moreover, the whole Paracity is designed not only to treat and circulate its own material streams, but to start leeching waste from its host city and thus becoming a positive urban parasite following the similar kinds of symbiosis as in-between slums and the surrounding city. In a sense, Paracity is a high-tech slum, which can start tuning the industrial city towards an ecologically more sustainable direction. Paracity is a Third Generation City, an organic machine urban compost, which assists the industrial city to transform itself into being part of nature.

The pilot project of the Paracity grows on an urban farming island of Danshui River, Taipei City. The island is located between the Zhongxing and Zhonxiao bridges and is around 1,000 meters long and 300 meters wide. Paracity Taipei celebrates the original first generation Taipei urbanism with a high level of “illegal” architecture, self-organized communities, urban farms, community gardens, urban nomads, and constructive anarchy.

After the Paracity has reached critical mass, the life-providing system of the CLT structure will start escalating. It will cross the river and start taking root on the flood plains. It will then cross the 12 meters high Taipei flood wall and gradually grow into the city. The flood wall will remain in the guts of the Paracity, but the new structure enables Taipei citizens to fluently reach the river. Paracity will reunite the river reality and the industrial urban fiction. Paracity is a mediator between the modern city and nature. Seeds of the Paracity will start taking root within the urban acupuncture points of Taipei: illegal community gardens, urban farms, abandoned cemeteries, and wastelands. From these acupuncture points, Paracity will start growing by following the covered irrigation systems such as the Liukong Channel, and eventually the biourban organism and the static city will find a balance—the Third Generation Taipei.

Paracity has a lot of holes, gaps, and nature between houses. This is a city of cracks. The system ventilates itself like a large-scale beehive of post-industrial insects. The different temperatures of the roofs, gardens, bodies of water and shaded platforms will generate small winds between them, and the hot roofs will start sucking in breeze from the cooler river. The individual houses should also follow the traditional principles of bioclimatic architecture and not rely on mechanical air-conditioning.

The biourbanism of the Paracity is as much landscape as it is architecture. The all-encompassing landscape-architecture of Paracity includes organic layers for natural water purification and treatment, community gardening, farming, and biomass production as an energy source. Infrastructure and irrigation water originates from the polluted Danshui River and will be both chemically (bacteria-based) and biologically purified before being used in the farms, gardens, and the houses of the community. The bacteria/chemically purified water gets pumped up to the roof parks on the top level of the Paracity, from where it will by gravity start circulating into the three-dimensional irrigation systems.

Paracity is based on free flooding. The whole city stands on stilts, allowing the river to pulsate freely with the frequent typhoons and storm waters. The Paracity is actually an organic architectural flood itself, ready to cross the flood wall of Taipei and spread into the mechanical city.

Paracity Taipei will be powered mostly by bioenergy that uses the organic waste, including sludge, taken from the surrounding industrial city and by farming fast-growing biomass on the flood banks of the Taipei river system. Paracity Taipei will construct itself through impacts of collective consciousness, and it is estimated to have 15,000–25,000 inhabitants.

The wooden primary structure and the environmental technology solutions will remain pretty much the same no matter in which culture the Paracity starts to grow, but the real human layer of self-made architecture and farming will follow the Local Knowledge of the respective culture and site. Paracity is always site-specific and it is always local. Other Paracities are emerging in North Fukushima in Japan and the Baluchistan Coast in Pakistan.

CONCLUSION

The way towards the Third Generation City is a process of becoming a collective learning and healing organism and of reconnecting the urbanized collective consciousness with nature. In Taipei, the wall between the city and the river must go. This requires a total transformation from the city infrastructure and from the centralized power control. Otherwise, the real development will be unofficial. Citizens on their behalf are ready and are already breaking the industrial city apart by themselves. Local knowledge is operating independently from the official city and is providing punctual third generation surroundings within the industrial city: urban acupuncture for the stiff official mechanism.

The weak signals of the unofficial collective consciousness should be recognized as the futures’ emerging issues; futures that are already present in Taipei. The official city should learn how to enjoy acupuncture, how to give up industrial control in order to let nature step in.

The Local Knowledge-based transformation layer of Taipei is happening from inside the city, and it is happening through self-organized punctual interventions. These interventions are driven by small-scale businesses and alternative economies benefiting from the fertile land of the Taipei Basin, and of leeching the material and energy streams of the official city. This acupuncture makes the city weaker, softer, and readier for a larger change.

The city is a manifest of human-centered systems—economical, industrial, philosophical, political, and religious power structures. Biourbanism is an animist system regulated by nature. Human nature as part of nature, also within the urban conditions. The era of pollution is the era of industrial urbanism. The next era has always been within the industrial city. The first generation city never died. The seeds of the Third Generation City are present. Architecture is not an art of human control; it is an art of reality. There is no other reality than nature.

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Kaye, L. (2011, July 21). Could cities’ problems be solved by urban acupuncture? The Guardian.

Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/sustainable-business/urban-acupuncture-

community-localised-renewal-projects

Lévi-Strauss, C. (1955). Tristes tropiques. New York: Atheneum.

Pajunen, M. (2012, August 24). A man from the woods. Wastelands Magazine. Retrieved from

http://casagrandetext.blogspot.fi/2012/08/a-man-in-woods.html

Pommer, E. (Producer), & Lang, F. (Director). (1927). Metropolis [Motion picture]. Germany:

Universum Film AG.

Richardson, P. (2011). From the ruins, Taipei to Detroit. Archetcetera. Retrieved from

http://archetcetera.blogspot.com/2011/01/from-ruins-taipei-to-detroit.html14

Shen, S. (2014). AW Architectural Worlds,29(156). Shenzhen: Haijian Printing Co. Retrieved from

http://issuu.com/clab-cure/docs/casagrande_laboratory___architectua/1?e=11086647%2

F10750378

Stevens, P. (2014, October 14). Interview with Marco Casagrande, principal of C-LAB.

Designboom. Retrieved from http://www.designboom.com/architecture/marco-casa

grande-laboratory-interview-10-14-2014/

Strugatsky, A., & Strugatsky, B. (1971). Roadside picnic. London: McMillan.

White, R. (1995). The organic machine: The remaking of the Columbia River. New York:

Hill and Wang.

Yudina, A. ~~it’s anarchical it’s acupunctural~~, well it’s both / marco casagrande. Monitor, 68.

Retrieved from http://casagrandetext.blogspot.fi/2012/09/its-anarchical-its-acupunctural-

well.html

Figure 0. (Missis Chen Drawing) / No Caption

Figure 1. Taipei flood wall (Photograph by the Author).

Figure 2.Treasure Hill (Photograph by Stephen Wilde).

Figure 3.Collective farm in Treasure Hill (Photograph by Stephen Wilde).

Figure 4. Reconstructed steps in Treasure Hill (Photograph by Stephen Wilde).

Figure 5. Unofficial community gardens and urban farms of the Taipei Basin, the real map of Urban Acupuncture (Image sourced by the Author).

Figure 6. Paracity, model (Photograph by the Author).

Figure 7. Image sourced by the Author.

Figure 8. Drawing by Niilo Tenkanen / Casagrande Laboratory.

Figure 9.Paracity CLT-module, 6 x 6 x 6m (Photograph by Jan Feichtinger / Casagrande Laboratory).

Figure 10.Agritecture of the Paracity (Drawing by Niilo Tenkanen / Casagrande Laboratory).

Figure 11. Paracity, flood-water scenario (Image sourced by the Author).

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Marco Casagrande - Oriana Persico on Urban Acupuncture

November 3, 2016, 8:14 am

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Dialog with Oriana Persico, published in the book "DIGITAL URBAN ACUPUNCTURE" by O.Persico & S.Iaconesi, Springer International Publishing 2016, ISBN 978-3-319-43403-2

1. Ruins constitute syncretic maps of urban environments, as they show the citizens’ usage patterns, imagination of lack of it, traversals, and behaviors. In short, they constitute the map of the city as seen from the composition of the myriads of micro-histories of its dwellers, and in its perpetual evolution and transformation.

How important are these maps?

What is their meaning and how can they be used.

MC

These ruin maps are a pattern of urban acupuncture. They are small composts where the city is slowly fermenting. The surrounding city, at least the official city, may consider these composts as the smelly parts of the city and cannot really cope with them. The only solution which the official city seems to have is to erase them, turn the ruins into lawn or park, which was supposed to happen to Treasure Hill for example. The official city is in-sensitive for the energy and potential which these areas are suggesting. Normal people though are highly sensitive for urban energies and would be fully capable to operate the map of ruins. The ruins are insulting the official control, but on the other hand they have the capacity of offering the most fertile top-soil for organic urban development, which of course seeks to get rid of the centralized power structure.

These ruins are voids in the mechanical tissue of the centrally governed city. They are openings to different times, values, dreams and possibilities – like the attic of a house. It is very likely that the essence of the surrounding city would intensify within these voids and get mixed or at least in connection with other organic layers of the city, like in a black hole. Layers which are invisible for the official control. Ruins have the possibility of partly tuning the city towards the organic, towards the third generation city.

These ruins can be used in interpreting what the collective mind is transmitting. They can be sensitive platforms for local knowledge to emerge and evolve; as receivers. They can be hot-spots for new biourban knowledge building. One must be very careful with the relationship with the official city though. Once the political elements of the city will realize that something constructive, collectively touching and possibly media-sexy is cooking up in the formally smelly ruins, they will try to squeeze in and buy off the energy. In case the constructive energy of the ruins is sold, the construction will turn into destruction. The official city can only banalize the local knowledge.

2. What you say that the Third Generation City is the ruin of the industrial city, you point into a really interesting direction, indicating how the emergent, spontaneous, energetic dynamics of the city and of its inhabitants are useful in gaining better understandings about the city, and about the ways in which it is interesting to create interventions in its fabric. Maybe even more useful than the information which is obtained through administrative, bureaucratic and commercial processes.

This also places citizens in a new light, suggesting ways in which their active participation becomes of fundamental importance to understand the city, and to act in it.

How do you imagine citizenship?

How do you imagine institutions?

MC

Every citizen is part of the big brain of the city. This collective conscious is complex, multi-layered and organic, but it is still a sensitive nervous system. The official city wants to flatten these layers into a simple two-dimensional map of the city, which is the official reality. Citizens however move much more flexibly, freely and multi-dimensionally in the city that what the official map would allow. The official city is just a background for the real citizen activities. Un-official information is powerful. Whole cities could be designed by rumors. Urban power structures want to flatten the multi-dimensional, resourceful and somehow mystical real citizen. He is too much in connection with nature, and the industrial city wants to claim independence from nature. Nature is seen as something hostile, something that wants to break the machine and the untamed natural citizen is an unpredictable agent of nature, an urban native that needs to get civilized, needs to be saved from himself.

Institutions should be the inner organs of the city to keep life pumping through it. They could also be partly the nervous nods, which are dealing with the information and other energy flows of the city, thinking of the collective mind. City is one brain. Also nature is only one brain. City should be part of the natural one brain and the institutions should take care of that. Now the institutions are human-focused in a controlling sense and separating the city form nature. The solution which the developed institutional city is offering to the citizens is mechanical and standardized life. City should be a biological man-made organism and part of nature, otherwise it is against nature, a mental disorder – a human error as one might say. Institutions should be organic and most likely modular. They should treat the urban organism through punctual interventions, which would then be connected with the nervous network of the urban brain. This cannot be based on control and hardness – those are death’s companions. City is not an institution, it is a living organism. Accident is greater than human control.

3. Relation, conversation and flows. Your vision of the city is very focused on these themes. Even in unexpected ways, for example using the term of “urban rumors”. This is very interesting, as it does not imply a concept of beauty and value which is not centered on form, but, rather, on the presence of energy, dynamics, fluidness and emergence, and also on the harmonies and dissonances, the conflicts and consensus which are typical of living ecosystems.

How can an urban planner, a public administrator, an architect, a designer or a citizen learn to recognize this new aesthetic and this value, and use them for collaboration, participation, action and performance in the city, with other people, institutions and organizations?

How does this fit in with your connection of Urban Acupuncture?

MC

A rather good example of this was the co-operation between the Ruin Academy, JUT Developers and the Taipei City Government. First of all the Ruin Academy was set up as an open platform for different universities, disciplines and professionals to participate in multi-disciplinary research & design workshops, courses and actions. The topics for these assignments would be developed together with the City Government and in the end we would also report to the City Government. Still again, this was all un-official. The City Government would not officially commission us and we would not be tied to any official nor academic bureaucracy. We would have access to the official data and intelligence, but we could operate much lighter and direct; more like the Special Forces. Our operations were financed and backed up by the JUT Developers and the participating universities, who would also benefit of our findings and developments.

All the participating universities, the Tamkang University Department of Architecture, National Taiwan University departments of Sociology and Anthropology and Aalto University SGT Sustainable Global Technologies research center, found it very fruitful to have an open academic operational platform, which did not belong to any university, but was more based on academic squatting. Our interface to the surrounding city was also more real than with the locked academic disciplines and the interaction with local knowledge proved to be vital to the new knowledge building of the Third Generation City.

City governments are full of departments and disciplines and every corner has a king. These kings don’t talk to each other, but still again they are the first ones to admit, that the highly regulated and protected administrative hierarchies are not optimal for mostly cross-disciplinary and multi-layered challenges and possibilities of the urban reality. They used the Ruin Academy to say things that they cannot say and to study things that they cannot study. We could have meetings in the evenings with the city officials, who could pass us the questions, interests or notions on which they wanted the Ruin Academy to react – almost as if they would be operating with a clandestine organization. We would be their interface to the un-official and to the underground, to the normal.

In some cases, like with Treasure Hill, the City Government was using me as kind of a joker, wild card. In Treasure Hill the Park Department of the City Government was already destroying the un-official settlement, when the Cultural Department of the same City Government was commissioning me to save Treasure Hill. In the end they were all evaluating, how did I succeed and decided to come smiling with the results. “This is exactly what we were commissioning you to do.” If I had failed, they would have just blamed the stupid foreigner and bulldozed down the place.

What I am trying to say is that we need to develop more un-conventional ways to deal with the urban problematics. We already have the city governments, administrations, organization, NGOs and universities, which are taking care of the official routines, but we need more flexible, straight-forward and light operators to work avant-garde and behind the lines, also underground. Operators who can make hearts-and-minds connections with the local knowledge and mobilize people to develop their city. Operators who can communicate with the shared mind, the collective urban conscious.

Urban Acupuncture is both a strategy for urban development through punctual interventions and straight-forward tactics. There are many holes and cracks in a city and these cracks can be used for cooking up the operations. In the end, the city of cracks is much more interesting and humane than the two-dimensional, flat, industrial-modern city. Urban Acupuncture is breaking the industrial control, but it is for good – it is constructive anarchy.

4. What transformation comes into this scenario when many people in cities have integrated digital means in expressing their micro histories, relations, emotions, behaviors, in conscious of unconscious ways?

MC

Commercial intelligence has been using the methodology of Urban Acupuncture for a long time. A good example is the network of 7-Eleven convenient stores in Taipei. They are located in carefully studied commercial acupuncture points around the city, building up the densest network of 7-Elevens anywhere in the world. Our actions, behaviors, wishes, desires and individual histories are constantly monitored, traced and processed based on our digital activities. Our digital networks have the power of launching rumors and revolutions, but they are also very easily manipulated. An interesting question is, what is the interface and dialog between this digital mind and nature? Can it support the organic knowledge as a portal for the collective mind to communicate? Are we now just looking at the simplified and flat prints of the digitally moving information the same way as the official city is flattening the informational space of the city into a two dimensional map? Would it be needed to penetrate through the thin layer of visual information surface to the actual digital space, where the countless informational layers are generating new streams of knowledge and how can we communicate with this digital subconscious? I think that this subconscious wants to surface on the city. It wants to take both form and be sensed through our physical presence and our natural mind.

5. In your conception, the Third Generation City is itself a form of knowledge. This is yet another parallel with the concepts expressed in Digital Urban Acupuncture, where the Relational Ecosystem of the city, captured through data, information and knowledge exchanges, becomes a commons, available and accessible for everyone to use.

How, in your opinion, should this knowledge be accessible and usable?

And, on top of that: how is it possible to suggest and create the basis for the emergence of the imagination, sensibility and desire to use this knowledge?

MC

This knowledge is already now a source of intelligence for political and economic power speculations. It is also a form of new culture. Physically, millions of people are now migrating based on this data – migrants, refugees and people moving to cities. Big digitally formed and manipulated tribes and armies are in physical war and one of the main frontlines is digital.

The digital realm is one surface of individual and mass communication, but is it yet a form of new knowledge? The digital underground movements and paths seem somewhat hopeful, but the big data is just entertainment and commercially controlled – not very different from the official city. One should not be blindfolded by the online access to information and entertainment. Flesh is More.

6. How important (or not) is education in your vision of the city?

How can the literacy and sensibility which are needed to conceive the possibility of accessing the knowledge in the Third Generation City emerge in citizens?

Through a school? An educational process? Peer-to-peer processes?

The availability and accessibility of tools and methods?

How?

MC

The un-official community gardens and urban farms of Taipei are run by anarchist grandmothers. Also the urban farming communities are often matriarchal – like Treasure Hill. The ex-Soviet collective farms are by now run by babushkas. Modern city is a patriarchal structure as a form of industrialism. In Taipei the kids go to help on the collective farms – carry water, dig soil etc. Sometimes they come to the farms after school to do their home-work. They learn how to farm and the local knowledge becomes real for them. One step away is the official city. Modern man should take the liberty to travel a thousand years back in order to realize, that the things are the same. What is real cannot be speculated. What is real is valuable. There is no other reality than nature.

Maybe the digital realm is also nature. Possibly it is like the resonating behind the singing of the birds. We can either listen to the birds’ singing or we can feel and contemplate with the resonating behind it. Maybe we are resonating with the digital flows as well. We can feel the mind, but cannot really interpret it. Nature is a life providing system. My friend is a digital monk and he is very much tuned with nature as well.

Third generation citizens don’t need to be educated. They already exist. They are the ones connected with local knowledge and sensitive enough to feel the different pulses and messages of the city. They are the connection between the city and nature. We all have that quality, but we are educated to forget it. The third generation condition requires us to forget the forgetting.

Instead of education we need to learn, how to pay attention to the seeds of the Third Generation City. We need to document them, learn from them and let them grow. Most of all we have to stop ignoring them. These seeds are often cooking at the un-official layers of the city. City is a big compost, which needs to be turned around every now and then in order to keep it alive. The seeds of the 3G City are in connection with the local knowledge and they form a pattern of organic urban acupuncture to the static city trying to tune the urban development into biourbanism. The challenge is, that these seeds don’t necessarily support the economic speculations and can be quite contra dictionary to the established power hierarchies, which try to suffocate them. Hence the existence in underground. The digital realm may be a possibility for the local knowledge, for the seeds of the Third Generation City to communicate and connect with the larger mind of individual citizens.

How? Forget the forgetting. Industrialism is young and simple. Let the organic growth make a new layer on top of the industrial city. This coexistence will develop into the next step of urban industrialism, the city can learn to become an organic machine. In a sense we must ruin the mechanical city and open up the industrial control, so that nature can step in. Nature including human nature.

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November 3, 2016, 8:14 am

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"IF YOU ARE NOT CONNECTED WITH NATURE, YOU PRODUCE POLLUTION"

November 20, 2018, 1:44 am

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INTERVIEW WITH MARCO CASAGRANDE OF CASAGRANDE LABORATORY

Edzard Mik, ARCHIDEA #57 / 2018

Marco Casagrande considers himself an animist architect. Architecture shouldn’t impose itself on nature. Physical presence is the key. “I like to build a fire before I start constructing. Sleeping at the site also helps me to get connected with it.”

Photo: Ville Malja

The sensual entanglement of ruins and wooden structures, refurbishing an abandoned building with provisions for trees and plants, an organic structure of willow branches in between depressing residential towers: what stands out in the provocative architecture of the Finish architect Marco Casagrande is an ambivalent attitude towards design. His designs have a sophisticated quality, yet he also seems to criticize design in his work.

“I am not comfortable with architecture that has become design,” he explained. “To me that kind of architecture feels like pollution. Architecture should be connected with reality. Design stands on its own. It tries to replace reality and to be independent of it, solely expressing the designer’s point of view. I cannot put my thumb on the precise reason, but I feel that design is my enemy.”

How can you possibly escape “design” while making architecture?

“I always try to ruin my own design. Architecture, real architecture, is not about imposing an artificial order on reality. It is about digging it out like an archaeologist. Therefore I work on a project until it starts to become itself. Sometimes, while designing, a moment comes when I feel that it is 'there'. Often it has to do with the site. I work at different places. I am like a parachutist, I am dropped in somewhere and then I have to open myself up to the place, to break myself open, to exhaust myself, until I reach a state of feeling the site. It's essential to get that feeling and to keep it. What I should do or shouldn’t do then starts to reveal itself. This process is not at all easy. And it isn’t necessarily pleasant. It can even be painful, especially if I try to rush at it. But I know that my own project first has to die. Every good project has to die at least once, and then it gets the chance to become more than you ever could think of beforehand. Of course, it mustn't die completely. But it has to die in such a way that you lose control over it. Control is another enemy, besides design.”

Drawing: Marco Casagrande

Photo: Jussi Tiainen

Photo: Sami Rintala

Do you have particular strategies for giving up control?

“I like to build a fire before I start constructing anything. Besides, I need a fire because I have to eat, dry my clothes and repel mosquitoes. Building a fire is a powerful method for connecting with the site. It means that I have to find out where to gather wood and I have to check the direction of the wind, before I can decide on the right place to build a fire. It often turns out in a later phase of the project that this place is a meaningful place in the building. Sleeping at the site also helps me to feel the connection. It teaches me where insects are coming from and how the wind changes during the night. It generates encounters, for instance with local people who sneak through the site, a grandmother who takes one brick because she needs it for something.”

Can you apply that strategy equally well in the city?

“It definitely works in the city too. In the Ruin Academy in Taipei, in an abandoned building, I took away all the windows. But while sleeping there I found out that I had created an unpleasant acoustic situation. The rooms echoed with noise from the traffic. So I had to grow bamboo in the windows and make wooden structures to damp out the echoes. Physical presence is the key. You can be present mentally, but you have to be present physically as well. Site specific conditions materialize in your body; you can only understand them through your body. Being together with others physically, working and sweating together, is a significant tool for communication because we all share a similar body. We share the same physical sensations, independently of our culture.”

Treasure Hill, Taipei, Taiwan (2003). Photo: Stephen Wilde

Photo: Marco Casagrande

But in the end you are constructing something, which means that you create a projection for the future, beyond your presence in the here and now.

“I am not so sure any more what time means. I used to think of time as being born, growing up and dying. But now I am growing more aware of different time scales, unconnected to my own lifespan. The times of other people, of volcanic rocks and granite, of the ants that crawl through the site and the plants and trees that grow there, of the wind and the typhoons, the time of the Earth and the Moon. Each phenomenon has its own time, and I want to understand them all and let them meet ‒ for instance, to direct the wind so you are touched by it while sleeping. Or to raise the floor so snakes can crawl under it."

Chen House, Sanjhih, Taipei County, Taiwan (2008). Photos: AdDa Zei

Do you mean that you try to orchestrate different times?

“I know something about atmospheric circulation and the course of the sun. But essentially, I don’t know what I am going to do in advance. I trust in accidents. I try to make a platform for accidents. I dig myself in and something gets constructed out of the mess. Treasure Hill in Taipei was an illegal settlement in a complex of abandoned bunkers. The local government commissioned me to develop an ecological master plan for Taipei Basin, while the same government was destroying Treasure Hill. I found Treasure Hill more interesting. I started a farm where a previous farm was destroyed by government officials. But I did it in the wrong way because my model of farming was Finnish, which means you put seeds in the ground and plants will grow. An old lady who used to own the farm passed by and criticized my work. She told me that a typhoon would wipe away everything I had done. She instructed me on the right way to do it. I had to dig ditches and plant the seeds in specific places. Finally the farm began to look like a farm. At the same time the whole settlement was watching me. Together with the grandma instructing me, it became a piece of theatre for them. They realized that she had accepted what I was doing, rebuilding her farm. They lost their fear of the government, showed up with tools and began replanting their own farms. An accidental encounter set off the whole process of rebuilding farms and eventually Treasure Hill.”

Architecture is usually concerned with solving problems. Modernity can be seen in this light too. Do you consider your work as a criticism of modernity?

“Modernity is the aesthetic representation of industrialism. But I try to think positively about industrialism, which is of very recent origin. Maybe it will learn to become part of nature some day. Maybe it will become an organic machine. To achieve that we must open ourselves up to site specific knowledge. I would not call it old knowledge, because knowledge is changing all the time. However, industrialism still assumes that it is independent of nature. Nature is often seen as something hostile, with its floods and typhoons. Through industrialism we create a machine that is completely functional and not related to nature, although it uses its resources. To me, nature is a specific mentality, a mind that thinks of just one thing: to maximize life in the given conditions. If you are not connected to nature, you produce pollution.”

Bug Dome, Shenzhen, China (2009). Photos: Nikita Wu

How do you see your work in relation to modernity? Is it a proposal to build differently, or is it a kind of meditation on our attitude towards nature? In other words, is it more like a work of art?

“I consider myself an animist architect. First of all I attempt to connect myself to the mind of a city. Because I can usually communicate only with a limited number of people, I spread rumours through the city. You cannot control rumours. They change all the time. They are like creatures. You can only send them but not control them. Rumours are powerful. I think you could design cities just by rumours. Often my work functions as the source of rumours. People react to them easily. Sometimes I talk about urban acupuncture. That is basically the same. I asked students of the Tamkang University in Taipei to build Trojan horses in order to 'attack' the city. The hidden content was of course not soldiers, but letters from citizens to the mayor expressing their wishes, thoughts and complaints about the city. The rumours spread and we collected thousands of letters. The media became interested. Finally the mayor had no choice but to receive us and to read some of the letters aloud.”

You did some projects with ruins. What do you find attractive about ruins?

“I find them hope-inspiring. There is a lot of hope in ruins. A ruin is architecture that has become part of nature again. Nature reads architecture easily. Mosses start to grow, then plants and trees. To me that that is very beautiful. People usually try to seal their home against the intrusion of nature. To keep nature out of the house, you have to clean it and maintain it all the time. It's a form of control. But if you abandon the house, nature will break in and the house will become part of a life-providing system. I call this second generation architecture. What I am interested in is third generation architecture, when you return and find that the house has become part of nature. How can you live there? There is plenty of space left over, but perhaps you have to accept that the interior has been penetrated by a tree and plants are creeping out of the cracks. The house is no longer shielding you from nature. It has become an intermediary between you and nature.”

You went to live in a ruin. Can you explain how that worked out practically?

“When I was working at Tamkang University, I told the Dean of the architectural department, professor Chen, that I didn’t want to live in a house any more. I asked for a ruin instead. He found a derelict rice packing factory for me next to a rice paddy. My wife Nikita protested that we could not live there because rain came in through the roof. So my first step was to build a roof above the bed, and the next was to provide facilities for keeping ourselves clean. We could get water in buckets from the nearby river. I fixed up a heater with a gas tank for hot water and cooking. We went from one step to the next until finally we could move in.”

You didn’t design anything?

“I don’t think you can really design architecture. Of course, you can reach a certain level by drawing and making models. But that does not get to the essence of architecture. I only understand what needs to be done once I am occupied with building on the site and experiencing the space growing around me. This teaches me, for example, to make a small adjustment so that I can see the moon at night. If you base the construction of a building only on drawings, you force it to comply with preconceptions. Then the architecture becomes strangely crippled, growing out of nothing. Architecture shouldn’t impose itself on nature. Architecture should be pliant, an undecided form.”

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終極廢墟

November 20, 2018, 3:03 am

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文／艾帢米克 Edzard Mik

譯／吳介禎 Wu, Anderson C. J.

英文版原刊於荷蘭archidea magazine #56

Photos: AdDa Zei

很難想像〈終極廢墟〉的木構造屋頂、樓梯、牆、板凳、通道可以在一個建築師事務所的辦公室裡構思出來。然而細緻的外觀與細節，顯然還是經過深思熟慮規劃出來的結果。因為它們太奧秘、帶著太多暗示、具有太多主動性，設計無法在繪圖桌上或在電腦裡執行。它們有機地生長，就像〈終極廢墟〉周圍樹林裡的植物與藤蔓，進而包覆原來就在那裡的農舍殘跡。

事實上它們不是被設計出來，而是由芬蘭建築師馬可．卡薩格蘭與事務所同事們，對基地與廢墟即刻反應，進而而創造完成。從各面向來說，〈終極廢墟〉是馬可．卡薩格蘭工作方針的體現：放棄人為控制以開啟或創造可直覺接近、可聯繫建築與自然親密感的空間，以及實際在場作為感受基地動能的方法。更該強調，基地上所有棲居者的生活，都不能也不該與大自然的戲劇表演分隔，包括它的生命力、腐朽與死去。

〈終極廢墟〉是一家人的會所，偶爾外借舉辦會議。地點在台灣台北，位處一片梯田與樹林的交會處。馬可．卡薩格蘭稱這件作品為「弱建築」，空間規劃遵循他的開放形態原則。根據對於周遭樹林、廢棄的紅磚農舍與在地知識的直覺反應，在基地現場即興設計。

複合式的建築物有各種空間與平台，提供從起居到冥想等不同功能。介於室內外之間的空間連續性富有變動彈性、相互交織。房子深入樹林，樹林也伸入房子。這個把室內帶到室外，把室外帶入室內的方法，使〈終極廢墟〉成為調節自然與人最極致的建築工具。房子不需要封閉，不需要與自然隔絕。住在裡面的人必須與自然相處，珍惜自然的戲劇性與自然之美。

超越人為控制，〈終極廢墟〉是個有機的意外。馬可．卡薩格蘭放手建築設計的操作，迎接自然，容許人的錯誤發生。在他眼裡，建築不是獨立的語言，也不是大多數建築師所相信的自言自語。他認為建築需要自然，以成為自然的一部分，所以稱〈終極廢墟〉是一種後廢墟狀態：人們回到廢棄的房子裡，並與叢林與大自然共享空間。

〈終極廢墟〉根基於自 2009 年起，持續不斷地與業主對話。最早的建築介入，是一張可以讓建築師與業主坐下來談的桌子。接下來是提供桌子遮蔽的結構。其餘的部份都從這裡開始一點一滴地成長，對話也一直持續，〈終極廢墟〉也一直有機地發展。建築是開放的，永遠不會停工，也永遠未完成。

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PORCUPINE

April 22, 2019, 5:24 am

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“What really happened to the Porcupine?”

“One day he came back from the Zone and became amazingly rich, amazingly rich. The next week he hanged himself.”

The modern city is drifting away. Together with industry it has proclaimed independence from nature; mechanical man is self-sufficient. No more local knowledge, no more pattern language, but a closed form tightly wrapped in the fictional cloth of the development, the source of all pollution, the exponential one-way drive to self-destruction.

What are the trees thinking, and the ants? Our roadside-picnic has accelerated the enlightenment of colonialism into the final level, the big-bang, which we cannot even hear. We, who so sensitive even to hear the resonating behind the singing of the birds. We, savages and natives of the big mind, decide not to hear or feel, but to be served numb by our own self-destruction, the development.

To develop into what? It’s not the god’s own image, nor it is the nothingness. We say society and we say country, we say god. And to serve these we say economy. Karl Marx was horribly wrong stating that we must own the means of production. Production on the cost of what? We need to scarify and vote, for what – the self-destruction – the development? The wisest of us never develop, they resonate with the rest. How many of us can really resonate; even with the trees?

So the space is the answer, or aliens picking us up. Leaving all this trash behind, and flying away with the angels. Of course the chosen ones. The chosen people. These guys are bad. They are Hollywood, “entertaining” the human species. Entertaining from what? We need to survive. First comes survival, then comes comfort, then comes beauty. Architecture deals with all of this. Architects are not important, but architecture is. We can survive in beauty along with this one mind. Architecture is the art of reality; there is no other reality than nature. We all resonate with this one mind, if we forget the forgetting – the development.

We have two specialties: destroying ourselves and destroying everything around us. What is left is going into space. Anarchy? Taking control of ourselves instead of production, exploitation. Controlling ourselves in order to be able to resonate. Nation states must be able to go in order to let nature to step in as our countries. Otherwise this is all nonsense. We don’t inhabit the land, we grow from it. Just like the trees.

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OPEN FORM TAIWAN

April 22, 2019, 5:26 am

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My first contact with Taiwan was in year 2000, when Architect Chi Ti-nan was representing Taiwan in the Venice Biennale. I found his flyer on the ground and got curious about him. This year we had the 60 Minute Man boat with forest in the Arsenale harbour. We started a dialog with Chi and he invited me to Taipei to the Urban Flashes symposium, 2001. Before Taiwan I had been working in Japan for various projects, but Taipei was really the first Asian city for me where pollution was so much part of the cityscape. There was a layer of dust on top of benches and the river looked like dead. I could not understand, why the same people who used the city so cleverly and self-organized, could let the natural environment to become in such a bad shape. It felt like the city did not care or purely ignored where it is growing in and growing from. On the airplane back to Finland I wrote a letter to the Taipei City Government stating that they will die, with simple set of one-liners, why. I did not receive any letter back.

In 2002 professor Roan Ching-yueh was participating in the Urban Flashes in Lintz, Austria together with architect Hsieh Ying-chun. I had written a small manifesto called Real Reality and I guess Roan was the only one really reading it. It was rather eye-opening also to follow Hsieh’s presentation about his communicative action after the 228 earthquake with aboriginal people. Actually Roan moderated the talks, also mine. Soon after this I received a letter back from the Taipei City Government, where they started to invite me back to Taipei in order to start thinking on some outlines for urban ecological restoration, not to die I suppose.

I got back to Taipei due to Roan’s lobbying and ended up to work in Treasure Hill with Hsieh. We had 200 students and Hsieh’s teams of aboriginal workers. I was mostly impressed about the students and professors volunteering from the Tamkang University Department of Architecture. I got adopted by Missis Chen, the matriarch of Treasure Hill and she opened up some doors to the Local Knowledge of Taipei. It was fascinating. These doors seemed to be gateways to same organic knowledge as towards Professor Svein Hatloy, Bergen School of Architecture had walked me in, Open Form. Roan talked about Dao, Treasure Hill was an organic constructive mess and Missis Chen was dealing with the original ground. Biourbanism in Taipei seemed to be possible. These people were Open Form.

After returning to Finland I received an e-mail from Professor Chen Cheng-chen asking me to become a Visiting Professor in Tamkang University. For some reason I though this to be a joke and I woke up only after the third e-mail, that this might actually be real. In autumn 2004 I started in Tamkang, which was a blessing. I tried to drive to Taiwan from Finland with a KTM Paris-Dakar enduro motorcycle, but got stuck in the Chinese border on the Gobi desert and had to fly the rest of the journey. Tamkang was fully supportive for the development of the ideas of Urban Acupuncture and the Third Generation City and I also found the Ruins there, ending up living in the T-Factory ruin in Sanjhih.

It was in this ruin where I found the cocoon of the Phimenes Sp., made out of weak concrete. Same time Hsieh was experimenting weak concrete in Nantou. Roan said, that I should show the cocoon to Mr. Aaron Lee, head of the JUT developers and so I got introduced to him. Inspired by this Insect Architecture we realized the Bug Dome bamboo cocoon in Shenzhen Biennale with Roan and Hsieh. Aaron flew in with his brother to check out the work and after this he commissioned me to start working with him in Taipei. So begun the Ultra-Ruin, Cicada, Ruin Academy and Feng-Shui Snowman. Paracity also started with Aaron on his suggestion to think of the possibility of a fragment of the Third Generation City on a flooded island in the Xindian River.

These work and talks are not mainly between people. There is some more grounding force pushing through them, sweating through us. Some may refer to it as Dao or Open Form or even Local Knowledge, but I think that it is a bit more complex than what can be really named. It is kind of a will or requirement from the one mind of Nature, the same will that is resonating behind the singing of the birds. The will that is resonating behind the single moves of all the leaves in the jungle, resonating behind anything that is part of the life-providing system. Missis Chen was resonating this. Taipei is resonating this. Tuning up with this resonation is the key to the Third Generation City, to Biourbanism and to Open Form. Otherwise we are just pollution. Design is a secondary thing, resonating is the main thing. It is wrong to say, that as architects we are doing temporary things for the time being. When our things are resonating with nature, there is no time; architecture and the city becomes part of nature. Otherwise we are just pollution.

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LAND(E)SCAPE

November 18, 2020, 4:03 am

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Casagrande & Rintala

Modern agricultural methods have ensured the demise of

many of the traditional wooden buildings seen on the edges

of the meadow clearings of the forest all over the country's

flat landscape. In these grey little barns, hay was stored,

and animals chosen to live through winter were gathered in

from the ferocious cold -- their less fortunate herd-mates

being slaughtered since there was not enough fodder to

keep them. Now that new industrialized farm structures

and new agricultural techniques have made the old

buildings redundant they are destroyed or simply allowed

to fall down.

Three of these abandoned barns 'were driven,' the

architects explained, to the point where they have had to

break their primeval union with the soil. Desolate, they

have risen on their shanks and are swaying toward the cities

of the south.'

Their structures were put together again and reinforced

internally. Then they were raised 10m high each on four

slender legs of unpeeled pine trunks braced with steel wire

-- and they began to march towards the cities of the south.

The humble had suddenly been given majesty, even a

degree of the sublime.

They were marching to their deaths. In early October,

cords of dry wood were assembled round their legs, and

all was set on fire -- just at the time when the beasts they

housed would have been slaughtered too.

The whole was in many ways a contemporary interpretation

of monument, poetic, moving, its only remaining presence

on film and video.

- WASH issue 4

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THIRD GENERATION CITY - From Urban Acupuncture to Biourbanism

May 6, 2021, 12:33 am

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Author:MarcoCasagrande

Ruin Academy, Casagrande Laboratory, Bergen School of Architecture, and International Society of Bio-urbanism,Finland

REUSE ARCHITECTURE CONFERENCE, Zagreb 2021

Republic of Croatia

Ministry of Physical Planning, Construction and State Assets

Abstract

The crisis of urbanism is analyzed as a vital phenomenon that prepares the Third Generation City—itsconnectionwithnatureanditsflesh.Theindustrialcityis,onthecontrary,fictitious.Theexampleof the settlement of Treasure Hill, near Taipei, is given. As an organic ruin of the industrial city,TreasureHillisabio-urbansiteofresistanceandanacupuncturepointofTaipei, withitsowndesignmethodology based on Local Knowledge. This ruin is the matter from which parasite urbanismcompoststhemoderncity.Urbanacupuncture,theThirdGenerationCity,andtheconceptualmodelof Paracityspeaktothecommunity thatrests in thehandsofitsown people.

Keywords: urbanacupuncture;bio-urbanism;ThirdGenerationCity;ruins;parasiteurbanism;Paracity; Local Knowledge

1. TreasureHill

In 2003, the Taipei City Government decided to destroy the unofficial settlement of Treasure Hill(Kang, 2006). By that time, the community consisted of some 200 households of, mainly elderlyKuomintang veterans and illegal migrant workers. The bulldozers had knocked down the first twolayers of the houses of the terraced settlement on the hillside. After that, the houses were standingtoo high for the bulldozers to reach, and there were no drivable roads leading into the organicallybuilt settlement. Then the official city destroyed the farms and community gardens of Treasure HilldownbytheXindianRiverfloodbanks.Thentheycutthecirculationbetweentheindividualhouses—small bridges, steps, stairs, and pathways. After that, Treasure Hill was left to rot, to die slowly, cutawayfromitslifesources.

TreasureHill(PhotographbyStephenWilde)

I start touring at local universities giving speeches about the situation and try to recruit students forconstruction work. In the end, we have 200 students. A team of girl studentsmanage to make a deal with the neighbouring bridge construction site workers, and they startoffloading some of the construction material cargo to us from the trucks passing us by. Mainly wereceivetimberand bamboo;theyusemahogany for theconcrete molds.

With the manpower and simple construction material, we start reconstructing the connectionsbetween the houses of the settlement, but most importantly, we also restart the farms. RumorsstartspreadinginTaipei:thingsarecookinginTreasureHill.Morepeoplevolunteerforthework,andafterenoughurbanrumors,suddenlythemediaarrives.Afterthemedia,the politicians follow. The City Government officially agrees that this is exactly why they had invited me fromFinland towork onthe issue of Treasure Hill.

‘Onecandesignwholecities simplywithrumors’

Working in Treasure Hill had pressed an acupuncture point of the industrial Taipei City. Our humbleconstruction work was the needle that had penetrated through the thin layer of official control andtouchedtheoriginalgroundofTaipei—collectivetopsoilwhereLocalKnowledgeisrooting.TreasureHill is an urban compost, which was considered a smelly corner of the city, but after some turning isnow providing the most fertile topsoil for future development.

2. Urbanacupuncture

After this initial discovery in Treasure Hill, the research of Urban Acupuncture continued at theTamkang University Department of Architecture, In2009,theFinnishAaltoUniversity’sSustainableGlobalTechnologiesresearchcenter with Professor Olli Varis (Casagrande, 2009) joined in to further develop the multidisciplinaryworkingmethodsofUrbanAcupunctureinTaipei,withfocusonurbanecologicalrestorationthroughpunctual interventions (Casagrande 2011a). In 2010, the Ruin Academy was launched in Taipei withthe help of the JUT Foundation for Arts & Architecture (Harrison, 2012). The Academy operated asan independent multidisciplinary research center moving freely in between the different disciplinesofartandsciencewithinthegeneralframeworkofbuilthumanenvironment.ThefocuswasonUrbanAcupunctureandthe theory oftheThirdGeneration City.

Urban Acupuncture is a bio-urban theory (Casagrande, 2013), which combines sociology and urbandesign with the traditional Chinese medical theory of acupuncture. As a design methodology, it isfocusedontactical, small-scale interventionsontheurbanfabric,aiminginripple effectsandtransformation on the larger urban organism (Kaye, 2011). Through the acupuncture points, UrbanAcupuncture seeks to be in contact with the site-specific Local Knowledge. By its nature, UrbanAcupuncture is pliant, organic, and relieves stress and industrial tension in the urban environment,thus directing the city towards the organic—urban nature as part of nature. Urban Acupunctureproducessmall-scale,butecologicallyandsociallycatalyticdevelopmentonthebuilthumanenvironment(Kim,2010).

Urban Acupuncture is not an academic innovation. It refers to common collective Local Knowledgepractices that already exist in Taipei and other cities, self-organizing practices that are tuning theindustrialcity towardstheorganicmachine—theThird Generation City.

UrbanAcupunctureisaformofbio-urbanhealing and adevelopmentprocessconnecting modern manwithnature.

3. Third generation city

The first-generation city is the one where the human settlements are in straight connection withnatureanddependentonnature.ThefertileandrichTaipeiBasinprovidedafruitfulenvironmentfor suchasettlement(Casagrande,2011b).Theriverswerefulloffishandgoodfortransportation,withthemountains protecting the farmedplainsfromthe straightesthitsof thefrequenttyphoons.

The second-generation city is the industrial city. Industrialism granted the citizens independencefrom nature—a mechanical environment could provide everything humans need. Nature was seenas something unnecessary or as something hostile—it was walled away from the mechanical reality(Casagrande, 2011b).

TheThirdGenerationCityistheorganicruinoftheindustrialcity,anopenform,anorganic machinetied with Local Knowledge and self-organized community actions.

It is a city of cracks (Casagrande, 2016). The thin mechanical surface of theindustrialcityisshattered,andfromthesecracksthenewbio-urbangrowthemerges,whichwillruinthe second generation city. Human-industrial control is opened up in order for nature to step in. Aruin is when the manmade has become part of nature. In the Third Generation City, we aim atdesigning ruins (Mik, 2018). The Third Generation City is true when the city recognizes its localknowledgeand allowsitself tobepartofnature.

“Tofindaformthataccommodatesthemess,thatisthetaskoftheartistnow”

(Samuel Beckett)

4. Paracity

Paracityisabio-urbanorganismthatisgrowingontheprinciplesofOpenForm(Casagrande,2015b):individual design-built actions generating spontaneous communicative reactions on the surroundingbuilt human environment. This organic constructivist dialogue leads to self-organized communitystructures, sustainable development, and knowledge building. Open Form is close to the originalTaiwanesewaysofdevelopingtheself-organizedandoften“illegal”communities.Thesemicro-urbansettlements contain a high volume of Local Knowledge, which we believe will start composting inParacity, oncethe development of the communityisinthehandsofthecitizens.

This simple structure can be modified and developed by the community members. The primarystructurecangroweveninneglectedurbanareassuchasfloodplains,hillsides,abandonedindustrialareas,stormwaterchannels,andslums.Paracityisperfectlysuitedforfloodingandtsunamiriskareasand the CLT primary structure is highly fire-resistant and capable of withstanding earthquakes(HolzBuild, 2009).

Paracity provides the skeleton, but the citizens create the flesh. Paracitizens will attach their individual, self-made architectural solutions, gardens,and farms on the primary structure, which will offer a three-dimensional building grid for Do-It-Yourself(DIY)architecture.Theprimarystructurealsoprovidesthemainarteriesofwaterandhumancirculation, but the finer Local Knowledge nervous networks are weaved in by the inhabitants. LargepartsofParacityisoccupiedbywildandcultivatednaturefollowingtheexampleofTreasureHillandother unofficialcommunitiesin Taipei.

Paracitymodel(PhotographbytheAuthor).

Paracity’s self-sustainable bio-urban growth is backed up by off-the-grid modular environmentaltechnological solutions, providing methods for water purification, energy production, organic wastetreatment,wastewaterpurification,andsludgerecycling.Thesemodularplug-incomponentscanbeadjusted according to the growth of the Paracity, and moreover, the whole Paracity is designed notonlytotreatandcirculateitsownmaterialstreams,buttostartleechingwastefromitshostcityandthusbecomingapositiveurbanparasitefollowingthesimilarkindsofsymbiosisasin-betweenslumsandthesurroundingcity.Inasense,Paracityisahigh-techslum,whichcanstarttuningtheindustrialcitytowardsanecologicallymoresustainabledirection.ParacityisaThirdGenerationCity,anorganicmachineurbancompost,whichassiststheindustrialcitytotransformitselfintobeingpartofnature.

Thepilotproject oftheParacitygrowsonanurbanfarmingislandofDanshuiRiver,TaipeiCity.

The island is located between the Zhongxing and Zhonxiao bridges and is around 1,000 meters longand 300 meters wide. Paracity Taipei celebrates the original first-generation Taipei urbanism with ahigh level of “illegal” architecture, self-organized communities, urban farms, community gardens,urbannomads,andconstructiveanarchy.

After the Paracity has reached critical mass, the life-providing system of the CLT-structure will startescalating. It will cross the river and start taking root on the flood plains. It will then cross the 12-meters high Taipei flood wall and gradually grow into the city. Paracity is a mediator between the moderncity and nature.

Paracityhasalotofholes, gaps,andnaturebetweenhouses. Thedifferenttemperaturesoftheroofs,gardens,bodiesofwaterandshadedplatformswillgeneratesmall winds between them, and the hot roofs will start sucking in breeze from the cooler river. Theindividualhousesshouldalsofollowthetraditionalprinciplesofbioclimaticarchitectureandnotrelyonmechanical air-conditioning.

Third-generationTaipei(DrawingbyNiiloTenkanen/CasagrandeLaboratory)

The bio-urbanism of the Paracity is as much landscape as it is architecture (Fredrickson, 2014).ParacityTaipeiwillconstructitselfthroughimpactsofcollectiveconsciousness,and it is estimated to have15,000–25,000inhabitants.

ParacityCLT-module,6x6x6m(PhotographbyJanFeichtinger/CasagrandeLaboratory).

The wooden primary structure and the environmental technology solutions will remain mostly thesame, no matter in which culture the Paracity starts to grow, but the real human layer of self-madearchitecture and farming will follow the Local Knowledge of the respective culture and site. Paracityis alwayssite-specificandit isalwayslocal.

5. Conclusion

ThewaytowardstheThirdGenerationCityisaprocessofbecomingacollectivelearningandhealingorganism and of reconnecting the urbanized collective consciousness with nature. Thisrequiresatotaltransformationfromthecityinfrastructure and from the centralized power control. Otherwise, the real development will beunofficial. Citizens on their behalf are ready and are already breaking the industrial city apart bythemselves.Localknowledgeisoperatingindependentlyfromtheofficialcityandisproviding punctual third generation surroundings within the industrial city:urban acupuncture for the stiffofficialmechanism.

The weak signals of the unofficial collective consciousness should be recognized as the futures’emergingissues;futuresthatarealreadypresentinTaipei.Theofficialcityshouldlearnhowtoenjoyacupuncture, howto giveup industrialcontrolinorder to letnaturestep in.

TheLocalKnowledge-basedtransformationlayerofTaipeiis happeningfrominsidethecity,anditishappening through self-organized punctual interventions. These interventions are driven by small-scale businesses and alternative economies benefiting from the fertile land of the Taipei Basin, andof leeching the material and energy streams of the official city. This acupuncture makes the cityweaker, softer,andreadierforalargerchange.

The city is a manifest of human-centered systems—economical, industrial, philosophical, political,andreligiouspowerstructures.Bio-urbanismisananimistsystemregulatedbynature.Humannatureas part of nature, also within the urban conditions. The era of pollution is the era of industrialurbanism – the second generation city. The next era has always been surviving within the industrialcity, like a positive cancer. The first-generation city never died, it went underground, but the bio-urban processes are still surviving. The seeds of the Third Generation City are present. Architectureis notan art ofhumancontrol;itisanartofreality. Thereis nootherreality thannature.

References

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Bauwens, M. (2010) The community gardens of Taipei. Taipei Organic Acupuncture, P2PFoundation.

Campbell-Dollagham, K. (2011). Illegal architecture in Taipei. Architizer, (3).CasagrandeLaboratory.(2010).Anarchistgardener.Taipei:RuinAcademy.

Casagrande, M. and Ross, M. (2004) Trojan Rocking Horse Taipei.

Casagrande,M.(2006)Can’tPushaRiver.TaiwanArchitect Issue4/2006

Casagrande, M. (2009) Guandu: River Urbanism, Taiwan Architect Issue 10/2009.

Casagrande, M. (2011b) Urban Ecopuncture. La Vie Issue 90

Casagrande, M. (2011b) Taipei from the river. International Society of Biourbanism.

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Casagrande,M.(2015a).Paracity:urbanacupuncture.Netherlands:OilForestLeague.

Casagrande, M. (2015b) De l’acupuncture urbain á la ville de 3^ieme gènèration. In: Revedin, J. (Ed.) LaVilleRebelle.DemocratiserleProjetUrbain.Pp. 38-49

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Yudina, A. (2018). Marco Casagrande: Who Cares, Wins the Third Generation City. Taipei: JUTFoundationforArts&Architecture.

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Article 1

August 30, 2021, 6:30 am

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Tampereelle valmistuu talo, jossa on sekä päiväkoti että hoivakoti – katso kuvat tiloista, jossa lapset ja ikäihmiset leipovat sekä ulkoilevat yhdessä

- Sari Sainio, Aamulehti 27.8.2021

Epilässä sijaitsevien tilojen suunnittelussa on ollut lähtökohtana se, että ihmiset voivat olla lähekkäin. Kummallakin yksiköllä on omat tilansa ja niiden lisäksi on yhteistä tilaa.

Monivärisessä talossa on iso ikkuna lasten sisäänkäynnin vieressä. Toisen kerroksen parvekkeilta on näkymä lasten leikkipihalle ja keskellä rakennusta iso yhteinen tila. Leikkipihassa on tavallista enemmän penkkejä. Ikäihmisten hoivakodin ja päiväkodin yhteisessä rakennuksessa näyttää siltä, että arjen kohtaamisia on mietitty.

– Arkkitehtuurilla ja tilasuunnittelulla on koko ajan pohdittu sitä, että miten olisimme turvallisesti mahdollisimman lähellä, niin että yhteiset toiminnalliset edellytykset mahdollistuvat, Sopimusvuorisäätiön ja Treili oy:n toimitusjohtaja Leena Lehtonen kuvailee.

Tampereen Epilään, Vaakonkadun varteen rakennettava talo on viittä vaille valmis: päiväkodin lapset aloittavat syyskuun alussa ja ikäihmiset saapuvat kuun lopussa.

Pilke-päiväkotien asiakkuusjohtaja Riikka Mattsson kertoo, että yrityksellä on ollut vastaavaa toimintaa Lahdessa jo viisi vuotta. Tänä vuonna Lohjan asuntomessualueelle valmistui vastaavanlainen paikka. Hän kertoo, että rinnakkaiselo on sujunut hyvin: Lahdessa on leivottu, vietetty yhteistä itsenäisyyspäivää ja ulkoiltu yhteisellä pihalla. Hän kuitenkin lisää, että toiminta riippuu paljon talossa asuvien ikäihmisten kunnosta.

Lehtonen ajattelee, että päiväkodin ja ikäihmisten hoivakodin henkilökunta on yhteistyössä avainasemassa.

– Ennen kaikkea on kyse siitä, miten ihmiset onnistuvat rakentamaan yhteistä toimintaa. Se kysyy yhteistyötä meidän ja Pilkkeen kesken. Ihmiset tekevät paikan, Lehtonen sanoo.

Rakennuksessa tilat ovat vierekkäin, mutta erilliset. Päiväkoti sijaitsee rakennuksessa keskellä ensimmäisessä kerroksessa. Ikäihmisten paikat jakaantuvat neljään tupaan, jotka sijaitsevat talon päädyissä kahdessa kerroksessa.

Hän sanoo, että yhteistyötä edesauttaa muun muassa yhteinen keittiö, jossa tehdään ruuat koko taloon. Ajatus on, että mahdollisimman paljon ruuat ovat samoja, mutta lasten ruoka voi olla esimerkiksi miedommin maustettua. Allergiat ja erityisruokavaliot ovat tietenkin oma lukunsa.

– Ruuan ympärille saa kehitettyä paljonkin kaikkea, itsenäisyys-, joulu- tai sadonkorjuujuhlia, Mattson miettii.

Lehtonen kertoo, että yläkerran yhteistilassa voidaan järjestää askartelua, kahvitteluja, lauluhetkiä tai esityksiä, jossa ikäihmiset ovat yleisönä.

Mattsson sanoo, että musiikki on yhdistää lapsia ja vanhuksia: monesti muistisairaallakin vanhat laulut säilyvät mielessä, vaikka paljon olisi unohtunut.

Lehtonen sanoo, että suunnittelussa on käytetty paljon aikaa myös ikäihmisten tilojen miettimiseen. Käytäviä on mahdollisimman vähän, ja asukkaiden huoneet avautuvat ikäihmisten yhteiseen tilaan. Sisustussuunnittelija Tuija Salmi on miettinyt esimerkiksi värit niin, että ne helpottavat muistisairaan elämää.

Myös turvallisuusnäkökulmia on mietitty paljon, vaikka tupien yhteistilassa on iltapalan valmistukseen keittiö, sen hanat ja hellan saa lukittua niin, että niitä ei saa vahingossa päälle.

– Täällä mikään asia ei ole paikassaan sattumalta, Lehtonen kiteyttää.

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CITYZEN GARDEN - WEST PALM BEACH

August 31, 2021, 4:00 am

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G LIVELAB TAMPERE

September 30, 2021, 12:24 am

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Reconstruction and re-use of a historical industrial building into highest standard concert hall and music restaurant for the Finnish Union of Musicians. Experimental and innovative use of materials, such as copper for floor. Best digital acoustics in the world created in cooperation with handmade Genelec sound systems. Carefully fitting the new functions and structures in dialog with the Finnish Heritage Agency.

MONDO DR*Award for Best Concert Hall in the World.

In cooperation with:

FINNISH UNION OF MUSICIANS

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LAMMINRANTA

October 15, 2021, 4:34 am

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Ikäihmisten hoivakoti ja lasten päiväkoti samassa rakennuksessa

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CONSTRUCTIVE BIOLOGY. From Urban Acupuncture to Biourbanism

June 2, 2023, 12:51 am

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CONSTUCTIVE BIOLOGY.

FROM URBAN ACUPUNCTURE TO BIOURBANISM

Marco Casagrande

Ruin Academy, Casagrande Laboratory, and

International Society of Biourbanism - FINLAND

CHAPTER OF BOOK

F. Armato & S. Follesa. From Spaces to Places Product#People#City. ISBN 9788833381879. Scientific Publications Committee of the Department of Architecture of the University of Florence (DIDA). Collana Editoriale DSR LAB. Italy

The crisis of urbanism is analysed as a vital phenomenon that prepares the Third Generation City—its connection with nature and its flesh. The industrial city is, on the contrary, fictitious. The example of the settlement of Treasure Hill, near Taipei, is given. As an organic ruin of the industrial city, Treasure Hill is a bio-urban site of resistance and an acupuncture point of Taipei, with its own design methodology based on Local Knowledge. This ruin is the matter from which parasite urbanism composts the modern city. Urban acupuncture, the Third Generation City, and the conceptual model of Paracity speak to the community that rests in the hands of its own people.

Third Generation City is the organic ruin of the industrial city, an organic machine and open form of the mechanical urbanism which has learned to become biological. Ruin is when man-made has become part of nature. The industrial control has been opened up in order for the nature to step in. The seeds of the third generation city are coexisting together with the current industrial urbanism – for example the illegal collective urban farms and settlements of Taipei.

Nature has only one rule: existence maximum. It wants the city to be part of the life-providing process. Now our cities are anti-acupuncture needles in the life-providing tissue.

Urban Acupuncture is a biourban theory, which combines sociology and urban design with the traditional Chinese medical theory of acupuncture. As a design methodology, it is focused on tactical, small-scale interventions on the urban fabric, aiming in ripple effects and transformation on the larger urban organism. Through the acupuncture points, Urban Acupuncture seeks to be in contact with the site-specific Local Knowledge. By its nature, Urban Acupuncture is pliant, organic, and relieves stress and industrial tension in the urban environment, thus directing the city towards the organic—urban nature as part of nature. Urban Acupuncture produces small scale, but ecologically and socially catalytic development on the built human environment. The Third Generation City is a city of cracks. The thin mechanical surface of the industrial city is shattered, and from these cracks the new biourban growth emerges, which will ruin the second generation city. In the Third Generation City, we aim at designing ruins. The Third Generation City is true when the city recognizes its local knowledge and allows itself to be part of nature.

The way towards the Third Generation City is a process of becoming a collective learning and healing organism and of reconnecting the urbanized collective consciousness with nature. Citizens on their behalf are ready and are already breaking the industrial city apart by themselves. Local knowledge is operating independently from the official city and is providing punctual third generation surroundings within the industrial city: urban acupuncture for the stiff official mechanism. The weak signals of the unofficial collective consciousness should be recognized as the futures’ emerging issues; futures that are already present.

The city is a manifest of human-centered systems—economical, industrial, philosophical, political, and religious power structures. Biourbanism is an animist community structural system regulated by nature. Human nature as part of nature, also within the urban conditions. The era of pollution is the era of industrial urbanism – the second generation city. The next era has always been surviving within the industrial city, like a positive cancer. The first-generation city never died, it went underground, but the bio-urban processes are still surviving. The seeds of the Third Generation City are present. Architecture is not an art of human control; it is an art of reality - there is no other reality than nature.

Keywords: #urban acupuncture; #biourbanism; #Third Generation City; #ruins; #parasite urbanism; #Paracity; #Local Knowledge; #constructive biology; #Open Form

CONSTRUCTIVE BIOLOGY

Hardness and strength are dearth’s companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win. (Tarkovsky: Stalker) Architecture is never alone. It needs to communicate with engineers, site-specific conditions, users, construction workers, physical and cultural structures, interior- and landscape designers and various authorities. Other disciplines of art and science are closely linked with architecture and urbanism, including spatial arts, installation art, environmental art, scenography, humanistic sciences, civil engineering, and statistics. In ecologically sustainable architecture the present focus is on the energy efficiency of the buildings, use of renewable materials and circular economy. In ecologically sustainable urbanism, including urban ecological restoration, the main issues are dealing with the reduction of urban pollution, energy efficiency, material circulation and densification. The development of the built human environment is mainly dictated by economic speculations and industrial standardization of urban planning and construction methodologies. Ecological sustainability plays a secondary role in the development and is often marginalized into academic discussion or as a marketing or branding tool.

Constructive Biology views the current and emerging cities as environmentally highly destructive urban mechanisms, and architectural development in general alienated from natural life providing solutions - nature. The human-centred urban and architectural development, as described, disconnects human nature from the other forms of organic circulation.

Constructive Biology is an architectonic natural science that studies life providing structures and living organism, including their physical structure, chemical processes, molecular interactions, physiological mechanism, development, and evolution. It recognizes architecture and urbanism as open systems that survive by transforming energy and decreasing their local entropy to maintain a stable and vital condition defined as tectonic homeostasis. Theoretical Constructive Biology uses mathematical methods to formulate quantitative models while experimental Constructive Biology performs empiric experiments to test the validity of proposed theories and understand the mechanism underlying life and how it appears in architecture and urbanism.

The term Constructive Biology is being used within different fields of biological research, for example on bioengineering related to synthetic biology (Prof. J. Keasling, Berkeley, 2009). It is also used as a term in cybernetics as biology motivated by the desire to understand how biological systems actually are constructed by nature and develop over time rather than just to obtain a descriptive understanding. (C. Nehaniv, K. Dau- tenhahn, M. Loomes, MIT, 1999). Literature research will provide more connections to relevant research of different scientific disciplines. However, Constructive Biology as combining the research and findings of biology with the development of the built human environment is a new academic process of architectural knowledge building. We are thinking of a new discipline of built human environment which moves in-between architecture, urbanism, and biology. Additionally, humanistic sciences (anthropology, sociology, cultural sciences, linguistics) are providing tools and knowledge in understanding the human behaviour in the built human environment, in more natural conditions and in-between conditions (for example nomads and un-official settlements).

URBAN ACUPUNCTURE

There is no Urban Acupuncture without the organic. The scientific dialog in trying to understand the organic is biology. Urban Acupuncture is not trying to understand the organic, but instead it must be weak enough to feel it. And the organic feels the weak. Either it will let it grow, or it will consume it. The official city is a burden. It is hard, heavy, dead, whipped by fictions. Not much more than an extended parking lot. The organic is boiling under the thin layers of asphalt and concrete. Organic matter and organic knowledge. There is pressure under too. When a crack emerges or when we drill a hole, the organic is present. We call this Local Knowledge, but it is actually a key to communicate with the life-providing systems.

Community garden, Taipei

We feel the city, we feel urbanism and we feel collectivity as we feel something living. We feel empathy for the city because it is full of cracks. We feel empathy and shame on ourselves. Small cracks on the concrete wall surfaces growing moss, dandelion pushing through the asphalt, algae in the air-conditioning machine, grandmothers occupying and farming an idle construction site.

Accident is great. Open Form is a platform of constructive accidents, constructive anarchy. Communicative action through collective construction. Construction as a language. Construction site as the Public Sphere (Habermas). This is not official, if official means centrally controlled hierarchies. This is common, un-official, more organic. Un-official collective farm in the official city is urban acupuncture. This is not place-making or tactical urbanism, but real. Subtle it emerges (Sun Tzu) beyond the control of the official.

Treasure Hill, Taipei

The collective garden of the anarchist grandmothers is open form. Treasure Hill was open form. It was a self-build organic community rising from the flood-banks of the Xindian River up to a hill as a terraced community. The foundations of the houses were based on abandoned anti-aircraft bunkers of the Japanese army. Retired Kuomingtang veterans started to live on the hill and to farm on the flood-banks and to harvest waste material from the surrounding city. The houses were in constant dialog with each other and with nature, including the voices of the flooding river, constant typhoons and earthquakes and jungle. They were built with local knowledge and could cope with the natural elements. They were weak architecture, which could resist, because they were glued to the site with organic knowledge. There was no road wide enough for a car in Treasure Hill, inhabited by approximately 400 households. Treasure Hill lived in a very intime connection with the river, while the surrounding city regarded the flooding rivers as something hostile and build a 12 meters high concrete wall to separate the mechanical man for the organic, absolutely no connection. And so nature became a fiction to the modern man.

In 2003 the Taipei City Government was destroying Treasure Hill, which did not appear on the official maps, but was zoned as a park. If you map the un-official it becomes official. The first three layers of houses of the terraced community had already been wiped off when we stepped in the stopped the destruction. The city had also bulldozed away the collective farms and destroyed all the connections between the remaining houses, like small steps and bridges, which were the nervous network of this urban organism. Without this network the remaining houses had become isolated object instead of being part of a living organism and were left for a slow death.

Reconstructed farms and community structure, Treasure Hill

We restarted the farms and reconstructed the steps and bridges until Treasure Hill was again a living organism, which could start fighting back. Altogether 200 students volunteered from the local universities and construction workers started to donate construction material. Soon the rumours were circulating around the city from the punctual intervention of Treasure Hill and the work started to gain momentum. Local media started to report and even New York Times flew in and wrote an article, that this is a “must-see destination in Taiwan”. These rumours in the city were some kind of humane energy transmitted from the urban acupuncture point of Treasure Hill.

Because of urban acupuncture the same city government, which three weeks before was destroying Treasure Hill, suddenly turned their coats and the commissioners started to recite poems on the hill. Treasure Hill got legalized and celebrated as the Taipei Artist Village. The official city was very shallow and broke very fast with rumours. The rumours were connected to Real Reality (Aristoteles), something which cannot be speculated, while as the official city is based on speculations. Treasure Hill was showing a way to towards the Third Generation City, the organic ruin of the official city – biourbanism as part of nature.

Paracity, drawing by Niilo Tenkanen / Casagrande Laboratory

Paracity is a primary structure for a biourban organism, which is learning from Treasure Hill. It may be a high-tech slum, because it is using cross-laminated timber, engineered wood, as the main material for the primary structure. It may also have environmental technology as its inner organs. But the structure is empty unless people will occupy it. If offers a three-dimensional spatial grid for occupation, following the methodology of open form: constructive actions in dialog with each other and building up collectivity through communicative construction. Paracity (Parallel City or Parasite City) is organic and flexible, it can grow and parts of it can die. It can cannibalize itself and it can harvest material and energy from the surrounding host city. It is a biourban compost.

Official city is a source of pollution. Paracity is a biourban healing organism and mediator between the official city and nature. It is a constructed crack in the city, through which local knowledge can erupt to the urban surface and fertilize the official thin layers of concrete and asphalt. It is a platform of accidents. Paracity if fuelled by constructive biology.

The research grows from a long line of theoretical, academic and practice works moving in-between architecture, environmental art, landscape architecture, biology, and urbanism. Much of the previous and ongoing research has been demonstrated in 1:1 scale architectural installations and experiments, and they have been presented in dozens of international conferences and exhibitions, including 5 times in the Venice Architecture Biennale. The body of work has been awarded by the UNESCO Global Award for Sustainable Architecture and European Prize for Architecture among other prizes and awards. Most notable theoretical work revolves around the thinking of the Third Generation City and Urban Acupuncture. The author is currently Professor of Architecture at the Bergen School of Architecture in Norway, Vice-President of the International Society of Biourbanism, founder and principal of the Ruin Academy in Taiwan and Casagrande Laboratory in Finland.

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We were playing the Warsaw Game, a strategic ‘Open Form’ game based on the improvisation and adaptation to changing conditions, led by Professor Svein Hatløy (1940–2015), the founder of the Bergen School of Architecture, and Chi Ti-Nan, the author of the Micro-Urbanism concept* and the initiator of the Urban Flashes workshops. At the Urban Flashes in London (2002), Svein made us collect recycled building materials into a shopping cart and use them in a way that they would ‘dominate’ and ‘communicate’. Chi was very impressed by the deep philosophy behind this – it was the first time that his Taoist mind encountered Open Form. After London, Chi begun to teach in Bergen, and Svein – to spend time in China.

Third Generation City, M. Casagrande

Originally formulated in 1959 by visionary architect, theorist and artist Oskar Hansen and developed further by Svein Hatløy, the concept of Open Form is based on unauthored individual and collective actions that have a potential to generate further reactions. Within this approach, the role of the architect shifts towards directing constructive communication. Open Form is a monument to no one, and the processes it goes by are rather biological.

Svein got me a teaching appointment at the Bergen School of Architecture, where I sought for a deeper understanding of Open Form. Step by step, this led me towards the concept of Urban Acupuncture, which owes as much to Svein as to Chi’s Micro-Urbanism. Today, looking back to the architectural installations we made in different cities with Sami Rintala, I can see that Urban Acupuncture was already present there. Those installations acted as the acupuncture needles that tapped into the collective conscience of the local communities and tried to communicate with the site-specific knowledge. Our architectural expression was Open Form in the sense that it did not rely on any specific discipline – not even architecture – but glided freely between various fields of art and science.

“First one has to have something to say, and then find the ways how to say it,” said Mauno Koivisto, the President of Finland in 1982–94. “To be present is key to all art,” said Reijo Kela, the legendary dancer and choreographer who had burned our Land(e)scape back in 1999. “Real Reality is something that is total; something that cannot be speculated,” said Jaakko Hämeen-Anttila, the Professor of the Arabic Language and Islamic Studies at the Universities of Edinburg and Helsinki. He continued: “The valueless void of today’s society will be filled with ethics; the corners are windy.” We craved to feel this wind and to break in more corners. Usually design represents a closed form; it relies on the control methodologies that stifle the Local Knowledge. Design should not replace reality. Reality is normal. We chose to believe in the supernormal, and in the works that laughed at their ‘designers’.

I ended up in Taiwan by accident, although Svein declared: “We sent Marco to Asia.” What really happened were two seemingly independent events at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2000: Chi visiting our ‘60 Minute Man’ boat and me picking up from the ground his flyer that advertised the Taiwanese pavilion. Then we got in touch with each other, and Chi invited me to my first Urban Flashes in Taipei. Prior to Taipei, Sami and I had worked on a few projects in Japan, but in Taiwan the Open Form really got me. The final hit was my work in, with and for the Treasure Hill, where everything Svein had been teaching became a reality, because the Treasure Hill was the Open Form fighting against the official city. Without Open Form, I would have never been able to deal with it. Without Open Form, there would have been no Urban Acupuncture for me, and no teaching at the Tamkang University, where the students started playing the Warsaw Game soon after I became their ‘professor of accident’. In a sense, Svein was right: he did send me to Taiwan.

Urban Acupuncture, Hiroki Oya / Casagrande Laboratory

In Tamkang, I was given full support in taking further the Urban Acupuncture thinking to study the essense of ruins and eventually arrive at the Third Generation City. Later on, the Sustainable Global Technologies research centre (SGT) in the Aalto University gave me a free hand in practicing multi-disciplinary design, which, again, was close to Open Form. More disciplines were stepping in: river engineering, futures studies, cultural studies, landscape architecture, civil engineering, sociology, horticulture, and anthropology. In 2010, we were able to set up our own independent research center, the Ruin Academy in Taipei. Totally multi-disciplinary and based on Open Form, this platform for academic squatting involved the Aalto SGT, the Tamkang University, and the National Taiwan University, especially its sociology department. In the meantime, in Artena, Italy, a cross-disciplinary network of university professors founded the International Society of Biourbanism that has also established a strong connection with the Ruin Academy. Through this link, Open Form started to gain some more scientific roots. The biourbanists are as much mathematicians as they are biologists.

Open Form knows no designer. The architect is not an author, but rather a communicator, or a human intelligence officer. Most of the existing architecture is ‘closed form’, a structural manifestation of human control and authority, while nature is Open Form, and therefore the task of architecture should be mediating between the human nature and the big voice of Nature. Urban Acupuncture strives to penetrate through thin industrial layers of asphalt and concrete in order to connect with the original soil. The resulting cracks in the city fabric provide the breeding ground for the Local Knowledge and Open Form (which are essentially one and the same thing). The Third Generation City is the city of cracks.

Phimenes Sp., M.Casagrande & F. Chen / Casagrande Laboratory

Architecture is an environmental art. It belongs not to architects, but to nature; it belongs to our senses, and not to our control. What is not sensitive, is not alive – it’s death’s companion.

When I was a student at the Helsinki University of Technology (now the Aalto University), Professor Juhani Pallasmaa, Head of the Architecture Department in 1992–97, made us watch Andrei Tarkovsky’s films. Stalker – directed by Tarkovsky and based on the ‘Roadside Picnic’ novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky – is about the Open Form as it is about life: you either survive your way through the Zone, or you don’t. It’s always the same forest, but the way is never the same. The way is the domain of the accident, yet Open Form is not a mystery. It is about constructing and deconstructing the elements that can maximise the opportunities for life to thrive. These life-providing elements – be it a house, a place, a community, or a city – are parts of nature, and, as such, they follow biological principles.

Existense Maximum, M. Casagrande

Existense Maximum is the given rule of nature. To enable maximum life in site- specific conditions, human control should be loosened up in order for nature to step in. Nature, life and human are one and the same, but human control is something different; it is the source of pollution and prostitution. Architects are not obliged to be design prostitutes, and architecture should not necessarily be a manifestation of human control. And if not, then the house must be ruined.

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in.

- Leonard Cohen, Anthem

A ruin is when the man-made becomes part of nature. Open Form seeks to produce ruins – houses, communities and cities that are broken open by human error to turn into platforms of cracks. These cracks are not slums; they are not the smelly parts of the city – they are the apertures through which light comes in. The modern man is an anti-life form in the universe of cracks. A house is not a box, and the man should not stay inside. The architecture provides necessary shelter, an Open Form for the man to have a rest and contemplate. It gives us comfort. But this is not all there is. The house is where the light comes in. The city is the biology itself. It is a biourban galaxy of lights, a star system of cracks.

* In his Micro-Urbanism theory, Taiwanese architect Chi Ti-Nan proposes an alternative to conventional ‘macro-urban’ design and planning practices with their “efforts to invent or resurrect dominant forms, to demonstrate heroic rectifications, to reinforce the regulations, [or] to freeze the historical areas.” Instead, he encourages the architects to investigate the way things interact and coordinate in the city’s everyday life; to explore the seemingly insignificant sides of contemporary cities; the unique microcosms that develop in response to “both natural environment and existing urban conditions,” and to take cues from the “immediate solutions and consequential behaviours mobilised by people in order to manage limited resources and adapt to the man-made environment.” Referring to the principles of Eastern medicine like ayurveda or acupuncture, Chi speaks about “a meridian system of interrelated energy zones within the preconceived macro-structure of the city” and emphasises the importance of identifying and working with the city’s organic, innate processes that are being “blocked, concealed or simply ignored.”

Chapter of book: Marco Casagrande: Who Cares, Wins the Third Generation City. Edit. Anna Yudina. ISBN 978-986-85001-9-8. JUT Foundation for Arts & Architecture, Taiwan

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Місто третього покоління

October 23, 2023, 8:05 am

≪ Previous: open form : now open

THIRD GENERATION CITY

Місто третього покоління

Author: Marco Casagrande¹

¹Ruin Academy, Casagrande Laboratory,O.M. Beketov National University, and International Society of Bio-urbanism, Finland

Abstract

The crisis of urbanism is analyzed as a vital phenomenon that prepares the Third Generation City—its connection with nature and its flesh. The industrial city is, on the contrary, fictitious. The theory views the future urban development as the ruin of the industrial city, an organic machine ruined by nature including human nature.The example of the settlement of Treasure Hill, near Taipei, is given. As an organic ruin of the industrial city, Treasure Hill is a bio-urban site of resistance and an acupuncture point of Taipei, with its own design methodology based on Local Knowledge. This ruin is the matter from which parasite urbanism composts the modern city. Another example is offered by observing the operations of the Ruin Academy, an independent cross-over architectural research centre focused on the research of the urban ruining processes of that keep the city alive. Urban acupuncture, the Third Generation City, and the conceptual model of Paracity speak to the community that rests in the hands of its own people. Biourbanism happens, when nature force takes the initiative, affects the design of industrial society, and becomes co-architect. By mixing environmentalism and urban design Ruin Academy is developing methods of punctual manipulation of the urban energy flows in order to create an ecologically sustainable urban development towards the so-called Third Generation City.

Keywords: urban acupuncture; biourbanism; Third Generation City; ruins; parasite urbanism;Paracity; Local Knowledge; Ruin Academy

Анотація

Криза урбанізму аналізується як життєво важливий феномен, що готує місто третього покоління — його зв’язок із природою та її плоттю. Промислове місто, навпаки, фіктивне. Теорія розглядає майбутній міський розвиток як руїну індустріального міста, органічної машини, зруйнованої природою, в тому числі людською. Наведено приклад поселення Пагорб скарбів поблизу Тайбея. Будучи органічною руїною промислового міста, Пагорб скарбів є біоміським місцем опору та акупунктурною точкою Тайбею з власною методологією проектування, заснованою на місцевих знаннях. Ця руїна — речовина, з якої урбанізм-паразит компостує сучасне місто. Іншим прикладом є спостереження за діяльністю Ruin Academy, незалежного перехресного архітектурного дослідницького центру, який зосереджується на дослідженні процесів руйнування міст, які підтримують життя міста. Міська акупунктура, місто третього покоління та концептуальна модель Парасіті говорять про громаду, яка знаходиться в руках її власного народу. Біоурбанізм виникає, коли природна сила бере ініціативу, впливає на дизайн індустріального суспільства та стає співархітектором. Поєднуючи екологію та міський дизайн, RuinAcademyрозробляє методи пунктуального маніпулювання міськими потоками енергії з метою створення екологічно стійкого міського розвитку до так званого міста третього покоління.

Ключові слова: міська акупунктура; біоурбанізм; Місто третього покоління; руїни; урбанізм паразитів; Парацітет; Місцеві знання; Академія руїни

1. Introduction

Labelled as cross-over architect, biourbanist and social theorist my works move freely in-between architecture, environmental art, and nature driven urbanism. They are based on interpreting local knowledges and regarding nature as the co-architect. All together 96 realized works in 16 different countries and 72 academic assignments in 28 countries, including this one in Ukraine. Professorships in Taiwan, Estonia, and Norway.

The line or works have received the UNECO and Locus Foundation Global Award for Sustainable Architecture, European Prize for Architecture, Committee of International Architecture Critics CICA Award and a little bit of this and that. The works have been selected 5 times to the Venice Architecture Biennale and dozens of other international exhibitions.

1. Введення

Мої роботи, які називають перехресноюархітекторою, біоурбанізмом і соціальнимитеоріями, вільно переміщуються між архітектурою, екологічним мистецтвом і урбанізмом, орієнтованим на природу. Вони базуються на інтерпретації місцевих знань і розгляді природи як співархітектора. Загалом 96 реалізованих робіт у 16 різних країнах та 72 академічні завдання у 28 країнах, у тому числі й в Україні. Професури в Тайвані, Естонії та Норвегії.

Лінія або роботи отримали глобальну нагороду UNECOта LocusFoundationза стійку архітектуру, Європейську премію з архітектури, нагороду Комітету міжнародних архітектурних критиків CICAта інш. Роботи 5 разів відбиралися до Венеціанської архітектурної бієнале та на десятки інших міжнародних виставок.

2. Land(e)scape

Architecture is environmental art, otherwise it is pollution. Architecture is the art of reality. There is no other reality than nature.

We got disappointed to the desertion process of the Finnish countryside, that time the fastest in Europe, and wanted to comment on this. Together with countryside people are abandoning local knowledges which are generated through centuries and generations. Local knowledges that root the built human environment with the life-providing forces of nature.

2. Ландшафт(е)пейзаж

Архітектура - це екологічне мистецтво, інакше це забруднення. Архітектура – це мистецтво реальності. Немає іншої реальності, крім природи.

Ми були розчаровані процесом дезертирства у фінській сільській місцевості, на той час найшвидшим у Європі, і хотіли прокоментувати це. Разом із сільською місцевістю люди відмовляються від місцевих знань, які генерувалися століттями й поколіннями. Місцеві знання, які вкорінюють створене людське середовище життєдайними силами природи.

We took three abandoned barn houses and build legs for them, so that they can follow the farmers to the cities of the South. Also, the field that they are walking was abandoned. The work is called Land(e)scape (Casagrande & Rintala, 1999). The structure is simple. Pine tree trunks upside down for the legs, two-by-four structure and in the end the barn house was lifted on top as a hat. The free height under the barn is 10 meters.

When the works was finished, I returned home to Helsinki, but continued constantly to think on the work – the walking barn houses. It did not leave me alone. They kept on walking on the field and bothering me. It was almost as if I was jealous to my own work. It felt strange in my stomach. I discussed this with contemporary dancer and choreographer Mr. Reijo Kela, and he said that this is normal in his profession. First you are preparing for the act, then you get onto the stage and perform, and then you finish the act. But you need to finish the act properly, otherwise the line of energy will continue growing and this is eating yourself up. He said that our work is some kind of performative architecture, but it is not finished yet – the line of energy keeps growing. We need to finish the work properly.

We put an announcement to a local newspaper (Savon seudun sanomat) saying that there will be free sausage and vodka. 6000 people came. And this is really in the middle of nowhere, close to the Russian border. On a cold night of October dancer Reijo Kela was having a performance in which he “got drunk”. First, he was friendly with the people and offering them vodka, but then got melancholic and mad and chased the people away. And in the end of his drunken madness, he set the whole work on fire. Heslaughteredourworkofart.

Ми взяли три покинутих амбари і побудували для них ноги, щоб вони могли слідувати за фермерами в міста Півдня. Крім того, поле, яким вони гуляють, було занедбане. Робота називається Land(e)scape (Casagrande& Rintala, 1999). Структура проста. Стовбури сосни перевернуті на ноги, два на чотири, а в кінці сарай підняли зверху, як шапку. Вільна висота під сараєм 10 метрів.

Коли роботи були закінчені, я повернувся додому в Гельсінкі, але продовжував постійно думати про роботу – про ходячі сараї. Це не залишало мене в спокої. Вони продовжували ходити по полю і турбувати мене. Це було майже так, ніби я заздрив власній роботі. Це було дивно в моєму животі. Я обговорював це з сучасним танцівником і хореографом паном Рейо Кела, і він сказав, що це нормально для його професії. Спочатку ви готуєтеся до виступу, потім виходите на сцену і виступаєте, а потім завершуєте виступ. Але ви повинні правильно завершити акт, інакше енергетична лінія буде продовжувати рости, і це з'їдає вас. Він сказав, що наша робота – це якась перформативна архітектура, але вона ще не завершена – лінія енергії продовжує рости. Треба як слід завершити роботу.

Ми дали оголошення в місцевій газеті (Savonseudunsanomat), що буде безкоштовна ковбаса і горілка. Прийшло 6000 людей. І це дійсно в середині нічого, недалеко від російського кордону. Холодної жовтневої ночі танцюрист Рейо Кела влаштовував виступ, під час якого «напився». Спочатку він був дружній з людьми і пропонував їм горілку, а потім впав у меланхолію, розлютився і прогнав людей. А наприкінці свого п’яного божевілля підпалив усю роботу. Він убив наш витвір мистецтва.

Of course, we could not predict how the people would react – it is kind of violent to burn houses. But people were great, like normal people always are. They formed a circle around the burning barn houses, some people were crying, and some were shouting and predicting future from the burning barn houses. All in all, the atmosphere was very shamanistic.

We thought that the walking barn houses would be the end of our careers as architects and that the burning of them was kind of a professional hara-kiri. But it went different. Photos of the walking and burning barn houses started to appear in national newspapers and then suddenly they jumped over the borders and the work started to get published internationally, and then we received a call from UK to collect the Architectural Review’s Emerging Architecture Award. All this was an accident.

Звісно, ми не могли передбачити, як відреагують люди – палити будинки це якось жорстоко. Але люди були чудові, як і завжди. Вони стали в коло навколо палаючих сараїв, хтось плакав, а хтось кричав і пророкував майбутнє з палаючих сараїв. Загалом атмосфера була дуже шаманська.

Ми думали, що на ходячих будинках-амбарах закінчиться наша кар’єра архітекторів, а їхнє спалення – своєрідне професійне харакірі. Але вийшло інакше. Фотографії гуляючих і палаючих амбарів почали з’являтися в національних газетах, а потім раптом вони перескочили кордони, і робота почала публікуватися на міжнародному рівні, а потім ми отримали дзвінок із Великобританії, щоб отримати нагороду EmergingArchitectureAwardвід ArchitecturalReview. Все це булавипадковість.

3. 60 Minute Man

Architect Massimiliano Fuksas was part of the jury for the Architectural Review’s Emerging Architecture Award and then he became the director of the Venice Architecture Biennale. He called us and invited to the Biennale saying that he wants something like the Land(e)scape, an architectural installation to comment on the theme of the Biennale “Città: Less Aesthetics More Ethics”, somehow to discuss the urban problematics.

3. Людина за 60 хвилин

Архітектор Массіміліано Фуксас був частиною журі премії Emerging Architecture Award від Architectural Review, а потім став директором Венеціанської архітектурної бієнале. Він зателефонував нам і запросив на Бієнале, сказавши, що хоче щось на кшталт Land(e)scape, архітектурної інсталяції, щоб прокоментувати тему Бієнале «Città: Less Aesthetics More Ethics», якось обговорити проблеми міста.

What I wanted to do was to have a big cargo ship and plant a forest in it and then sail with the forest from Finland to Venice and open the ship as a public park. Some of our friends were biologists and they explained that the idea is unsound. The trees would die somewhere around the Biscay Bay because the climate change would be too much for them. Trees don’t sail. We needed to find the trees and the ship somewhere close to Venice.

So, together with our friends we drove to Venice and started to look for an abandoned ship. After checking through the Northern Italian harbours, we found a sunken barge in the port of Chioggia, which we took ashore, cleaned it up and welded it waterproof again. And we cut openings along the central axis to create a series of interior spaces. The barge was called Topogigio. And then we started to look for the trees and ended up with 24 oaks. We showed a sketch of the work to the Biennale organization, but they refused the work to enter the Biennale. They told we were crazy (pazzo). They would not take responsibility of any floating artworks in the Biennale, and besides, it would cost too much to have a ship in the Arsenale harbour. For us this was too late though. We already had the ship and the trees, and it was 7 weeks to the opening. We had to ignore the Biennale organization and continue with our construction work.

Я хотів мати великий вантажний корабель і висадити на ньому ліс, а потім поплисти з лісом із Фінляндії до Венеції та відкрити корабель як громадський парк. Деякі з наших друзів були біологами, і вони пояснили, що ця ідея нерозумна. Дерева загинуть десь біля Біскайської затоки, тому що зміна клімату буде для них занадто сильною. Дерева не плавають. Нам потрібно було знайти дерева та корабель десь поблизу Венеції.

Отже, разом з друзями ми поїхали до Венеції і почали шукати покинутий корабель. Після перевірки в портах Північної Італії ми знайшли затонулу баржу в порту Кьоджа, витягли її на берег, очистили та знову зварили водонепроникною. І ми вирізаємо отвори вздовж центральної осі, щоб створити низку внутрішніх просторів. Баржа називалася Topogigio. А потім ми почали шукати дерева і в результаті вийшло 24 дуби. Ми показали ескіз роботи організації бієнале, але вони відмовили роботі в бієнале. Вони сказали, що ми божевільні (pazzo). Вони не візьмуть на себе відповідальності за плавучі твори мистецтва на Бієнале, і, крім того, мати корабель у гавані Арсенале коштуватиме занадто дорого. Але для нас це було надто пізно. Ми вже мали корабель і дерева, а до відкриття залишалося 7 тижнів. Нам довелося проігнорувати організацію бієнале і продовжити будівництво.

Theworkwascomingalong, wewereproceeding, butstill, itdidn’tfeelright. There was again this strange feeling in the stomach telling, that we are missing something. It was not enough to contrast the organic growth with the industrial degeneration, but we needed something more personal. For some reason we started to think, where does everything go when you flush a toilet in Venice? Where does all the human waste disappear from the islands? We started to track down the Venetian sewage systems and, in the end, everything ended up in one place not far away from Chioggia, where we were building our ship. The place was called Biokomp and the operation was based on tunnel composting of the digested sludge into water, energy and top-soil. We asked the director of Biokomp, Dottore Codato, how much human waste does Venice produce annually? He showed us the number, but it was too big to understand, too abstract. I asked, how much in one hour, in 60 minutes? He said that 67 cubic metres. This number we could understand. Then we asked, could we have it – the 60 minutes’ worth of human waste? He said yes. He was happy, that somebody appreciates his material. So, under the white stones is 60 minutes’ worth of composted human waste produced by the city of Venice.

Робота йшла, ми продовжували, але все одно це було не так. Знову з’явилося дивне відчуття в животі, яке свідчило про те, що нам чогось не вистачає. Недостатньо було протиставити органічне зростання промисловій дегенерації, нам потрібно було щось більш особисте. Ми чомусь почали думати, а куди все йде, коли у Венеції змиваєш туалет? Куди зникають усі людські відходи з островів? Ми почали шукати венеціанські каналізаційні системи, і врешті все опинилося в одному місці неподалік від Кьоджа, де ми будували корабель. Місце було названо Біокомп, а операція базувалася на тунельному компостуванні переробленого мулу у воду, енергію та верхній шар ґрунту. Ми запитали директора BiokompДотторе Кодато, скільки людських відходів щорічно виробляє Венеція? Він показав нам номер, але він був надто великим, щоб зрозуміти, надто абстрактним. Я запитав, скільки за одну годину, за 60 хвилин? Він сказав, що 67 куб. Це число ми могли зрозуміти. Потім ми запитали, чи можемо ми отримати це – 60 хвилин людських відходів? Він сказав так. Він був щасливий, що хтось цінує його матеріал. Отже, під білим камінням знаходяться 60-хвилинні компостовані людські відходи, вироблені містом Венеція.

Everything in the work is either found or borrowed. It is a temporary collage of different material streams produced by the city. As a gangway you can see a Larsen-element used for reinforcing the islands in Venice and a Nokia cable for handrail. When you enter the last room, there are no trees anymore, just a marble stone in the corner saying: “This park has been planted on sixty minutes’ worth of human waste produced by the city of Venice.” Here is the compost freshly arriving to the boat – al dente. The work is called 60 Minute Man (Casagrande & Rintala, 2000).

The big reward was to sail with this little forest across the Laguna to the Arsenale port in Venice. We had contacted all kinds of Italian media saying that we will donate a new park to Venice. When we arrived to Arsenale the pier was full of media and big cameras. Because of the media the Biennale organization could not stop us, but we tied off the barge and opened it up to people. New York Times chose this as the best work in the Biennale and Fuksas wanted us to get the Golden Lion against the Biennale organization’s choice Jean Nouvel.

У творі все або знайдено, або позичено. Це тимчасовий колаж різних матеріальних потоків, створених містом. В якості трапу можна побачити елемент Ларсена, який використовується для зміцнення островів у Венеції, і трос Nokiaдля поручнів. Коли ви входите в останню кімнату, там більше немає дерев, лише мармуровий камінь у кутку, на якому написано: «Цей парк висаджено на шістдесятихвилинній основі людських відходів, які виробляє місто Венеція». Ось компост, щойно прибув до човна – aldente. Робота називається 60 MinuteMan (Casagrande& Rintala, 2000).

Великою нагородою було переплисти з цим маленьким лісом через Лагуну до порту Арсенале у Венеції. Ми зв’язувалися з усіма видами італійських ЗМІ, повідомляючи, що подаруємо новий парк Венеції. Коли ми прибули до Арсеналу, пристань була повна ЗМІ та великих камер. Через ЗМІ організація Бієнале не могла нас зупинити, але ми прив’язали баржу і відкрили її для людей. NewYorkTimesвибрала цю роботу як найкращу на Бієнале, а Фуксас хотів, щоб ми отримали Золотого лева проти Жана Нувеля, обраного організацією Бієнале.

Floating Sauna

This is another small work of floating architecture, a sauna on the Hardanger Fjord in Norway for a small town called Rosendal. They explained that the town is lacking a piazza or other centre spot and wanted us to think on this. The settlement is terraced on the foothills of the mountains around the Hardanger Fjord and all the houses are looking at the sea. Their focus is the sea. It is an old Viking settlement.

Плаваюча сауна

Це ще один невеликий витвір плаваючої архітектури, сауна на Хардангер-фіорді в Норвегії для маленького містечка під назвою Розендал. Вони пояснили, що місту бракує площі чи іншого центрального місця, і хотіли, щоб ми подумали про це. Поселення терасою розташоване на підніжжі гір навколо Хардангер-фіорду, і всі будинки дивляться на море. Їхня увага – море. Це старе поселення вікінгів.

We proposed that there will be no piazza, but that we can build them a small floating sauna. The Norwegians are the masters of ship building and we Finns cannot live without a sauna, so this will be a happy marriage of our two cultures. You go to the Floating Sauna (Casagrande & Rintala, 2002) by swimming or rowing a boat. The walls are semi-transparent. You can see the colour of the skin and when things are cooking, but maybe not too detailed. The floor is water, the sauna is open to the sea. You can sit on the benches and with good luck it maybe reaches some 80 degrees hot, and then you can just jump straight into the fjord. It is a very good feeling when you are taking the hot sauna and the winds, and the waves are moving and rocking you. Naked in a hot, humid, gently moving, and purifying cloud on the ocean.

The sauna was improvised 1:1 scale on the site. It is kind of a constructed architectural sketch. But not only sketched by us, but in close cooperation with nature.

Ми запропонували, що площі не буде, але ми можемо побудувати для них маленьку плавучу сауну. Норвежці - майстри суднобудування, а ми, фіни, не можемо жити без сауни, тому це буде щасливий шлюб наших двох культур. Ви йдете до плавучої сауни (Casagrande& Rintala, 2002), плаваючи або веслуючи на човні. Стінки напівпрозорі. Ви можете бачити колір шкіри та час приготування, але, можливо, не надто детально. Підлога водяна, сауна відкрита до моря. Ви можете сидіти на лавках і, якщо пощастить, температура може досягти 80 градусів, а потім ви можете просто стрибнути прямо у фіорд. Це дуже приємне відчуття, коли ви приймаєте гарячу сауну і вітер, а хвилі рухаються і гойдають вас. Оголений у гарячій, вологій, м’яко рухливій та очищаючій хмарі на океані.

Сауна була імпровізована в масштабі 1:1 на місці. Це свого роду побудований архітектурний ескіз. Але не тільки намальовані нами, а в тісній співпраці з природою.

Potemkin - Post Industrial Meditation Park

By luck, we started to build a series of architectural installations in Japan. This one is in a small village of Kuramata in the Niigata Province. It is a rice farming village with 120 people. Most of the people are senior citizens or children. The working age adults have disappeared to the bigger Japanese cities. The village is very harmonious and has continued a naturally balanced way of living for hundreds of years. The rice fields are glorious, and you could easily understand, why they worship their forefathers, who set up all this, what they are now maintaining and harvesting. The feeling of Local Knowledge was very thick and present, I felt like I know these people. The village was full of silent stories and mysteries, humbleness, and hard work. We could not do nothing but respect.

Потьомкін - Постіндустріальниймедитаційнийпарк

На щастя, ми почали будувати серію архітектурних інсталяцій у Японії. Цей знаходиться в маленькому селі Курамата в провінції Ніігата. Це рисове село з населенням 120 осіб. Більшість людей – літні люди або діти. Дорослі працездатного віку зникли у великих містах Японії. Село є дуже гармонійним і продовжує природний збалансований спосіб життя протягом сотень років. Рисові поля чудові, і ви могли б легко зрозуміти, чому вони поклоняються своїм предкам, хто все це створив, що вони зараз підтримують і збирають. Відчуття місцевих знань було дуже сильним і присутнім, я відчував, що знаю цих людей. Село було сповнене тихих історій і таємниць, скромності та важкої праці. Ми не могли нічого зробити, крім поваги.

Every morning around six the school children were running in formations criss-cross the fields and singing to the elderly. No matter how broken your back was, you was on the field. It felt almost impossible to think of an architectural installation or a piece of environmental art in the middle of these rice fields and their hardworking people.

At some point we found an illegal garbage dump next to the river Kamagawa. Big trees were growing from it and there was a straight connection to the Shinto temple across the rice fields. We felt that here we could do something.

Кожногоранкублизькошостоїшколярібігалирядамипополяхіспівалилюдямпохилоговіку. Якою б спиною не була зламана, ти був на полі. Було майже неможливим подумати про архітектурну інсталяцію чи витвір екологічного мистецтва посеред цих рисових полів і їхніх працьовитих людей.

У якийсь момент ми знайшли незаконне сміттєзвалище біля річки Камагава. З нього росли великі дерева, і через рисові поля був прямий зв’язок із синтоїстським храмом. Ми відчували, що тут можемо щось зробити.

The park is following the landscape architecture of the terraced rice fields. It is made of rusty steel, the same colour as the fertile soil. Steel is one inch thick, and the park is 130 meters long. It is a cultivated junk yard following some of the principles of the Japanese stone gardens, but the natural elements are replaced by recycled industrial elements. The gravel is replaced by broken concrete, recycled glass, and asphalt. It is kind of an industrial Zen-garden for post-industrial meditation. There is a set of benches where all the village can sit. The ground is descending, but the walls stay levelled. So, when you enter the park, the walls are zero and then grow higher and higher the deeper you get. In the end the walls are some 5 metres high and then they turn to form an interior structure which opens to the river. There is a small fireplace. In the river lives fish called ayu. You can go and fish your ayu, grill and eat it, and then go home. Many of the visitors do not go home though. They sleep in the park.

Парк повторює ландшафтну архітектуру терасових рисових полів. Він зроблений з іржавої сталі, такого ж кольору, як і родючий ґрунт. Товщина сталі – один дюйм, а довжина парку – 130 метрів. Це культивований смітник, який відповідає деяким принципам японських садів каменів, але природні елементи замінені переробленими промисловими елементами. Гравій замінюють битим бетоном, переробленим склом і асфальтом. Це свого роду індустріальний дзен-сад для постіндустріальної медитації. Є ряд лавочок, де може сісти все село. Земля опускається, але стіни залишаються рівними. Отже, коли ви входите в парк, стіни нульові, а потім стають все вище і вище, чим глибше ви заглиблюєтесь. Зрештою стіни досягають приблизно 5 метрів у висоту, а потім вони повертаються, утворюючи внутрішню структуру, яка відкривається до річки. Є невеликий камін. У річці живе риба аю. Ви можете піти виловити свій аю, приготувати на грилі та з’їсти його, а потім повернутися додому. Хоча багато відвідувачів не повертаються додому. Вони сплять у парку.

Every evening the Kuramata villagers get together in the park to dance a memorial dance honouring a samurai who 400 years ago united the villages on the area into an army to fight a rivalling group across the mountains. They have danced every evening since that. The dance used to take place in the near-by Shinto temple, and it was a great honour to see it moving into our park. Potemkin – Post Industrial Meditation Park (Casagrande & Rintala, 2003) is blessed by the Shinto priests as a sacred site of their religion.

Кожного вечора жителі села Курамата збираються разом у парку, щоб станцювати меморіальний танець на честь самурая, який 400 років тому об’єднав села в цьому районі в армію для боротьби з ворогуючою групою через гори. Відтоді вони танцювали кожен вечір. Раніше танець проходив у сусідньому синтоїстському храмі, і було великою честю бачити, як він переміщується в наш парк. Потьомкін – Постіндустріальний медитаційний парк (Casagrande& Rintala, 2003) благословляється синтоїстськими священиками як священне місце їхньої релігії.

Treasure Hill

In 2003, the Taipei City Government decided to destroy the unofficial settlement of Treasure Hill. By that time, the community consisted of some 400 households of, mainly elderly Kuomintang veterans and illegal migrant workers. The bulldozers had knocked down the first two layers of the houses of the terraced settlement on the hillside. After that, the houses were standing too high for the bulldozers to reach, and there were no drivable roads leading into the organically built settlement. Then the official city destroyed the farms and community gardens of Treasure Hill down by the Xindian River flood banks. Then they cut the circulation between the individual houses—small bridges, steps, stairs, and pathways. After that, Treasure Hill was left to rot, to die slowly, cut away from its life sources.

Гора скарбів

У 2003 році уряд міста Тайбей вирішив знищити неофіційне поселення Пагорб скарбів. На той час громада складалася з близько 400 домогосподарств, в основному літніх ветеранів Гоміньдану та нелегальних мігрантів. Бульдозери збили перші два шари будинків рядового поселення на схилі гори. Після цього будинки стояли занадто високо, щоб бульдозери не могли їх дістати, а проїзних доріг, що вели в органічно побудоване поселення, не було. Потім офіційне місто знищило ферми та громадські сади на пагорбі скарбів біля берегів річки Сіньдіан. Потім вони перекривають рух між окремими будинками — містками, сходами, сходами та доріжками. Після цього Пагорб скарбів залишили гнити, повільно вмирати, відрізаний від джерел життя.

Roan Chin-Yueh of the WEAK! managed so that the City Government Department of Cultural Affairs invited me to Taipei. He introduced me to Treasure Hill’s impressive organic settlement with a self-made root-cleaning system of gray waters through patches of jungle on the hillside. Treasure Hill was composting organic waste into fertilizer for the farms and using minimum amounts of electricity, which was stolen from the official grid. There was even a central radio system through which Matriarch of Treasure Hill Missis Chen could transmit important messages to the community, such as inviting them to watch old black and white movies in the open-air cinema in front of her house.

Роан Чін-Юе з СЛАБКИХ! вдалося так, що департамент культури міської влади запросив мене до Тайбея. Він познайомив мене з вражаючим органічним поселенням TreasureHillіз саморобною системою очищення від коренів сірих вод через клаптики джунглів на схилі пагорба. TreasureHillкомпостувала органічні відходи в добриво для ферм і використовувала мінімальну кількість електроенергії, яку викрадали з офіційної мережі. Була навіть центральна радіосистема, через яку Матріарх Трежер Хілл Місіс Чен могла передавати важливі повідомлення громаді, наприклад, запрошувати їх дивитися старі чорно-білі фільми в кінотеатрі під відкритим небом перед її будинком.

At that point, the city had stopped to collect trash from Treasure Hill, and there were lots of garbage bags in the alleys. I started to collect these garbage bags and carried them down the hill into a pile close to a point that you could reach with a truck. The residents did not speak to me, but instead they hid inside their houses. One could feel their eyes on one’s back, though. Some houses were abandoned when I entered them. The interiors and the atmospheres were as if the owners had left suddenly. Even photo albums were there and tiny altars with small gods with long beards. In one of the houses, I could not help looking at the photo album. The small tinted black and white photos started in mainland China, and all the guys wore Kuomintang military uniforms. Different landscapes in different parts of China, and then at some point the photos turned to color prints. The same guys were in Taiwan. Then there was a woman, and an elderly gentleman posed with her in civil clothes by a fountain. Photos of children and young people. Civil clothes, but the Kuomintang flag of Taiwan everywhere. A similar flag was inside the room. Behind me, somebody enters the house, which is only one room with the altar on one end and a bed on the other. The old man is looking at me. He is calm and observant, somehow sad. He speaks and shows with his hand at the altar. “Do not touch” - I understand. I look the old man in the eyes and he looks into mine. I feel like looking at the photo album. The owner of the house must have been his friend. They have travelled together a long way from the civil war of China to Taiwan. Literally, they have built their houses on top of Japanese concrete bunkers and created themselves a life in Treasure Hill. His friend passed away. There is a suitcase and inside is the absent owner’s trousers and his shirt, both in khaki color. I continue collecting the garbage bags and carry the old man’s bag around the village. The next day the residents start helping me with collecting the garbage. Professor Kang Min-Jay organizes a truck to take the bags away. After a couple of days, we organize a public ceremony together with some volunteer students and Treasure Hill veterans and declare war on the official city: Treasure Hill will fight back and it is here to stay. I’m wearing the dead man’s clothes.

На той момент місто зупинилося, щоб зібрати сміття з Пагорба скарбів, і на вулицях було багато мішків зі сміттям. Я почав збирати ці мішки зі сміттям і ніс їх униз у купу, куди можна було дістатися вантажівкою. Мешканці зі мною не розмовляли, а ховалися у своїх будинках. Але можна було відчути їхні очі на своїй спині. Деякі будинки були покинуті, коли я в них увійшов. Інтер’єри та атмосфера були такими, наче власники раптово покинули. Були навіть фотоальбоми і крихітні вівтарі з маленькими богами з довгими бородами. В одному з будинків я не міг не поглянути на фотоальбом. Маленькі кольорові чорно-білі фотографії почалися в материковому Китаї, і всі хлопці носили військову форму Гоміньдану. Різні пейзажі в різних частинах Китаю, а потім в якийсь момент фотографії перетворилися на кольорові відбитки. Такі ж хлопці були на Тайвані. Потім була жінка, а з нею біля фонтану позував літній чоловік у цивільному. Фото дітей та молоді. Цивільний одяг, але всюди прапор Гоміньдану Тайваню. Подібний прапор був і всередині кімнати. Позаду мене хтось заходить до будинку, який складається лише з однієї кімнати з вівтарем з одного боку та ліжком з іншого. Старий дивиться на мене. Він спокійний і спостережливий, якийсь сумний. Він говорить і показує рукою біля вівтаря. «Не чіпай» - розумію. Я дивлюся старому в очі, а він дивиться в мої. Мені хочеться переглянути фотоальбом. Власник будинку, мабуть, був його другом. Вони разом пройшли довгий шлях від громадянської війни в Китаї до Тайваню. Буквально вони побудували свої будинки на японських бетонних бункерах і створили собі життя на пагорбі скарбів. Його друг помер. Є валіза, а всередині штани і сорочка відсутнього власника, обидва кольору хакі. Я продовжую збирати сміттєві пакети і ношу стареньку сумку по селу. Наступного дня мешканці почали допомагати мені збирати сміття. Професор Кан Мін-Джей організовує вантажівку, щоб відвезти сумки. Через кілька днів ми організовуємо публічну церемонію разом зі студентами-волонтерами та ветеранами Пагорба скарбів і оголошуємо війну офіційному місту: Пагорб скарбів дасть відсіч і залишиться тут. Я ношу одяг мерця.

We have a long talk with Professor Roan about Treasure Hill and how to stop the destruction. He suggests that Hsieh Ying-Chun (Atelier 3, WEAK!) will join us with his aboriginal Thao tribe crew of self-learned construction workers. I start touring at local universities giving speeches about the situation and try to recruit students for construction work. In the end, we have 200 students from Tamkang University Department of Architecture, Chinese Cultural University, and National Taiwan University. A team of girl students manage to make a deal with the neighboring bridge construction site workers, and they start offloading some of the construction material cargo to us from the trucks passing us by. Mainly we receive timber and bamboo; they use mahogany for the concrete molds.

У нас є довга розмова з професором Роаном про Пагорб скарбів і про те, як зупинити руйнування. Він припускає, що Сє Ін-Чун (Ательє 3, СЛАБКО!) приєднається до нас зі своєю командою будівельників-самоучок з племені Тхао. Я починаю гастролювати в місцевих університетах, виголошуючи промови про ситуацію і намагаюся залучити студентів на будівництво. Зрештою, у нас є 200 студентів з факультету архітектури університету Тамканг, китайського культурного університету та національного тайванського університету. Команді дівчат-студенток вдається домовитися з сусідніми робітниками мостобудівництва, і вони починають вивантажувати до нас частину будівельних матеріалів з вантажівок, що проїжджають повз нас. В основному ми отримуємо деревину та бамбук; вони використовують червоне дерево для бетонних форм.

With the manpower and simple construction material, we start reconstructing the connections between the houses of the settlement, but most importantly, we also restart the farms. The bridge construction workers even help us with a digging machine. Missis Chen comes to advise us about the farming and offers us food and Chinese medicine. I am invited to her house every evening after the workday with an interpreter. She tells the story of her life and I see how she is sending food to many houses whose inhabitants are very old. Children from somewhere come to share our dinners as well. Her house is the heart of the community. Treasure Hill veterans join us in the farming and construction work. Rumors start spreading in Taipei: things are cooking in Treasure Hill. More people volunteer for the work, and after enough urban rumors, suddenly the media arrives. After the media, the politicians follow. Commissioner Liao from the City Government Cultural Bureau comes to recite poems. Later Mayor Ma Ying-Jeou comes jogging by with TV-crews in his slipstream and gives us his blessings. The City Government officially agrees that this is exactly why they had invited me from Finland to work on the issue of Treasure Hill. The same government had been bulldozing the settlement away 3 weeks earlier.

За допомогою робочої сили та нехитрого будівельного матеріалу ми починаємо реконструкцію міжбудинкових сполучень селища, але головне – перезапускаємо ферми. Мостобудівники навіть допомагають нам землерийною машиною. Місіс Чен приходить порадити нам про фермерство та пропонує нам їжу та китайські ліки. Щовечора після робочого дня мене запрошують до неї додому з перекладачем. Вона розповідає історію свого життя, і я бачу, як вона посилає їжу в багато будинків, мешканці яких дуже старі. Діти звідкись також приходять розділити наші обіди. Її дім є серцем громади. Ветерани TreasureHillприєднуються до нас у сільськогосподарських і будівельних роботах. У Тайбеї починають поширюватися чутки: на Пагорбі скарбів все готується. Більше людей добровільно беруться за роботу, і після того, як було достатньо міських чуток, раптом з’являються ЗМІ. Після ЗМІ йдуть політики. Комісар Ляо з міського урядового бюро культури приходить декламувати вірші. Пізніше мер Ма Ін Чжоу пробігає повз з телевізійними групами у своєму сліпстрімі та благословляє нас. Міська влада офіційно погоджується, що саме тому вони запросили мене з Фінляндії для роботи над питанням Пагорба скарбів. Той самий уряд 3 тижні тому знищив поселення бульдозером.

‘Onecandesignwholecitiessimplywithrumors’

«Простими чутками можна будувати цілі міста»

Working in Treasure Hill had pressed an acupuncture point of the industrial Taipei City. Our humble construction work was the needle that had penetrated through the thin layer of official control and touched the original ground of Taipei—collective topsoil where Local Knowledge is rooting. Treasure Hill is an urban compost, which was considered a smelly corner of the city, but after some turning is now providing the most fertile topsoil for future development. The Taiwanese would refer to this organic energy as “Chi.”

Працюючи в TreasureHill, я натиснув на точку акупунктури індустріального міста Тайбей. Наша скромна будівельна робота була тією голкою, яка проникла крізь тонкий шар офіційного контролю й торкнулася первісної землі Тайбею — колективного верхнього шару ґрунту, де вкорінюються знання про місцевість. Пагорб скарбів — це міський компост, який вважався смердючим куточком міста, але після деякого повороту тепер забезпечує найродючіший верхній шар ґрунту для майбутнього розвитку. Тайванці називають цю органічну енергію «Чі».

Ruin Academy

After working with Treasure Hill and learning from Missis Chen, who for me was the Professor of Local Knowledge, I wanted to research more of the local knowledges of Taipei and find more local knowledge professors – old fishermen, urban farmers, temple builders, urban nomads, and more. For this research we set up the Ruin Academy. It is an Open Form independent research centre in the heart of Taipei occupying and abandoned 5-story apartment house. All the interior walls, doors and windows of the building are removed. It is stripped to its primary structure. Instead of windows we have bamboo growing through the window opening. The whole building is penetrated by 15 cm wide holes in order to let rain inside. If you have topsoil, light and water, things can grow. Also, the basement is blown open so that we could reach the original ground and grow trees from it.

Академія руїни

Після роботи з Пагорбом скарбів і навчання від місіс Чен, яка для мене була професором місцевих знань, я хотів більше дослідити місцеві знання Тайбею та знайти більше місцевих професорів – старих рибалок, міських фермерів, будівельників храмів, міських кочівників. , і більше. Для цього дослідження ми створили Ruin Academy. Це незалежний дослідницький центр відкритої форми в самому центрі Тайбея, який займає покинутий 5-поверховий житловий будинок. З будівлі демонтовано всі внутрішні стіни, двері та вікна. Його роздягають до первинної структури. Замість вікон у нас у віконний отвір росте бамбук. Вся будівля пронизана отворами шириною 15 см для проходження дощу. Якщо у вас є верхній шар ґрунту, світло та вода, все може рости. Крім того, підвал розірвано, щоб ми могли дістатися до первісної землі та виростити з неї дерева.

Ruin Academy is operating in cooperation with the Taipei City Government Department of Urban Development on issues that the DUD cannot officially deal with, such as un-official settlements, citizen generated urban farms and urban ecological restoration from the Local Knowledge point of view. It is a cross-disciplinary research and design centre working with Local Knowledge towards the Third Generation City. Teams of students and researchers are working and living in this ruin and on the top floor they have a public sauna. The operators come from different backgrounds and form multi-disciplinary teams for specific research questions and urban challenges. Quite often their backgrounds are from architecture, landscape architecture, sociology, anthropology, humanistic sciences, and engineering. Ruin Academy is cooperating with various Taiwanese and international universities, mainly with the Tamkang University and the National Taiwan University in Taiwan, Aalto University Sustainable Global Technologies centre in Finland and International Society of Biourbanism in Italy. The focus is on Urban Acupuncture and the theory of the Third Generation City[AR1] .

Ruin Academy співпрацює з Департаментом міського розвитку міста Тайбей у питаннях, якими DUD офіційно не може займатися, наприклад, неофіційні поселення, міські ферми, створені громадянами, і міське екологічне відновлення з точки зору місцевих знань. Це міждисциплінарний дослідницький та дизайнерський центр, який працює з місцевими знаннями для міста третього покоління. Команди студентів і дослідників працюють і живуть у цих руїнах, а на верхньому поверсі у них є громадська сауна. Оператори походять з різних професій і утворюють міждисциплінарні команди для конкретних дослідницьких питань і міських проблем. Досить часто вони мають освіту в галузі архітектури, ландшафтної архітектури, соціології, антропології, гуманітарних наук та інженерії. RuinAcademyспівпрацює з різними тайванськими та міжнародними університетами, головним чином з Університетом Тамканг і Національним університетом Тайваню в Тайвані, Центром стійких глобальних технологій Університету Аалто у Фінляндії та Міжнародним товариством біоурбанізму в Італії. Основна увага приділяється міській акупунктурі та теорії міста третього покоління.

On a crack of outside wall of the Ruin Academy is growing this little tree. We have been following this tree since 2010 and it has not grown an inch. It knows exactly how much topsoil the winds are bringing, how is the rain and how bad are the typhoons. It has stayed as it is, this is the existence maximum. This tree is an urban bonsai. It is growing from man-made architecture and in urban environment, producing life. Around the corner, from the wall, grows another tree. Same species as the little urban bonsai, but this on is 5 floors high, but the roots are not touching ground. They go into the building. We asked a construction specialist to find out, where the roots are going? He was using some kind of scanning machine and after some days reported back to us, that there are two sets of roots. One set is going into the concrete slabs of the building and using the concrete frame as the primary structure. The other set of roots is going to the water and sewage system of the building from where the tree is taking its energy. It knows exactly how much toilet and water the people are using and is living from it. After hearing this the residents of the building got scared and asked us to remove the tree. The construction specialist said, that if the roots in the concrete slabs would dry the whole building might come down. The tree needs to stay. The tree and the building are in the Third Generation City condition. The tree is existing because of the building and the city, and the building has become part of nature. I once presented this tree to Professor Juhani Pallasmaa and he was shocked: What are these senses that this tree is using to understand architecture?

На тріщині зовнішньої стіни Академії руїн росте це маленьке деревце. Ми стежимо за цим деревом з 2010 року, і воно не виросло ні на дюйм. Він точно знає, скільки верхнього шару ґрунту приносять вітри, який дощ і наскільки сильні тайфуни. Так і залишилося, це максимум існування. Це дерево є міським бонсай. Він росте з рукотворної архітектури та в міському середовищі, створюючи життя. За рогом, від стіни, росте ще одне дерево. Той самий вид, що й маленький міський бонсай, але він має висоту 5 поверхів, але коріння не торкається землі. Вони заходять у будівлю. Ми звернулися до фахівця-будівельника, щоб дізнатися, куди йде коріння? Він використовував якийсь скануючий пристрій і через кілька днів повідомив нам, що існує два набори коренів. Один комплект входить у бетонні плити будівлі та використовує бетонний каркас як основну структуру. Інший набір коренів прямує до системи водопостачання та каналізації будівлі, звідки дерево бере свою енергію. Він точно знає, скільки туалету та води використовують люди, і живе за рахунок цього. Почувши це, мешканці будинку злякалися і попросили прибрати дерево. Будівельник сказав, що якщо коріння в бетонних плитах засохне, то може впасти вся будівля. Дерево має залишитися. Дерево та будівля знаходяться в стані міста третього покоління. Дерево існує завдяки будівлі та місту, а будівля стала частиною природи. Одного разу я подарував це дерево професору Юхані Палласмаа, і він був шокований: що це за органи чуття, за допомогою яких це дерево розуміє архітектуру?

Ruin is when something man-made has become part of nature – in architectonic or urban scale. In nature this ruining process happens in all the scales. The only rule of nature is Existence Maximum, maximal life production in the given conditions. This life providing system wans also to ruin the city, it wants the city to become part of nature. Otherwise, the city is pollution. Same goes to architecture.

Руїна – це коли щось створене людиною стало частиною природи – в архітектурному чи міському масштабі. У природі цей процес руйнування відбувається у всіх масштабах. Єдиним правилом природи є ExistenceMaximum, максимальне виробництво життя в даних умовах. Ця система забезпечення життя також хоче зруйнувати місто, вона хоче, щоб місто стало частиною природи. Інакше місто забруднене. Те саме стосується архітектури.

And this is what normal people do. They are also ruining the city. This is a community garden next to the Taipei World Trade Centre. This is the most expensive land in Taipei City. Three big banks have been fighting over it for decades and none of them has gained control, so the anarchist grandmother have attacked in. They have changed this idle spot of urban materialism into a community garden and are faming in the city day after day. Also the school kids come after the school day to the urban farm helping carrying water, weeding and making homework. The elders are taking care of them and the same time passing on the Local Knowledge. This is an urban acupuncture point in the thin industrial tissue of Taipei, penetrating the thin layers of asphalt and concrete, touching the original ground.

І так роблять нормальні люди. Вони також руйнують місто. Це громадський сад поруч із Всесвітнім торговим центром Тайбея. Це найдорожча земля в місті Тайбей. Три великі банки сварилися за нього десятиліттями, але жоден з них не отримав контролю, тож бабуся-анархістка напала. Вони перетворили це пусте місце міського матеріалізму на громадський сад і користуються славою в місті день за днем. Також школярі приходять після шкільного дня на міську ферму, допомагають носити воду, прополювати та робити уроки. Старійшини піклуються про них і водночас передають Місцеві знання. Це міська точка акупунктури в тонкій індустріальній тканині Тайбея, яка проникає крізь тонкі шари асфальту та бетону, торкаючись первісної землі.

In Taipei, the citizens ruin the centrally governed, official mechanical city with unofficial networks of urban farms and community gardens. They occupy streets for night markets and second-hand markets, and activate idle urban spaces for karaoke, gambling, and collective exercises (dancing, Tai-Chi, Chi-Gong, et cetera). They build illegal extensions to apartment buildings and dominate the urban no man’s land by self-organized, unofficial settlements, such as Treasure Hill. The official city is the source of pollution, while the self-organized activities are humbler in terms of material energy-flows and more tied with nature through the traditions of Local Knowledge. There is a natural resistance towards the official city. It is viewed as an abstract entity that seems to threaten people’s sense of community and separates them from the biological circulations.

У Тайбеї громадяни руйнують центральне, офіційне механічне місто з неофіційними мережами міських ферм і громадських садів. Вони займають вулиці під нічні ринки та ринки секонд-хенду, а також активують незадіяні міські простори для караоке, азартних ігор і колективних вправ (танці, тай-чі, чі-гун тощо). Вони будують незаконні прибудови до багатоквартирних будинків і домінують на міських нічийних землях шляхом самоорганізованих неофіційних поселень, таких як Пагорб скарбів. Офіційне місто є джерелом забруднення, тоді як самоорганізована діяльність скромніша з точки зору потоків матеріальної енергії та більше пов’язана з природою через традиції Місцевого Знання. Існує природний опір офіційному місту. Його розглядають як абстрактну сутність, яка, здається, загрожує почуттю спільноти людей і відокремлює їх від біологічних кругообігів.

And here are all the un-official settlements, urban farms, and community gardens of Taipei. This is a real map of Urban Acupuncture. Punctual, un-official, and community driven interventions of the official city tuning the city towards the organic, the Third Generation City.

І тут усі неофіційні поселення, міські ферми та громадські сади Тайбею. Це справжня карта міської акупунктури. Пунктуальні, неофіційні та керовані громадою втручання офіційного міста, які налаштовують місто на органічне, місто третього покоління.

The first-generation city is the one where the human settlements are in straight connection with nature and dependent on nature. The fertile and rich Taipei Basin provided a fruitful environment for such a settlement. The rivers were full of fish and good for transportation, with the mountains protecting the farmed plains from the straightest hits of the frequent typhoons.

Місто першого покоління – це місто, де людські поселення перебувають у прямому зв’язку з природою та залежать від природи. Родючий і багатий басейн Тайбей забезпечив плідне середовище для такого поселення. Річки були повні риби та зручні для транспортування, а гори захищали оброблені рівнини від найпряміших ударів частих тайфунів.

The second-generation city is the industrial city. Industrialism granted the citizens independence from nature—a mechanical environment could provide everything humans need. Nature was seen as something unnecessary or as something hostile—it was walled away from the mechanical reality.

The Third Generation City is the organic ruin of the industrial city, an open form, an organic machine tied with Local Knowledge and self-organized community actions. The community gardens of Taipei are fragments of third generation urbanism when they exist together with their industrial surroundings. Local Knowledge is present in the city, and this is where Urban Acupuncture is rooting. Among the anarchist gardeners are the Local Knowledge professors of Taipei.

Місто другого покоління – промислове місто. Індустріалізм надав громадянам незалежність від природи — механічне середовище могло забезпечити все, що потрібно людям. Природа розглядалася як щось непотрібне або як щось вороже — вона була відгороджена стіною від механічної реальності.

Місто третього покоління — це органічні руїни індустріального міста, відкрита форма, органічна машина, пов’язана з місцевими знаннями та самоорганізованими діями громади. Громадські сади Тайбея є фрагментами урбанізму третього покоління, коли вони існують разом із промисловим оточенням. Місцеві знання присутні в місті, і саме тут укорінюється UrbanAcupuncture. Серед садівників-анархістів є професори місцевих знань Тайбею.

TheThirdGenerationCityisacityofcracks. The thin mechanical surface of the industrial city is shattered, and from these cracks the new bio-urban growth emerges, which will ruin the second-generation city. Human-industrial control is opened up in order for nature to step in. A ruin is when the manmade has become part of nature. In the Third Generation City, we aim at designing ruins. The Third Generation City is true when the city recognizes its local knowledge and allows itself to be part of nature.

Місто третього покоління – це місто тріщин. Тонка механічна поверхня індустріального міста розбивається, і з цих тріщин виникає нове біоміське зростання, яке знищить місто другого покоління. Людино-промисловий контроль відкривається для того, щоб природа втрутилася. Руїна – це коли створене людиною стало частиною природи. У місті третього покоління ми націлені на проектування руїн. Місто третього покоління є справжнім, коли місто визнає свої місцеві знання та дозволяє собі бути частиною природи.

The other unit of the Ruin Academy in Taiwan is set in an abandoned Japanese sugar factory in the southern city of Taitung. In here we are cooperating with local indigenous peoples, especially the Amis. The aim is to understand, how this abandoned factory can become and Organic Machine, basically a jungle providing food. The Amis have a lot of Local Knowledge what comes to wild nature and harvesting food from the wilderness. Chinese are more farming people.

Інший підрозділ Ruin Academy на Тайвані розташований на покинутій японській цукровій фабриці в південному місті Тайтунг. Тут ми співпрацюємо з місцевими корінними народами, особливо з амі. Мета полягає в тому, щоб зрозуміти, як ця покинута фабрика може стати органічною машиною, по суті, джунглями, що постачають їжу. Емі мають багато місцевих знань, які стосуються дикої природи та збирання їжі в дикій природі. Китайці більше займаються землеробством.

We are using the industrial infrastructure to harvest rain and storm waters from the roof, storage the water, and direct it to the jungle. Also, the roof is opened up so that the plants get more sunlight and insects and birds can circulate.

Ми використовуємо промислову інфраструктуру для збору дощової та зливової води з даху, зберігання води та спрямування її в джунглі. Крім того, дах відкривається, щоб рослини отримували більше сонячного світла, а комахи та птахи могли циркулювати.

Some of the topics that we have been investigating so far with the Ruin Academy:

ILLEGAL ARCHITECTURE

URBAN ACUPUNCTURE

RIVER URBANISM

URBAN NOMAD

PARASITE URBANISM

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE

ORGANIC MACHINE

All these topics are coming from people. They are not our self-generated architectural theories. This is what the Anarchist Grandmothers do.

Деякі з тем, які ми наразі досліджували з Ruin Academy:

НЕЗАКОННА АРХІТЕКТУРА

МІСЬКА АКУПУНКТУРА

РІЧКОВИЙ УРБАНІЗМ

МІСЬКИЙ КОЧІВНИК

УРБАНІЗМ ПАРАЗИТ

КРАЄЗНАННЯ

ОРГАНІЧНА МАШИНА

Усі ці теми виходять від людей. Вони не є нашими власними архітектурними теоріями. Це те, що роблять бабусі-анархістки.

Bug Dome

This is an example what Local Knowledge can do. Some kind of insect architecture. This is in Shenzhen China and the work is called Bug Dome (WEAK! 2009). All the Chinese cities are built by migrating workers coming from countryside. Millions of people leaving behind their site-specific local knowledges from around China, concentrating to construct the ever-growing monotonous cities with zero sensitivity to nature. In Shenzhen we were in dialog with migrating workers coming from the Guanxi province close to Vietnam and asked them, what can you really build? They said that they can build anything from bamboo. Then we asked that what would they like to build? They said that they would like to have a community space to sing karaoke and hang around.

Купол Жука

Це приклад того, що може зробити Local Knowledge. Якась архітектура комах. Це в Шеньчжені, Китай, і робота називається Bug Dome (WEAK! 2009). Усі китайські міста побудовані робочими-мігрантами, які приїжджають із сіл. Мільйони людей залишають свої місцеві знання з усього Китаю, зосереджуючись на будівництві постійно зростаючих одноманітних міст без нульової чутливості до природи. У Шеньчжені ми спілкувалися з робітниками-мігрантами з провінції Гуаньсі, розташованої неподалік від В’єтнаму, і запитували їх, що ви можете побудувати? Вони сказали, що з бамбука можна побудувати що завгодно. Тоді ми запитали, що б вони хотіли побудувати? Вони сказали, що хотіли б мати громадський простір, щоб співати караоке та тусуватися.

There was an empty building site close to the Shenzhen – Hong Kong biennale area which we decided to utilize and there was a way to obtain bamboo for free. We were sketching 1:1 scale on the ground together with the Guangxi workers to find out what kind of dimensions we could go. In the end we had a very organic looking plan of a cocoon which was 34 meters long and 7 meters wide and high. Then this was started to get constructed spontaneously using only bamboo and piling soil outside the walls. It is a large bucket structure with no nails or other alien connectors, just bamboo. During the process it felt very whimsical and weak but when the cocoon was finished it suddenly became structural. The construction process was more like weaving, very soft and with simple repetitive moves, almost meditative. The building becomes a mantra. I felt like an insect.

Неподалік від бієнале Шеньчжень – Гонконг був порожній будівельний майданчик, який ми вирішили використати, і був спосіб отримати бамбук безкоштовно. Разом із працівниками Гуансі ми робили ескіз у масштабі 1:1 на землі, щоб з’ясувати, які розміри ми можемо отримати. Зрештою ми отримали дуже органічний план кокона довжиною 34 метри, шириною та висотою 7 метрів. Потім його почали спонтанно будувати, використовуючи лише бамбук і насипаючи ґрунт поза стінами. Це велика ковшова конструкція без цвяхів чи інших чужорідних з’єднань, просто бамбук. Під час процесу він був дуже химерним і слабким, але коли кокон був закінчений, він раптом став структурним. Процес будівництва був більше схожий на плетіння, дуже м’який і з простими повторюваними рухами, майже медитативним. Будівля стає мантрою. Я почувався комахою.

This is weak architecture, but still so strong that when you enter, the surrounding city immediately disappears. Weakness is one point of Local Knowledge, in many ways, not to consume too much material, being flexible and adapting to changes, and in a sense being organic – rather growing than constructing. The micro-climate inside the cocoon is very pleasant. The outside city is hot, dusty, noisy, and unpredictable. Inside the cocoon everything becomes soft, and you can sense the space with many senses, it is safe and familiar. “For softness is great and strength is worthless. When a man is born, he is soft and pliable. When he dies, he is strong and hard. When a tree grows, it is soft and pliable. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Flexibility and softness are the embodiment of life.” Stalker, Tarkovsky

In the evening the workers would put in one construction light and the cocoon becomes a disco. Comparing the lines of this organic architecture to the skyscraper behind tells a story of the simple steps of our architectural generations and alienation from the organic.

But this is the biggest learning of the Bug Dome. When we were piling the earth to the sides of the cocoon? I was asking the Guanxi people, why do we do this? Is it a counterweight to the bamboo They just replied that you will see. In a couple of weeks, the whole structure was covered with creepers and wines. It disappeared completely from the city, and the micro-climate inside became even more better. They knew this from the very beginning, and they let the nature to finish the architecture. A big essence of Local Knowledge is to regards nature as the co-architect, not to construct against it. Local Knowledge has developed patterns and tectonics to communicate with nature. Local Knowledge is a language, or at least part of a language – nature is the only full language.

Це слабка архітектура, але все ж така міцна, що коли заходиш, навколишнє місто одразу зникає. Слабкість — це одна з точок місцевих знань, у багатьох відношеннях, не споживати надто багато матеріалу, бути гнучким і адаптуватися до змін, і в певному сенсі бути органічним — радше рости, ніж будувати. Мікроклімат всередині кокона дуже приємний. За межами міста жарко, курно, шумно та непередбачувано. Всередині кокона все стає м’яким, і ви можете відчувати простір багатьма органами чуття, він безпечний і знайомий. «Бо м'якість велика, а сила нічого не варта. Коли людина народжується, вона м’яка і податлива. Коли він помирає, він сильний і твердий. Коли дерево росте, воно м’яке і податливе. Але коли він сухий і твердий, він гине. Твердість і сила - супутники смерті. Гнучкість і м’якість – втілення життя». Сталкер, Тарковський

Увечері робітники встановлюють одну конструкцію, і кокон стає дискотекою. Порівняння ліній цієї органічної архітектури з хмарочосом позаду розповідає про прості кроки наших архітектурних поколінь і відчуження від органічного.

Але це найбільше знання BugDome. Коли ми насипали землю на боки кокона? Я запитував людей Гуаньсі, чому ми це робимо? Чи є це противагою бамбуку Вони просто відповіли, що ви побачите. За пару тижнів вся конструкція була вкрита ліанами та вином. Воно повністю зникло з міста, а мікроклімат всередині став ще кращим. Вони знали це з самого початку і дозволили природі завершити архітектуру. Велика суть місцевих знань полягає в тому, щоб розглядати природу як співархітектора, а не будувати проти неї. Місцеві знання розробили закономірності та тектоніку для спілкування з природою. Місцеві знання – це мова або, принаймні, частина мови – природа є єдиною повноцінною мовою.

Ultra-Ruin

A bit more about designing ruins. This is called Ultra-Ruin in the Yanmin national park in Taiwan. It is a new wooden architectural organism which is growing from a ruin of a traditional red brick farmhouse in the jungle. When we found the remnants of the farmhouse, it was completely overtaken by the jungle along the terraced farms. We started an on-site understanding and new knowledge building process by slowly cleaning the ruin and the site. During this process we got closer to the land and started to understand better the winds, water flows, insects, snakes, jungle plants, and circulation of the day and night. Physical labour, sweating, getting bitten by insects, finding shade or a cool breeze of wind, and being able to build fire was all part of a process of finding the keys of sensitivity to communicate with the place. When the dialog begun, it was no more remote controlled architecture, but a possibility to actually grow something architectural from the land, its history, and natural regulations.

Ультра-Руїна

Ще трохи про дизайн руїн. Це називається Ultra-Ruinу національному парку Янмінь на Тайвані. Це новий дерев'яний архітектурний організм, який виростає з руїн традиційного фермерського будинку з червоної цегли в джунглях. Коли ми знайшли залишки ферми, вона була повністю покрита джунглями вздовж терасових ферм. Ми розпочали процес розуміння на місці та створення нових знань, повільно очищаючи руїни та сайт. Під час цього процесу ми наблизилися до землі та почали краще розуміти вітри, водні потоки, комах, змій, рослини джунглів та циркуляцію дня та ночі. Фізична праця, потовиділення, укуси комах, пошук тіні чи прохолодний вітерець і вміння розводити вогонь — усе це було частиною процесу пошуку ключів чутливості для спілкування з місцем. Коли розпочався діалог, це була вже не дистанційно керована архітектура, а можливість фактично виростити щось архітектурне із землі, її історії та природних закономірностей.

You enter the site through the jungle along a wooden walking path. The old farmhouse was built around a central courtyard facing south. We reinforced the existing brick walls and started and Open Form participatory design process with the clients. First, we build a long table around which we could sit and talk. Then we build a roof to the table, and then we needed a fireplace for cooking. The table and the roof are made of Taiwanese cypress, which keeps the mosquitoes away. Slowly the other architectural element started to grow from the ruins. For the construction we cooperated with a Taiwanese temple builder, who knew in detail the different characters of the local trees. Simple details with wood, stone, and bronze.

Ви входите на ділянку через джунглі по дерев'яній пішохідній доріжці. Старий фермерський будинок був побудований навколо центрального двору, що виходить на південь. Ми зміцнили існуючі цегляні стіни та розпочали процес проектування OpenFormза участі клієнтів. Спочатку ми будуємо довгий стіл, за яким ми могли б сидіти і говорити. Потім ми будуємо дах до столу, а потім нам знадобився камін для приготування їжі. Стіл і дах виготовлені з тайванського кипарису, який відлякує комарів. Поступово з руїн почав виростати інший архітектурний елемент. Для будівництва ми співпрацювали з тайванським будівельником храму, який детально знав різні характери місцевих дерев. Прості деталі з дерева, каменю та бронзи.

The surrounding jungle is very near this new man-made architectural nature, and it grows in and participates in the composition from everywhere. It is same time ruining our architecture and making it more complete. Our organic architecture was left to be open, an Open Form for a constant and changing dialog with the jungle, just like we were in dialog with the original ruins. In the Open Form sense, it is not necessary to determine who is the author of this work? Open Form knows no author, this architecture is born from dialog and participation.

All the roofs of the different buildings around the Ultra-Ruin are terraces and connected with each other. There is a long snaking wooden steps connecting the roof terraces to the original farming terraces of the place. And we have a very nice sauna in the Ultra-Ruin. We managed to direct some freshwater streams coming from the jungle to make a small pool. The sauna interior is all Taiwanese cypress, and the structure is camphor tree. When you heat it up it smells like parfum and is incredibly moist. The pool stays refreshing and cool. And then there is a tower into which you can dive and look up to the stars or to the sky. The water is very soft.

Навколишніджунглізнаходятьсядужеблизькодоцієїновоїрукотворноїархітектурноїприроди, івонаростетабереучастьукомпозиціїзвідусіль. Це водночас руйнує нашу архітектуру і робить її більш завершеною. Наша органічна архітектура залишилася відкритою, відкритою формою для постійного та мінливого діалогу з джунглями, так само, як ми вели діалог із оригінальними руїнами. У сенсі OpenFormне потрібно визначати, хто є автором цього твору? Відкрита форма не знає автора, ця архітектура народжується з діалогу та участі.

Усі дахи різних будівель навколо Ультра-Руїн є терасами та з’єднані одна з одною. Є довгі звивисті дерев’яні сходи, що з’єднують тераси на даху з оригінальними фермерськими терасами місця. А ще у нас в Ультра-Руїні дуже гарна сауна. Нам вдалося спрямувати кілька прісноводних потоків, що йдуть з джунглів, щоб зробити невеликий басейн. Інтер'єр сауни повністю виготовлений з тайванського кипарису, а структура - з камфорного дерева. Коли ви нагріваєте його, він пахне парфумом і стає неймовірно вологим. Басейн залишається освіжаючим і прохолодним. А ще є вежа, в яку можна пірнути і подивитися на зірки або на небо. Вода дуже м'яка.

Lamminranta

When we talk about the Third Generation City we must also talk about community or communities. City is a collage of different communities and overlapping layers of collectiveness. City is also a compost, which gets turned a bit or totally around every now and then, and new oxygen gets in and changes the energy streams of the urban collective. Different generations are participating in the community. Some are transmitting Local Knowledge down to younger generations and some are creating new knowledges. Some, like the children, are bringing in new oxygen to the community compost.

Ламмінранта

Коли ми говоримо про місто третього покоління, ми також повинні говорити про спільноту чи громади. Місто — це колаж із різних спільнот і шарів колективності, що перетинаються. Місто також є компостом, який час від часу трохи або повністю перевертається, і новий кисень потрапляє в нього та змінює енергетичні потоки міського колективу. У спільноті беруть участь різні покоління. Деякі передають місцеві знання молодим поколінням, а деякі створюють нові знання. Деякі, як і діти, приносять новий кисень до компосту громади.

Lamminranta is a small community building made by mixing four elderly people’s care-take homes with a kindergarten in the middle. It has been operating now two years and the everyday meetings between the kids and the elderly have overcome any expectations. They are singing and baking together, do gymnastics and plays, have a common grilling place and the kids are even using the saunas of the elderly homes. A lot of art is made and taken to the old ones. The big windows of the elderly care-take homes are directed to the children’s playground and there is a routine of following the children play and children greeting the old ones in the windows. Children and elderly, even with memory diseases, get along very well and naturally. Sometimes both are wearing diapers and are as far away from being normal working adults. In Lamminranta we have families with both grandmother or grandfather and grandchild under the same roof. It is a home, not an institution. Also, city is home, not an institution.

Lamminranta — це невелика громадська будівля, побудована шляхом змішування чотирьох будинків для літніх людей із дитячим садком посередині. Він працює вже два роки, і щоденні зустрічі дітей і людей похилого віку перевершили будь-які очікування. Вони разом співають і печуть, займаються гімнастикою та виставами, мають спільне місце для гриля, а діти навіть користуються саунами будинків для літніх людей. Багато творів мистецтва зроблено і взято до старих. Великі вікна будинків для людей похилого віку спрямовані на дитячий майданчик, і існує звичка стежити за грою дітей і вітати старих у вікнах. Діти і люди похилого віку, навіть із захворюваннями пам'яті, дуже добре і природно ладнають. Інколи обидва носять підгузники і дуже далекі від того, щоб бути нормальними дорослими, що працюють. У Ламмінранті у нас є сім’ї з бабусею чи дідусем та онуком під одним дахом. Це дім, а не заклад. Крім того, місто – це дім, а не установа.

CLT

Before I can get into the next projects, we should talk about the construction material, which makes possible new thinking in small and larger scale architecture, and even biourbanism. Cross-laminated timber CLT was commercialized around 20 years ago and now it is a rivalling material to reinforced concrete in apartment buildings, schools and kindergartens, public buildings, and new wooden city districts. CLT is engineered wood with very large and strong wooden elements, for example 17 x 3,5 metres and 60 – 400 mm thick. As massive wood it is self-insulating and has a very good earthquake performance. Massive wood is 5 time lighter than reinforced concrete, requires less foundation and is easier to transport. The construction time is up to 70% faster than with concrete. CLT does not burn like what we think that wood would burn. This is massive wood and with fire it will just charcoal in the surface. The fabrication and cutting processes of CLT are fully automatic and easy communication with the architectural designs.

CLT

Перш ніж я перейду до наступних проектів, ми повинні поговорити про будівельний матеріал, який робить можливим нове мислення в архітектурі малого та більшого масштабу, і навіть біоурбаністиці. Поперечно-ламінована деревина CLTбула випущена в продаж близько 20 років тому і зараз є конкурентом залізобетону в багатоквартирних будинках, школах і дитячих садках, громадських будівлях і нових дерев'яних районах міста. CLT— це оброблена деревина з дуже великими та міцними дерев’яними елементами, наприклад, 17 x 3,5 метри та товщиною 60–400 мм. Будучи масивною деревиною, вона є самоізоляційною та має дуже хорошу сейсмостійкість. Масивна деревина в 5 разів легша за залізобетон, потребує менше фундаменту та її легше транспортувати. Час будівництва на 70% швидше, ніж з бетоном. CLTгорить не так, як ми думаємо, що горить деревина. Це масивна деревина, і під час вогню вона просто вугілля на поверхні. Процеси виготовлення та різання CLTє повністю автоматичними та легко взаємодіють з архітектурними проектами.

Here is a sample of a CLT apartment building in Finland, 6 floors and made of prefabricated spatial modules. In the plan we can see the spatial modules framing the core of the building with concrete made bathroom towers in the middle.

Ось зразок багатоквартирного будинку CLTу Фінляндії, 6 поверхів зі збірних просторових модулів. У плані ми бачимо просторові модулі, що обрамляють ядро будівлі з бетонними вежами ванних кімнат посередині.

And here we have an example of a CLT micro apartment house with a footprint of one car parking space 2,5 x 5 metres. There is a worldwide discussion going on about densification of the existing cities. The micro apartment house Tikku (stick in English) is an answer for that by occupying the car parking spaces of the cities. This is made of spatial modules and takes two and half hours to construct. No foundation is needed. Basically, we can build the Tikku wherever a car can go. All structural elements fit into a sea container for easy logistics. You can also build the Tikkus on top of cars.

І тут ми маємо приклад мікроквартирного будинку CLTіз площею паркувального місця для одного автомобіля 2,5 х 5 метрів. У всьому світі точаться дискусії щодо ущільнення існуючих міст. Мікроквартирний будинок Tikku (стик англійською) є відповіддю на це, займаючи місця для паркування автомобілів у містах. Він складається з просторових модулів і займає дві з половиною години, щоб створити його. Фундамент не потрібен. По суті, ми можемо будувати Tikkuвсюди, куди може проїхати автомобіль. Усі елементи конструкції поміщаються в морський контейнер для зручності логістики. Ви також можете побудувати Tikkus поверх автомобілів.

In bigger scale you can design whole communities of city parts with engineered wooden buildings. This is an example from Bergen, Norway, a winning competition entry for a whole new city part called Dokken, 420 000 m2. The site is the central harbour of Bergen and very industrial in the feeling. The project can be compared to restoration and repurposing of any larger industrial area. A lot of polluted land needs to be changed and the connection with nature needs to be rebuild. The big voice of nature in the case of Dokken is the sea and we also wanted to keep some of the ships operating – they are big part of the Norwegian Local Knowledge including Bergen, an old Viking settlement. Now Dokken is the world’s largest contemporary wooden urban development.

У більшому масштабі ви можете проектувати цілі громади частин міста з інженерними дерев'яними будівлями. Це приклад із Бергена, Норвегія, переможця конкурсу на цілу нову частину міста під назвою Dokken, 420 000 м2. Місце являє собою центральну гавань Бергена та дуже промислове відчуття. Проект можна порівняти з реставрацією та перепрофілюванням будь-якої більшої промислової території. Потрібно змінити багато забруднених земель і відновити зв’язок із природою. Голосом природи у випадку Dokkenє море, і ми також хотіли, щоб деякі кораблі працювали – вони є значною частиною норвезьких місцевих знань, включаючи Берген, старе поселення вікінгів. Зараз Dokken є найбільшим у світі сучасним дерев’яним містом.

Paracity

Paracity is a modifiable, movable, flexible, and modular urban construction system, which can be adapted to local cultures, building methodologies, and local knowledges. The primary structure is made of CLT taking care of the structural issues and the secondary structures can we either CLT or other materials, including recycled construction waste. The basic module is 6 x 6 x 6 metres and can be fitted with one of two floors, a 1,5 floors loft or left empty for community use. When you combine more of these modules horizontally and vertically you can grow a community, or larger urban structure. It is a very fast way for urban reconstruction.

Парасіті

Paracity — це модифікована, рухома, гнучка та модульна міська будівельна система, яку можна адаптувати до місцевої культури, методології будівництва та місцевих знань. Первинна конструкція виготовлена з CLT, враховуючи структурні питання, а вторинні конструкції можуть використовуватися з CLT або інших матеріалів, включаючи перероблені будівельні відходи. Базовий модуль має розміри 6 x 6 x 6 метрів і може бути оснащений одним із двох поверхів, 1,5-поверховим мансардом або залишитися порожнім для спільного використання. Якщо ви поєднаєте більше цих модулів по горизонталі та вертикалі, ви зможете створити спільноту чи більшу міську структуру. Це дуже швидкий спосіб реконструкції міста.

The example what I have here is from Taiwan, which why the secondary structures and cultural layers look Chinese. This would look very different in Ukraine. Anyhow, there is the CLT primary structure inside the urban organism and then the site-specific cultural and local knowledge layers on top of it. In the case of Taipei, the Paracity is taking its water from a polluted river and pumps it up to the green roof, where it gets root cleansed and oxygenized before flowing down to living unit and gardens by gravity. Paracity is having modern environmental technology modules as inner organs for further water cleaning, wastewater treatment, composting of organic waste etc. It can also receive waste material from the surrounding city and treat them. It is following the principles of Treasure Hill but in a contemporary form – a form that can accommodate the mess.

Я маю приклад із Тайваню, чому вторинні структури та культурні шари виглядають китайськими. В Україні це виглядало б зовсім інакше. У будь-якому випадку, існує первинна структура CLTвсередині міського організму, а потім культурні та місцеві знання, що стосуються конкретного місця, поверх неї. У випадку з Тайпеєм Paracityбере воду із забрудненої річки та перекачує її на зелений дах, де вона очищається від коренів і збагачується киснем, перш ніж гравітаційно стікати до житлових приміщень і садів. Paracityмає сучасні екологічні технологічні модулі як внутрішні органи для подальшого очищення води, очищення стічних вод, компостування органічних відходів тощо. Він також може приймати відходи з навколишнього міста та переробляти їх. Він дотримується принципів TreasureHill, але в сучасній формі – формі, яка може вмістити безлад.

Here are some photos of the primary structure in 1:1 scale and then also testing it with a three metres module in four floors. In Taipei we did structural calculation of the Paracity structure in 16 floors with no issues.

Ось кілька фотографій первинної конструкції в масштабі 1:1, а також її тестування за допомогою триметрового модуля на чотирьох поверхах. У Тайбеї ми без проблем виконали структурний розрахунок будівлі Paracityна 16 поверхів.

Some illustrations of the Paracity in a posher form for a Taiwanese developer.

Кілька ілюстрацій Paracity у шикарній формі для тайванського розробника.

The other interesting thing with the Paracity model is that it can grow on top and into industrial buildings out of duty or still in use. The example here is with a dry dock in the Helsinki Shipyard. The dry dock is about 300 meters long and some 50 meters wide. The Paracity structure is mushrooming on the sides of it and then adding 14 floors on top of the dry dock. In the Helsinki case the dry dock is thought to be operational with the new Paracity community living on it. The new wooden structure is structurally independent and not adding stress to the existing industrial building.

Інша цікава річ у моделі Paracityполягає в тому, що вона може рости на вершині промислових будівель, які не працюють або все ще використовуються. Ось приклад із сухим доком на Гельсінській верфі. Сухий док має близько 300 метрів в довжину і близько 50 метрів в ширину. Структура Paracityросте як гриби з боків, а потім додає 14 поверхів поверх сухого доку. У випадку Гельсінкі вважається, що сухий док працює з новою спільнотою Paracity, яка живе в ньому. Нова дерев'яна конструкція є конструктивно незалежною та не створює навантаження на існуючу промислову будівлю.

Third Generation City

Most dramatic changes are now forced to the Ukrainian people and your build human environment. The ruining process of the industrial city is violent and fast. Sometimes this happens caused by big forces of nature like tsunami, earthquake, or hurricane, but this time it is generated by human nature.

Місто третього покоління

Найбільш драматичні зміни зараз змушені український народ і ваше людське середовище. Процес руйнування промислового міста бурхливий і швидкий. Іноді це відбувається внаслідок великих природних сил, таких як цунамі, землетрус або ураган, але цього разу це породжено людською природою.

Rebuilding will not be enough. The collective conscious can overcome the current tragedy by moving forward, being even more coherent in its Local Knowledge, and building towards the next generation of the city, the Third Generation City. The ideal of the 3G City is to learn to become part of nature. This kind of human existence with the build human environment as part of nature has existed before, and it is in our genetic memory, and it is still expressed by the Local Knowledge. Third Generation City is the ideal, it is the strategic goal. To reach there we need to build new biourbanic tactics.

Перебудови буде недостатньо. Колективна свідомість може подолати нинішню трагедію, рухаючись вперед, будучи ще більш послідовними у своїх місцевих знаннях і будуючи в напрямку наступного покоління міста, Міста третього покоління. Ідеал 3G City — навчитися бути частиною природи. Такий тип людського існування зі створеним людським середовищем як частиною природи існував раніше, і він зберігається в нашій генетичній пам’яті, і він все ще виражається в Місцевих знаннях. Місто третього покоління – це ідеал, це стратегічна мета. Щоб досягти цього, нам потрібно створити нову біоурбанічну тактику.

All our construction moves withing the spectrum of survival, comfort, and beauty. Say, before anything, if you have a rock and the wind is blowing rain and you sit on the wrong side of the rock, you will get wet and cold, slowly die. If you sit on the better side of the rock the wind stops and you get less wet, you survive. You may even be able to build up a fire and then it gets comfortable. When warming behind the rock with your little fire, being comfortable, you may focus on a flower, or to the beauty of the fire – beauty, which is a high degree.

Усе наше будівництво рухається в рамках спектру виживання, комфорту та краси. Скажімо, перш за все, якщо у вас є скеля, і вітер дме дощем, і ви сідаєте не на той бік скелі, ви промокнете і замерзнете, повільно помрете. Якщо ви сідаєте на кращу сторону скелі, вітер зупиняється, і ви стаєте менше мокрими, ви виживаєте. Можливо, ви навіть зможете розвести багаття, і тоді стане комфортно. Гріючись за скелею біля свого вогнища, комфортно, можна орієнтуватися на квітку, або на красу вогню – красу, яка є високою мірою.

The original site of the city was found because of understanding and surviving with nature, including some comfort, plenty of beauty. The first-generation city already introduced more comfort, less survival, but beauty still. The second-generation city, the industrial city, claimed independence from nature and was fully focused on comfort, survival was a thing from the past, and beauty became speculative, even fictional. The totalitarian centrally governed comfort removed us away from nature, which was the source to survive against, and focused us on a fully human centred life, with nature being the outsider or reduced to industrial resource – raw material. And then we started to complain about the climate change or not being able to sleep in the city. But all this time some people went fishing, they were farming cabbages in the city corners, and took care of each other’s and even animals – unofficially.

Первісне місце міста було знайдено через розуміння та виживання з природою, включаючи певний комфорт, багато краси. Місто першого покоління вже принесло більше комфорту, менше виживання, але все одно красу. Місто другого покоління, промислове місто, претендувало на незалежність від природи і було повністю зосереджено на комфорті, виживання залишилося в минулому, а краса стала спекулятивною, навіть вигаданою. Тоталітарний централізований комфорт віддалив нас від природи, яка була джерелом виживання, і зосередив нас на повністю орієнтованому на людину житті, де природа була аутсайдером або зведена до промислового ресурсу – сировини. А потім ми почали скаржитися на зміну клімату чи неможливість спати в місті. Але весь цей час одні рибалили, вирощували капусту по закутках міста, доглядали один одного і навіть тварин – неофіційно.

Now the survival is back and new distinctions between survival, comfort, and beauty are happening. Rebuilding the past is only therapy. Constructing the new Local Knowledge, including the Third Generation City, from this level of survival is not only interesting, but essential. Kharkiv and Ukraine are on the threshold of great things, entering the city where your deepest wishes come true, the ones gained through suffering.

Тепер виживання повертається і виникають нові відмінності між виживанням, комфортом і красою. Відбудова минулого – це лише терапія. Побудова нових локальних знань, у тому числі міста третього покоління, на цьому рівні виживання не тільки цікава, але й необхідна. Харків і Україна стоять на порозі великих подій, входять у місто, де здійснюються найпотаємніші бажання, здобуті через страждання.

Marco Casagrande

Ruin Academy / O.M. Beketov National University

Translation: Galyna Osychenko

O.M. Beketov National University

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