Helen Castle

EditorialDominique Gonzalez-Foerster, p 38), material energies become the

raison d’être for social and spatial organisation of domestic space.

Temperature and climate might determine layout or the use of rooms,

as the occupants are encouraged to migrate seasonally from one space

to another. For Cristina Díaz Moreno and Efrén García Grinda of AMID

(Cero9) energy becomes the inspiration and the fuel for a new formal

language and spatial understanding (see pp 76–83). The relationship

with energies does not have to be so immediate. In experiments with

biological form, the energy of the sun becomes the main life-giving

force (see pp 48–53).

This focus on energies requires a watershed in thinking. It is by

necessity a process of inversion of accepted architectural design

practices, requiring a new manner of conceiving space and its

organisation. The term ‘energies’ all too easily strikes up associations

with energy-efficient architecture. Lally and his contributors are wary

of this connotation and of its being mistaken as a further mutation of

green architecture. In her article, Penelope Dean explicitly distances

the approach from the well-trodden track of sustainability, as one that

is too embedded in matter and the gizmos of environmental techno-

science (pp 24–9). The quest is for a new conceptual model for

architecture. At only a nascent stage in its investigations, Energies

requires a leap into the dark, but it also proves wonderfully revitalising in

its explorations as it requires us to look at generative design afresh. 4

Text © 2009 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Images: p 4 © Steve Gorton; p 5(tl and c) ©WEATHERS Environmental Design LLC; p 5(bl) © Ted Kinsman/Science Photo Library; p 5(r) © Science Photo Library

In this title of AD, guest-editor Sean Lally challenges our

preconceptions of what architecture might be. He

removes the walls from around us and the very roof from

above our heads by questioning the established

boundaries of architectural structure. He asks us to

suspend our belief in the concrete matter of building as

the foundation of architecture, whether it is the physical

qualities of glass and steel or the Modernist notion of

space, light and volume. Instead, he requires us to focus

on the invisible rather than the visible: on material

energies as the generative driver of design. Static

materiality is replaced by the dynamics of

thermodynamic exchange. The energy model or fluid

dynamic diagram usurps the place of structure or outer

shell; the impact is not unlike that of a Victorian seeing

an X-ray for the first time and experiencing the

revelation of looking beyond the exoskeleton.

For both Lally (see his Gradient Spatial Typologies

project, p 9) and Philippe Rahm (Research House for

4

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WEATHERS, Asplund Library Competition, Stockholm, 2006The proposed library addition operates beyond the envelope ofa building or site boundary and engages the surroundingenvironmental qualities and seasonal climatic conditions forprogrammatic and organisational strategies.

Wilhelm Röntgen, Hand mit Ringen (Hand with Rings), 1895This first ‘medical’ X-ray taken by Röntgen of his wife's hand.Seeing this view inside the human body for the first time musthave been a revelation.

A thermogram of an apartment building This thermogram highlights which apartments have their heatturned up, and which have their windows open; thetemperature ranges from hot (white) to cold (blue). Generallyused to express heat radiation in built or designed projects, theEnergies approach enables us to consider the possibilities ofthermodynamics for generative design.

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