micro-organisations

SAC’s research focuses on micro-organisations and micro-environments since these pervade architecture yet have only recently been actively addressed in the architectural discourse. This is carried out through focusing on Brazil and its architectural conditions as in buildings, designed and natural parks and landscapes as well as material and social organisations that emerge from other conditions.

Micro-organisations exist in various architectural conditions and occur, for instance, in material systems as small-scale structures or arrangements of related or connected items. The material geometry of fibrous and textile systems exemplify one type of micro-organisations, presenting intricate material dynamics that are commonly mapped on micro- (10^-6 or 10^-5), meso (10^-3), and macro- (10^-1) scales. Advanced computer modelling and analysis tools allow for simulating the geometric make-up and performance of the material systems in various contexts.

SAC’s interest in micro-organisations and -environments revolves around the formal possibilities for architectural design to create small-scale effects through spatial and material formulations. Included in this are effects that contribute to make architecture and the built environment sustainable in an environmental sense. However, the scope of micro-organisational and -environmental architectural conditions shall not be limited to this. Considerations of these micro conditions shall comprise a range of possible architectural articulations and the research in Brazil sought to establish a reference base of examples that were to be documented and described.

The term, micro-environments is used to describe an analogue local condition that determines how the organisation of elements influence one another and work together to produce particular effects. In this manner, a micro-climate is taken to exemplify one type of micro-environment where ‘the climate of a small, specific place within an area [is] contrasted with the climate of the entire area.

Of recently, micro-climatic conditions have been addressed in various architectural settings and are commonly associated to strategies for sustainable living and development. Hence, use of natural resources in a beneficial manner is one of the key objectives in working with these micro-environments. For architects, this means that one can design and build in such a manner that one increases the beneficial effects produced in micro-environments.

The notion of micro-organisational and -environmental conditions in architecture cannot be considered new. Architecture has always produced such conditions through its articulated detailing. However, what is new is the attention to the possibility of using such articulations in a strategic manner to engage with intensive aspects and variables in the design process.

For all contemporary interests in intensive aspects in architecture, architectural design continues to revolve around how to deploy extensive elements to produce spatial and ambient effects. Thus, the focus on intensive aspects must be understood through how the conceptualisation of architecture and its modelling enables gradients and flows of various kinds within a local space.

In architecture, an example of a specific micro-environment is a crack in a surface that in humid air collects and fills with water. Other examples are the local space around a tree, the space that forms under a canopy in front of an entrance, and so forth. In this manner micro-environments are spaces and sub-spaces that allow for the differentiated distribution of various flows and effects.

When advantageous, such micro-organisations and -environments contribute to add complexity and richness to a larger architectural composition or space. They can tap into natural cycles of matter and energy to create rich ambient zones; or they can simply create contrapuntal experiential moments through visual or other sensate effects. To cancel out such differential moments may take more energy than desired and, in the last instance, constitute waste. Hence, to work with the potential of natural gradients given by air, light and temperature form one major strategy to instrumentalise architectural design for the end of engaging with micro-organisations and -environments. For this reason nature very often presents perfect examples of such micro-organisations and -environments with a perfectly tuned economy of energy and effects.

However, for architecture it is essential to stress that the extensive qualities of a space can create the conditions for differentiation described above. By working with extensive qualities and their relational composition, one can access the economy of intensive qualities and produce desirable results in an indirect or passive manner.