InsideOut
Through matter and data: towards a new global regionalism, competition entry for the biennale in Venezia
This exhibition proposal aimed to address the current global and local interests in timber construction and to explore how data-driven approaches could renew wooden architectural languages in relation to material, tradition, and an evolving environment. The ecological crisis has made of materials with which we build and their routes to the construction site a central question of architecture. Simultaneously, the progress of robotic fabrication and digital tools for environmental analysis are leading to new data-driven processes capable to intelligently respond to local climatic and environmental conditions of a specific region related for example to sun, views, airflows, and noise.
The combination of the material wood with these digital methods can thus shape our architectural and urban context anew, and digital timber has the potential to become what concrete has been in the last century, the architectural expression of an epoch. The exhibition concept was based on a continuous architectural experience developed around a series of dichotomies, such as inner space vs. outer space, open vs. closed, traditional vs. innovative, sustainable vs. economical, crafted vs. industrial. The visitor would have been presented with two wooden installations realized with innovative construction methods and designed using environmental data gathered from the spaces of the Swiss Pavilion.
The focus of the interior installation was on closed spaces, where aspects of robotic craftsmanship and individualization are set in relation with parameters such as internal daylight, thermal comfort, and circulation, across spaces with varying atmospheres. In between the two installations screens with comprehensive visualizations would have informed the visitors on the design and production processes, and on the related topics. The second installation in the courtyard would have instead been focused on the relation to the outer environment, thematizing topics of prefabrication, and modularity in relation to parameters such as openness, solar radiation, wind, and views. The InsideOut exhibition concept was an invitation to explore the potential of data-driven timber architecture in relation to regional and environmental specificities. A telescopic motion from the inside to the outside, locally, and globally.
Competition entry for the exhibition of the Swiss Pavilion at the 2023 Architecture Biennale in Venezia.
Project by external members Edyta Augustynowicz and Alessandra Gabaglio, and M. Leidi, 2021.
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