The Natural & The Artificial - 'Hybrid - Crossbred - Composite'

Irene Kelly

Eight projects were chosen for us to create a 'type of mental atlas', an 'imaginary garden' throughout the course of the lecture given by Inaki Abalos in October. Words such as gates, pavilion, and surface were attached to each scheme, immediately making one aware of the architects' interest in the 'composite system', the interaction between natural materials and artificial materials. Our minds were cultivated before viewing the projects, by his description of the 'Hybrid Technique, Crossbred Style'. Through this he talks of the emergence of a new technological model, influenced by recent nature-orientated policies. This model emphasizes environmental congruence through the rational organization of the energy consumed during both the actual production and the life of the building. This way of looking at a material within a system relieves it from the soul-less aims of mass production such as simplified assembly, time and cost optimisation and requires the cooperation of ecology and industry to be personified in the use of materials. The composite system blurs the boundary of each bubble to extract the benefits, the result being a hybrid. For example, the natural material being responsible for accumulating and reducing exchanges, while the artificial materials act as generators, capturing energy resources.

System over Linear
Through this introduction an underlying thought was triggered by each project, 'What position has it taken in this discourse'? Perhaps position is an inappropriate word for such a concept, as it denotes that sides have been taken. In each project sides are not evident, instead filters and connectors become manifest.
This world: a monster of energy, without beginning, without end;.. enclosed by nothingness as by a boundary; not something blurry or wasted; not something endlessly extended, but set in a definite space as a definite force�:this my Dionysian world of the eternally self-creating, the eternally self-destroying, this mystery world of the two-fold voluptuous delight, my 'beyond good and evil', without goal, unless the joy of the circle is itself a goal; without will unless a ring feels good will toward itself. Friedrich Nietzsche, 1888.
Abalos and Herreros have an awareness of being within a system, therefore taking it upon themselves to adhere to certain rules and are disappointed when one doesn't fulfil their obligation- for example the line of 'miserable' lime trees that were planted which they patiently await to grow in front of the new university of Extremadura building. In his own words, these trees are to 'configure the air ' between themselves and the building, there is a definite part to play by each element. The fa�ade and beyond is considered as a filter. Their fresh mint-green colour has already been projected onto the lattices in expectation of the diffuse light to shine through. The 'pediment' is awarded its character by avoiding emphasis being placed on the different programs within the brief, except through cause of stipulation. The strength of the block presents the garden of the teaching staff or more importantly the 'jury' of this competition to the open air.

Form and Materiality
This acute awareness of the natural and the artificial has a relevancy in their work from the micro, use of a particular material to the larger scale concept of the building. The PIRS building in Tenerife, located within a landfill site, has been conceived in response to the regimented seriousness of the function, i.e. waste management within an island. It is described as a non-scar construction, built in extreme impunity. There is a conscious decision to avoid an 'organic mood' and because it's artificial and always so, the difference allows nature to be distinct and filter through it. The clear negative of the building defines an open-air atrium, while the graphic quality permits a public dimension from the highway.'It's a kind of whale', he exclaims as the projector fails to reduce the image. The colour chosen for the building/filter was aquamarine, seawater or a light blue to green.

The materiality of the surface chosen for Casa Verda, Green House Madrid 1997, is almost a metaphor for their micro-manifesto on composite systems. The usual configuration of suburbia is avoided by constructing a promenade out of the notion, 'garden in house, house in garden'. In conjunction with a concrete industry, artificial panels were made to cover half of the green area, which are in themselves, porous to allow lichens and moss to grow. These ideas are also evident in the somewhat fashionable use of polycarbonate in the artist's Studio Gordillo, Madrid. This material has a talent in tuning the light from either side, glowing towards the garden or diffusing towards the interior.

Presenting Nature
A New Naturalism "profound ambiguity in which nature is presented as the subject of knowledge and aesthetic experience".
It is claimed that the term 'natural' can only exist because it has been classified and a picturesque stereotype placed upon it in order to derive a definition. They are currently working on what will be the largest park in Barcelona, which is described as 100% artificial, however will be 'presented' as the only natural space of this new area of the city. Surroundings are never mimicked but always cause the projects to be a ramification of what's around them. He claims that Social and political problems involved in the notion of public space oblige you to use very different strategies in every context. This is what really makes it interesting because you can try to produce a new notion of Beauty. The following thought gave way to a resounding applause.
'I am not interested only in social problems, I am an architect, I am interested in Beauty, that's all, if I can relate one to the other, it's o.k. If not I am not interested in politics and I am not interested in anything.'
How to transform what was a private park, 'San Sebastian' into a public place without touching the surface? This was one of the stipulations of the donation in order to maintain the memory of its origin. The park is described as a 50m high vertical building, which is too tall to climb up. It is recognised that an intervention is necessary to activate the middle section, level 25. A connector from the city is introduced, manifesting itself in the form of a bridge that systemises the different terrestrial phenomena, focuses on the hill and increases the use of flat green surface. The image presented of the connector had both mechanistic and biological connotations.

Invention
There is a reluctance to strive towards invention,
'for us it's important the notion of not to invent, nothing is special, but to use what's there, the market, use catalogues, visiting industries as a detective.. introduce materiality not in a very romantic way or dedicated way or in a very phenomenological way, as Peter Zumthor�. always touching�you don't need to touch our works they are not very well finished.'
Their interest lies in touching a kind of contemporary materiality, an example being that of thinner facades and how to rescue a 'condition of deepness'. Usera Public library, Madrid 1995 2002, illustrates a clear example of this contemporary materiality. There is a 'constructed ambiance' found in the distance provided between interior and exterior, that enables concentration. He describes this 'mythical idea of library as tower' as a voided tower, an inverted tower. As it's a library without books, it was felt that a texture was needed. They decided to underline the notion of something constructed with paper by avoiding structural monumentality and achieving 'advent calendar' fenestration, which gives a 3-D dimension to the surface. And as there is no room in floor area for a sufficient decompression zone, a very slow lift offers a 'cheap promenade'.

Exciting is a word that comes to mind when thinking about the practice of Abalos and Herreros. They explore the beauty of the art of Architecture within a system. Their work as a result comes across as being responsive and innovative, impacted upon by external stimulations. This recognition, along with their study of contextualism, picturesque aesthetic, dynamic aesthetic and the notion of parallax was cutely reiterated in the following comment,'Yes, we make good neighbours�'

Irene Kelly is an architect.