Syntopia 0 — Anthropos I Human

»Syntopia 0—Anthropos I Human« is a critical architectural response to anthropogenic mass surpassing living biomass around the year 2020 (Elhacham et al. 2020).

»Syntopia 0« is part of a collection of architectural prototypes investigating the notion of syntopy, a term which was coined in biology by Luis René Rivas in 1964. The term is a combination of the Greek words syn*meaning together and *topos meaning place. To develop Syntopia thus means to create designs sourced from and situated within a specific site—a topos (Rivas 1964).

Initially conducted under the title »ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2018«, the project explores the construction of spatial enclosures made from designed granular materials (Dierichs et al. 2019, Reis et al. 2015). Granular materials are material systems that consist of large numbers of granules or particles. These particles are not bound to each other: they interact only through contact forces. In nature, examples are sand, gravel, or snow. In a designed granular material the particles are artificially made and consequently their geometry and material can be defined by the designer. Designing the particle allows the calibration of the characteristics of the overall granular material.

Yet one might now call this project »Syntopia 0—Anthropos I Human« in the present discourse on human-made plastic residue. This considers the research not only as an example of materials design and construction robotics but also as a monument of anthropogenic mass superseding living biomass around 2020, given it was made of injection-molding plastic waste from the local Stuttgart car industry.

References

Dierichs, K., Kyjánek, O., Loučka, M., & Menges, A.: Construction robotics for designed granular materials: in situ construction with designed granular materials at full architectural scale using a cable-driven parallel robot. Construction Robotics, 3(1), 41-52 (2019).

Elhacham, E., et al. (2020). »Global human-made mass exceeds all living biomass.« Nature 588(7838): 442-444.

Reis, P. M., Jaeger, H. M., & van Hecke, M.: Designer matter: a perspective. Extreme Mechanics Letters, 5, 25-29 (2015).

Rivas, L. R.: A reinterpretation of the concepts »sympatric« and »allopatric« with proposal of the additional terms »syntopic« and »allotopic«. Systematic Biology, 13(1-4), 42-43 (1964).

Project Authors

SYNTOPIA 0—ANTHROPOS I HUMAN

Karola Dierichs, Matters of Activity, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Formerly Known as ICD Aggregate Pavilion 2018
ICD Institute for Computational Design and Construction
Karola Dierichs, Achim Menges

Research Assistants
Christian Arias, Bahar Al Bahar, Elaine Bonavia, Federico Forestiero, Pedro Giachini, Shir Katz, Alexandre Mballa-Ekobena, Leyla Yunis, Jacob Zindroski

Cable Robotics
Ondřej Kyjánek, Martin Loučka

Manufacturing
Wilhelm Weber GmbH & Co. KG

Funding
GETTYLAB
ITASCA Consulting Inc.

BEING PLASTIC/BECOMING PLASTIC

Team Director
Assistant Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ehsan Baharlou

Research Assistants
Avery Edson, Keaton Fisher (former researcher), Eli Sobel, Tabi Summers

»Being Plastic/Becoming Plastic« is a project funded by the Jefferson Trust to repurpose recyclable plastic waste and produce a series of architectural furniture. This furniture will be publicly installed on the University of Virginia’s Grounds. Being Plastic/Becoming Plastic, is a symposium and exhibition in March 2024 at UVA that is an attempt to answer the challenges of how to live with plastics. Methods for re-purposing plastics and infusing them with new properties are examined at a macro level from the scale of a supply chain or the development of a fabrication technique to a micro level as a building or object.

More information about the exhibition and the symposium can be found on the website of the University of Virginia School of Architecture.