Soft Structures Within Regenerative Art Practises, With a Focus on People Care.

Natural materials may be subject to decay and change but it is in this softness that lies the strength of adaptability. Humans can be likened to trees in a forest- not completely self-reliant or unchanging, but a community-reliant and an ever-evolving organism. I propose that structures built with care for people and the planet as the basis of design, are more resilient due in part, to their biomimicry. Embracing natural consequences like decay helps us to re-imagine our relationship to resources. We must question why we’ve rejected the use of renewable, softer, and natural materials within architecture and the city.

In the mid-1970s the term Permaculture was coined by environmental ‘practivists’ (practical activists) David Holmgren and Bill Mollison. They saw it as a permanent, counter-culture solution to the inevitable collapse of other systems, like fossil fuel usage within our predominantly capitalist and materialist society. The word Permaculture originally stands for ‘Permanent Agriculture’ or ‘Permanent Culture’.

The etymology of the word culture is rather interesting from an ecological perspective. Now meaning something more concerning a nation or an individual’s intellectual capacity, it originally held more of an embodied and naturalistic meaning. “The primary meaning was then in husbandry, the tending of natural growth. Culture in all its early uses was a noun of process: the tending of something, basically crops or animals.” (Williams, 1976)

Permaculture stands upon twelve principles:

1. Observe and Interact

2. Catch and Store Energy

3. Obtain a Yield

4. Apply Self-Regulation and Accept Feedback

5. Use and Value Renewable Resources and Services

6. Produce no Waste

7. Design from Patterns to Details

8. Integrate Rather than Segregate

9. Use Small and Slow Solutions

10. Use and Value Diversity

11. Use the Edges and Value the Marginal

12. Creatively Use and Respond to Change

The permaculture ethics are People Care, Earth Care and Future Care. The ethic of People Care is useful to artists for re-shaping our own relationships with nature and each other and to turn around ecological crises. The principles and ethics of permaculture inform a consultant before they embark on a project. Whether conscious of it or not, eco-artists, community-based artists, collaborative artists, land artists and eco social artists also work within the territory of Permaculture. They produce a holistic and tangible form of community resilience vital to the world today. “The current state of the planet has arisen from the thoughts and actions of humans past and present. The ethic of People Care includes changing the thinking behind our actions. Once our thinking changes our actions follow suit.” (Macnamara, 2012)

One point that predicates the necessity to use small and slow solutions, is the evidently fickle nature of our heavy dependency on modern-day technology. It is built on the premise of inevitable collapse. We glorify plastic for its durability, whilst discounting its environmental impact. Marketing pushes the idea that a consumer must always update and buy newer electronic equipment, producing colossal waste.

Artists and architects can engage in discussions around the essence of materials, lest we continue to perpetuate a kind of amnesia around the richness, birthplace and indeed cause and effect of any given material. The effect is not solely in the matter of the medium we use, but the effect lies also in why we use it or indeed, the poesis. “Technology is a way of revealing. If we give heed to this, then another whole realm for the essence of technology will open itself up to us. It is the realm of revealing, i.e. of truth.” (Heidegger, 1993)

The spherical form of igloos, tipis, yurts, crannógs and ring forts can remind us of community togetherness. They also relate to the archetypal symbol of the womb, eliciting a sense of safety. In the example of Mario Merz, we see igloos made from ‘poor materials’ in a deconstructed, temporal manner. (Fig 1.) He leaves room for the life-cycle of materials to be seen. Alex Cechetti constructed a yurt that participants could lay down in for Sentiero, 2022. See Fig 2. It was decorated with bright reds and greens on the canvas walls with plant dyes.

Cob, or slip-straw, is a mixture of soil, straw and water and can build curvilinear structures. Cob houses are handmade houses. The cave is also a symbol of primitive homeliness for humans, and it is unintentionally and ironically recreated in urbanized spaces like basements, tunnels and in underground carparks.

The utility of space today is often determined by geometric blueprints that do not pay attention to the human or earth body. The neglect of care, rest or play is further underpinned by our architecture. It has not been seen as efficient in capitalism to create these spaces. This idea is not only deeply entrenched in capitalism, but in colonialism. SuperFlex [LF(2] [LF(3] is one art collective which encourages a child-like interaction with our environment. Reminiscent of the marble arches of Athens, Play Contract seems to be an adult playground. See fig 3. After collaborating with 121 children on the design, Superflex decided to use unpolished pink marble to construct climbable sculptures in Billund, Denmark. How does our legacy of neglecting People Care and Earth Care impact our future? What environments can we build that nurture us and truly sustain healthy habitats e.g playgrounds [LF(4] [LF(5] and communal gardens?

“Until the industrial revolution, this type of garden was extremely popular, cultivated not just in monasteries and manors but also in peasant communities. In other words, before the arrival of industrial capitalism, the cultivation of herb gardens was a practice of collective care and curing that was accessible and open to almost anyone.” (Fokianaki, 2021)

Like Merz and Cechetti’s sheltering installations, Michael Zwack created Tipi in 1976, similar to a “Native American dwelling that predates, but also spottily survived, colonialism” (Evans, 2009) and includes play as a subversive gesture. See fig 4.

“Tipi also draws an analogy between art and the playtime productions of children: the creation of a fort out of repurposed furniture and blankets, for instance, as a setting for naive stagings of battles between cowboys and Indians. We find ourselves once again in the realm of the domestic, which is here analogised not only to the Native home and the Hallwalls building itself but also to the industrial.” (Evans, 2009)

Our desire to hide the various components of a system or structure, relates to the access and visibility of food production and the commons. Colonial artwork depicts the “founding” estates as idyllic but emits any evidence of the given property relying on anything other than its owners’ individualistic power. Speaking in regards his project Edible Estates, Fritz Haeg comments on the absurdity of the ‘American Dream’ type housing. “I would have to imagine that this is one of the most dependant living situations ever in the history of the world… What I’m interested in, with all of these projects is the interdependence and kind of, celebrating that.” (The Architectural League, 2014) “The most “developed” regions of the world are the most individualistic” (Fokianaki, 2021) Their incentive to conceal vegetable gardens could be said to be based in their fear of being subject to any natural law. There is a vulnerability in community reliance. There would have been presumably a huge danger of collapse in the acknowledgement of slavery and abuse of the caretakers of these estates also.

A permaculture design consideration that can help establish durable common areas, is to design for redundancy. A component of a system, for example a roof, is mainly used as a shelter but one should consider its utility in its entirety. We may then see the roof as a place to catch and store energy – water or sunlight for example. This holistic composition is biomimicking other ecosystems i.e. forests, where the existence of a tree has inherently many reasons and uses, for the betterment of the forest bionomics. If one part of this system becomes redundant – it becomes diseased or breaks, this multi-purposed thing can sustain itself and the system. Paulo Soleri, founder of Arcology (architectural ecology) outlines the importance of designing for redundancy in a city.

“The crucial spaces within the city become shared, public spaces – accessible by all, respected in common, thriving with socialization, confrontation and growth. With mixed-use space, we acknowledge that the city can become much more than the sum of its parts.”

The collective’s relationship with the land informs the usage of land and vice versa. We can see the correlation to war-torn countries being lands that are rich with natural resources. In the end, wealth is indeed embedded literally in the land and its outputs. The privatisation and framing of public spaces in order to control the ‘fruits’ of it, became a necessity of the industrial, post-colonial society. “In 1536, Henry VII had dissolved the monasteries and their attendant commons in a massive act of state-sponsored privatisation that allowed the rising class – the gentry – to start claiming land as their own by means of the enclosures.” (Condorelli, 2009) Any residential or urbanised area post-industrialisation now makes it clear who owns natural resources. We find that the everyday is constructed by the existence or lack of boundary signifiers. Walls, signage and fences are instructions on how to behave. These could be supportive structures, or oppressive structures. “Physical freedom, that is to say, true reaching power, is wrapped around vertical vectors” (Soleri, 1973) Richard Serra’s Tilted Arc (figure 6) commented on the flow of workers through New York’s federal plaza. The bronze sculpture of over 120 feet long and 12 feet high, directly intersects the auto-pilot movement of people through this space of government-worker offices. Certainly not a ‘soft’ structure, Richard Serra’s work draws our attention however, to the lack of softness within the city’s nexus of administrative architecture.

Artists working within the community and working in line with People Care ethics produce a holistic and tangible form of resilience vital to the world today.

“As we reduce our dependence on the global economy and replace it with household and local economies, we reduce the demand that drives the current inequities. Thus “look after yourself first” isn't an invitation to greed but a challenge to grow through self-reliance and personal responsibility” (Holmgren, 2002).

Andrea Zittel investigates domestic architecture in her Living Units. (figure 7) These modular units are multi-purpose and customizable. One of Zittel’s considerations in her off-grid residence in the Mojave Desert, is the idea of creating living situations in uninhabited landscapes with her ongoing project A-Z West. Zittel finds the idea of the desert as the new frontier curious, especially in relation to how her pioneering grandparents experienced it. It is a similar-to-space place. The Mojave Desert is used by NASA as a testing-grounds for pre-Mars missions and most of the desert is occupied by the military. The tension between past and future, between earth and a ‘Planet B’, between life and death is palpable in this location. Caring in the desert, is a task Zittel takes on with her experimental yet ancestrally informed modus operandi. “References to Cold War-era product design, mobile and modular living, bomb shelters, back-to-the-earth movements, off-the-grid living and DIY reactions to materialism cannot be avoided.” (Rowell, 2011) The necessity of invention parallels the expansive, limitless habitat of the desert. Many spiritualities consider the desert as a hermitage place to come to a conclusion or to embark on a vision quest.

Fritz Haeg’s journey from the practice of architecture into the field of the integrative, community arts is one example to show us how cross-disciplinary and ecological art practices build societal change in a regenerative way. One of the most slow and unostentatious, yet ambitious of his projects was his refurbishment of the 1970’s commune Salmon Creek Farm (SCF). (figure 8) Like Zittel’s A-Z West, SCF has compact retreat spaces for artists who are mostly engaged in land-based practises. Domestic Integrities explores community activitie in the context of the art gallery. Haeg invited guests to bring in their locally grown, harvested, cooked, canned, dyed or foraged natural elements and to place them around the exhibiting space. Placed at the core of the project was an ever-evolving rug made from recycled materials. “DOMESTIC INTEGRITY FIELDS are crocheted rugs of local textiles upon which the project is presented, functioning as a charged sites for testing, performing, and presenting how we want to live.” (Haeg, 2022) Designing for inclusivity, Fritz Haeg’s work often combines the permaculture principle of using the edges and valuing the marginal. It is often his core aim to empower LGBTQ groups. In Sundown Schoolhouse, an itinerant educational gathering space, Haeg describes himself as the chief student. This approach of accepting feedback in this creative loop, allows for his work to remain grounded in the building of communities, but also expanding the notions of collaborative practise in the field of art. Sundown Schoolhouse of Queer Home Economics held skill- building workshops, dialogs, craft making workshops and activities related to queer-home making.

Forerunner art x architecture collective designs around and for natural phenomenon, like in their work Fern Studio 2020. The studio’s footprint was laid out sheltering a fern plant. This idea can also be seen in their work for Kunstverein Aughrim, Granite Leap 2022. (figure 10) The temporality of the natural materials is highlighted by a large granite rock intersecting both walls. The swinging walls that double up as shelves, are made of everyday and accessible construction materials. The monumental process of the creation of the granite is juxtaposing the almost simple and D.I.Y like process of these multi-functional walls. Structural forms within our environment can ask the question: What expressions of being are being choreographed by an outside influence? Celine Condorelli in Zanzibar 2021 offered a space for the public to move freely around a structure. (figure 11) As in the work of Richard Serra, she conceives public monuments as important in the performance of the everyday. In Support Structures Condorelli points out the importance of the invisible structures as pillars of our architecture and every day.

“While the work of supporting might traditionally appear as subsequent, unessential, and lacking value in itself, this manual is an attempt to restore attention to one of the neglected, yet crucial modes through which we apprehend and shape the world.” (Condorelli, Wade, Langdon, 2009)

In conclusion, we can see that collaborative, integrative artists working within the community and working in line with People Care ethics, produce regenerative structures. As in the ecology of a forest, these structures, however soft or subject to decay, build secure foundations for a future rooted in care.

Bibliography:

Celine Condorelli, Life Always Escapes, e-flux journal #10 (2009) - e -flux
Céline Condorelli and Gavin Wade with James Langdon, Support Structures, Sternberg Press, 2009
David Holmgren, Permaculture, Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, Australia: Holmgren Design Services, 2002, page 7
Fritz Haeg, Fritz Haeg, The Architectural League, www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7nCGMRkfN8, 2014
Fritz Haeg, “Domestic Integrities.” Domestic Integrities / Main, www.fritzhaeg.com/domestic-integrities/main.html.
iLiana Fokianaki, A Bureau for Self-Care: Interdependence versus Individualism, e-flux journal issue #119 (2021), e-flux
Looby Macnamara, People & Permaculture, Permanent Publications, England, 2012
Martin Heidegger, The Question Concerning Technology' in Martin Heidegger: Basic Writing, Ed. David Farrell Krell, Harper Collins, 1993
Raymond Williams, Keywords A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, Oxford University Press, New York U.S.A, 1976
Sarah Evans, There's No Place Like Hallwalls: Alternative-space Installations in an Artists' Community Oxford Art Journal, 2009, Vol. 32, No. 1 (2009)
https://www.arcosanti.org/arcology/ What is Arcology? Paulo Soleri, 2021
Paulo Soleri, Arcology: The City in the Image of Man, MIT Press, 1973
Steve Rowell, A–Z West in Context: A Spatial Analysis, Afterall: A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry, Issue 27, The University of Chicago Press on behalf of Central Saint Martin’s College of Art and Design, University of the Arts London (Summer 2011)