Weathering is how a building records atmospheric phenomena. Designing architecture capable of weathering is an aesthetic departure from the delusion of permanent newness and the eternal sterility of modern materials. Places allowed to weather blur the exterior/interior divide. Bubbles appear, pores and cracks open up, and these accumulate detritus, fine dead organic matter brought by rain and wind. Behind this sediment appears spontaneous greenery, wind-borne organisms settle, and animals climb over the roughness. Burrows, cavities, cocoons, nests, i.e., new microhabitats, are created. Weathering takes buildings out of our illusive control and helps them tune into the rhythms of nature.
We in CENTRALA believe in chronobiological architecture. Such architecture aims to build and reinforce the sense of being part of the rhythms of night and day, the seasons, and other planetary and weather phenomena. Therefore, we don’t perceive weathering as degeneration, but as the beginning of regeneration, the return of matter to circulation.
At VI PER, we present our recent investigations. We explore architecture’s tools for understanding and designing microclimates. We question our openness to discomfort. We investigate the linguistic and formal richness of wetlands, the long but forgotten relationship of architecture and aquatic botany, and the potential that lies in forgetting the Vitruvian principle of firmitas and detaching architecture from the solid ground.
