Ariane Lourie Harrison is an experimental architect and former instructor at Yale University. She is the co-founder of the Harrison Atelier architecture studio in New York, one of whose concerns is to develop architectural systems that can accommodate ecological niches that are conducive to the development of biodiversity.
Criticizing architecture’s anthropocentrism, Ariane Lourie Harrison expands on the concept of a post-human architecture, which she teaches at Yale. An interactive architecture thus arises, putting technology at the service of a “new nature” so that façades can provide refuge to birds and pollinators.
Building the city of the Anthropocene era requires taking global environmental issues into account, while also considering all living beings in the actual construction of the buildings. Criticizing the anthropocentrism of architects, Ariane Lourie-Harisson has developed the concept of a “post-human” architect, intended for different species. She advocates an exploration of the possibilities of building according to a wider vision of forms of life that are concerned by the building, redefining the relationships of man with animals and the non-human in general. Thus, an interactive form of architecture is born, in particular with regard to facades, that can — with the help of textured concrete for example — host pollinators or provide nesting spaces in their rugged surfaces. This presupposes a better understanding of the living and of being open to different environmental theories, in such a way as to favor the creation of urban relays for biodiversity, in particular on roofs. Ariane Lourie Harrison is an architect and professor at Yale School of Architecture
Ariane Lourie Harrison, architect, and professor at Yale University tells us about posthuman architecture, a performative and interactive approach to the built environment that addresses multiple species. Scientific technologies have allowed us to increase our knowledge about species (including microbes and bacterias) and establish new ways of communicating with them. This new relationship between human and nature is essential in an architectural context where “greenwashing” often doesn’t actually respect biodiversity and the needs of animal and non-human entities.
Caroline Goulard is a data journalist and co-founder of Dataveyes. She turns collected data into digital experiences to make it more understandable for everyone. Thanks to new ways of visualization, it is now possible to understand a population’s needs and to develop services that anticipate new uses.
Researcher and data scientist Stanislas Chaillou investigates how AI can enable architects to support and enhance their practice. A small sampler of a new book published by Éditions du Moniteur in March 2021.
François Taddei is a geneticist and co-founder, with Ariel Lindner, of the Learning Planet Institute (formerly known as CRI). Conceived as a school for the 21st century, the institute combines artificial intelligence and collective intelligence to reinvent ways of learning, teaching and doing research.
Hubert Beroche is the founder of the Urban AI think tank, dedicated to the field of urban artificial intelligence. He is the curator of the Eyes on the street lecture series, run together in partnership with the SCAI (Sorbonne Center for Artifical Intelligence), and explains here how urban AI can help us understand the city.
Contemporary architectural research is often fascinated by biological life but with an approach that goes beyond simple organic metaphors thanks to recent technological developments. Alisa Andrasek discusses the link between biology and her architectural practice, and her interest in the distribution of information in natural processes—a complexity that she tries to approach via big data. Her work in computational design is influenced by the convergence between information and materials, in an increasingly complex and open synthesis which enables it to go beyond the production of form and address the dynamic processes of matter itself. Alisa Andrasek is an architect, director and founder of the Biothing laboratory. She teaches at the Architectural Association of London.
Researcher Claire Lesieur works at the CNRS Ampère Laboratory on the Go Pro project, which applies a computational model developed for protein folding to urban environments. The shape-changing properties of proteins are put to use in an attempt to map out the opportunities for urban growth that don’t involve urban sprawl.
In the face of the promises of the prophets of artificial intelligence and the marketing of those major economic players promoting the smart city as a solution to urban ills, Jérôme Denis and David Pontille remind us of the irreducible materiality and fragility of cities. Demystifying what they perceive as a form of “neopositivism” of data, they point out that data doesn’t exist per se, and in fact must be generated and then maintained at a significant cost. As a result, data is never neutral and takes on a fundamentally political dimension. Understanding this framework leads them to promote a paradigm of maintenance and fragility, instead of the more common one of sustainability and resilience, when approaching urban realities.
Explore More
Eager to share more generously the results of its collaborations and research, PCA-STREAM publishes STREAM VOICES, its online magazine!