Setting and Tweaking: the architect as improvisatory choreographer of ecologies

This research investigates the relationship between architecture and natures; a nature is defined as an ecology that emerges according to its nature. It has developed ways of designing architectures with these unpredictable processes. By supporting their agency, places develop their resilience and diversity. Processes of growth as well as decay are expressed. It has been investigated through reflecting on three series of work in my practice that combine buildings and landscapes. The tools used are open patterns that fall into two categories: spatial instruments and rituals. They are developed in dialogue with the ecosystems within which I am working, especially with the users. These patterns set situations and tweak the dynamic processes over time. They choreograph the elements of architecture - the void, the climate, the resources and the living. In this practice, architecture is the improvisatory choreography of the elements’ rhythms; the role of the designer is dual: to design a setting and rituals that will guide its polyphonic performance and simultaneously develop a language of patterns for use elsewhere. Instruments and ritual patterns grow together to support the existing ecological processes dialogically. The designer does not control, (s)he guides ecologies as an improvisatory choreographer