Wouter Decorte

Description of work

By the static properties of the current way of building is much energy needed to adapt traditional structures. The enormous amounts of energy used and the high levels of air pollution to realize them are in the current times, with its environmental problems, no longer justified.

Until now we design out of mechanics buildings that are stiff, stable and stationary. Movement is seen as a form of weakness that could be dangerous. Movement can also be a chance. If a building could change its stance, or if it could tighten his muscles to counter the wind, you can optimize the design.

Conventional structures offer by their inability to adapt not the dynamics and multifunctionality of transformable structures. When using a minimum of different components that can achieve maximum potential, you create a lightweight structure that has a low structural weight compared to traditional structures. The trend that we are ‘doing more with less’ Buckminster Fuller called ‘Ephemeralization’(1975).

The platonic solids (regular polyhedra), which for centuries have dominated the architecture, are only exceptions in an infinite variety of forms. The phenomena floor, wall and ceiling are interchangeable. The two-dimensional architectural drawing is already exceeded by the three-dimensional sketch in the digital space [Liu, 2001].

In order to optimize structures we can make them transformable. Nevertheless existing transformable structures reach only limited morphological varieties.

We must find an animated three-dimensional shell, a dynamic space.

Unbearable architecture

At Summer Camp, I want to design a structure carried and manipulated by people.

When people work together you can get to good results. All children begin to build at a certain age. They examine the laws of nature to discover how nature can be understood and used. They build camps, to have a place together with others.

Originally, building and architecture had above all a social meaning. Street used to have a social function (sitting, chatting and watching), now the car is overwhelming. Squares also play little role in our society, as they were originally a place where people celebrated, judged and exchanged goods. Over time the social aspect drowned in the tight regularities of architecture.

I want to regenerate the social aspect of architecture. It fascinates me how people together have the opportunity to do something with a structure. An edifice that doesn’t touch the ground, and moves in a dynamic way. The caryatids inspired me. According to Vitruvius they are the carriers of a broken society. Because this way of thinking contradicts the current way of static building, it might be a utopian project.

Below are some inspiration photos and two previous works which are related: ‘Topos’, a motorized adjustable landscape (2008) and a dynamic structure (2010). I would like to build a test on a small scale. Probably it will be a landscape / square with servo driven motors.