“I see in the work of Lacaton & Vassal the understanding of architecture as a fundamentally democratic open-ended project, where acts of addition and restructuring are just as important as proposals which rebuild. I would like to work with them to explore parallels between such an approach and Greek-French philosopher Cornelius Castoriadis’ notion of “imaginary institutions of society” – the idea that society is a continuous social and political negotiation around human co-existence. Perhaps the true autonomy of architecture exists in the unfinished quality of any built object, and the fact that what is built must be imagined and negotiated, again and again. To think of architecture this way, is to situate our profession at the construction site of a democratic project. With Lacaton & Vassal, I look forward to approaching questions of housing with this in mind, exploring architecture both as the physical support for everyday life, and the scaffold for imagined lives to come.” – Hannes Frykholm
Hannes Frykholm presented his current research at the 19th annual Architectural Humanities Research Association conference “Building Ground for Climate Collectivism: Architecture After the Antropocene”, held at the Pratt School of Architecture, Brooklyn, New York, 17 -19 November 2022. Engaging architects, landscape architects, planners, and activists in parallel sessions on design and environmental crisis, the conference explored new forms of climate collectivism in design-oriented research, pedagogy and practice.
- On November 17, Hannes participated in a presentation of the recently published book Infrastructural Love: Caring for our Architectural Support Systems (Birkhäuser, 2022), which he co-edited with Helene Frichot (University of Melbourne), Adria Carbonell (KTH Royal Institute of Technology) and Sepideh Karami (Edinburgh School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture). Hannes gave a presentation on his chapter of the book and the current development of that research.
- In collaboration with Stockholm-based architectural practice SECRETARY (Dr. Helen Runting, Rutger Sjögrim and Karin Matz), Hannes presented the paper “Embracing the Void: It’s the Life under Buildings That Will Come to Matter”, on November 18. Revisiting the space underneath buildings in modernist architecture (supported by pilotis), the paper argued for the open-ended condition of the empty ground floor as its greatest quality. The presentation combined a filmed sequence of a speculative series of drawings of the ground floor, with a written proposal to rethink the void of this space in response to extreme weathers and flooding.
- On November 19, Hannes chaired a hybrid screening of the pre-recorded panel discussion “Two x Matavai: Conversations on Transpacific Climate Collectivism”, a conversation with Jennifer Ferng (University of Sydney), Alistair Sisson (University of Sydney), Anastasia Globa (University of Sydney), Jude Philp (Chau Chak Wing Museum), Innez Haua (Macquarie University) and Catherine Skipper (tenant of the Matavai). The panel used the Matavai-tower in Waterloo, Sydney as a starting point to discuss the nexus of climate change and housing activism. The screening was followed by a conversation with the audience.
