Emotion of Nature ― To us living in the city, Resistance of dominant nature ―

Nagoya Institute of Technology Faculty of Engineering, Architecture & Design Department

Project idea

The conspiracy to dominate nature

Human beings who developed civilization, created the modern city by weeding out nature that had been formed over a long period of time.
Gradually, we began to eliminate nature and use it to achieve comfortable urban lives.
In exchange for the comfortable lives of human beings, nature was eliminated, and our conception of nature, which was nurtured as we lived in villages connected to nature, was lost.
We have turned into rulers of nature.
Over time, as our arrogant domination of nature began to threaten our global environment, we sought to reform even the nature under our control in order to protect our comfortable lives.

Fragments of nature living in the city

We planned to build an architectural structure in the center of our cities to improve our living conditions.
The architectural structure managed to function by making dominant use of the remaining nature in the city, such as trees in the streets, trees in parks and gardens, and the wildlife that feeds on the nuts of these trees.
We have attempted to regain the urban environment by reconstructing the fragments of nature caused by human’s selfish acts of development, and to give a habitat to the dominant nature.

Essay

Nature in the city has become an architectural structure for urban life, and the urban environment was improved.
Dominant nature, which expanded beyond human assumptions, has extended to the sphere of human activity, and natural instincts are awakening in architectural structure.
At a time when human beings tried to dominate nature, its emotion tries to overcome that domination.
What do we citizens feel when we see these architectural structures?
The threat of nature invading the city?
Or a tribute to nature born in the city?
The new nature that has emerged in the urban void speaks to us of the instincts of nature.
The appearance of nature which the urban form of the architectural can be seen in, makes us feel the human functional space and the comfort of nature.
The confrontation between human and natural emotions in the city, makes the emotions of us living in the city resonate with those of the nature.
We become a member of urban nature and continue to live with wildlife and trees as a new urban landscape.

Project description

Architectural structures emerging in the city

The architectural structures built from fragments of nature have been receptive to the birds inhabiting the city as perching trees.
As the birds dropped their seeds and as vegetation spread over architectural structure, the architecture functioned as the city's respiratory organ.
The wind generated by the structure carried the birds to the surrounding area, carrying their seeds into the urban void and spreading the vegetation.
The dominant nature, concentrated in one corner of the city, leaped , unaware that it was being put to work for humans.

New places emerging in the city

As the architectural structure leaped and the architecture began to be draped in vegetation, it provided a new place for human beings to live in the city.
The stereoscopic(three-dimensional?) landscapes that emerged in cities have brought our lives into connection with nature.
In the lower levels, commercial activities were carried out for urban life.
In the middle levels, people carried out economic activities by gathering near nature.
In the upper levels, spaces were segmented and small groups of people carried out their individual activities.

Clash of Emotions of human and nature

As time passed and the vegetation of the architectural structure grew, the architecture was covered with a new nature, and nature pushed in to the area of human activity.
Emotions sprouted in the vegetation attempted to resist the domination of human beings in the voids of the city.
Eventually, nature intermingled with planned functional space for humans, and an urban and natural spatial order was emerged.
Those of us who had been living in cities under an artificial spatial order, have come to confront nature as it appeared in the city engaged in open activities in nature.
The emotions of humans and nature over architectural structure, have built a new relationship between humans and nature in the city.

Technical information

The architectural structure functioned by making dominant use of the remaining nature in the city, such as trees in the streets, trees in parks and gardens, and the wildlife that feeds on the nuts of these trees.
We have attempted to regain the urban environment by reconstructing the fragments of nature created by human selfish acts of development.

１. Artificial nature built in the city

Cities are filled with artificial nature, such as the planting of parks and street trees planned for landscape and the planting of trees in the gardens and balconies of houses. Some of these plants, highly fertile and carrying as food for birds, spread their planting into the urban void.

2. Wildlife living in the city

Birds and other wildlife that inhabit artificial environments, known as synanthropes, nest in the voids of structures and live off leftover food, nuts from trees, etc.
These wildlife are guided by plants, travel around architectural structure, fly to cities and spread their seeds into the city.

3. Soils excluded by urban development

In the city where economic activities are carried out for human beings, buildings are also expendable. The construction soils produced by these construction activities is improved and used to form the soil of the building structure, which is then transformed into a receptacle for the fragments of nature. Seeds carried by birds bud on the architectural structure and are then transported back to the surrounding area.

4. Timber that has ceased to serve as a building material

In the act of development for human beings, wooden houses may be demolished and transformed into new commercial buildings and other structures. Timber, the building material produced by scrap-and-build, has outlived its usefulness. These old timbers are moulded and assembled into a latticework, which serves as perches for birds and supports for plants. This lattice also encompasses people's places, and the generous space makes the boundary between nature and humans blurred.