A new issue of AD was recently published titled ENERGIES: New Material Boundaries, edited by Sean Lally of WEATHERS. This edition focuses on the rich, yet overlooked, territory of design that foregrounds the effects of material energies on boundaries of environments. Boundaries are taken to mean atmospheric thresholds that are the result of material decisions. This refers to the transition in air quality, illumination, temperature, olfactory concentrations, acoustics, among others, that permeates interior environments. Serving as an upgrading of Banham's Well-Tempered Environment, ENERGIES consists of essays and projects that position the design of these often nearly invisible yet sensed conditions at the center of a contemporary debate between sustainability and atmospherics.

[Weathers' proposal for the Estonian Academy of Arts leverages six Artificial Climatic Lungs to serve as thermal collectors throughout the building.]

[Philippe Rahm's Interior Gulf Stream is a project that identifies program and occupation through temperature. Two horizontal planes are conditioned to temperatures of 22°C and 15°C.]

With so many technologies developed that are at the service of modulating our interior environments, it is little wonder that designers have marginalized their role to a perfunctory performance-based criteria – a "best practices" model. Or as Lally writes in his introduction:

… [W]hen it comes to one of the most prevalent and ubiquitous materials to influence architecture and its adjacent disciplines in the last thirty years – energy – we’ve made only stunted attempts to explore its design possibilities.

[An Te Liu's Cloud installation includes air purifiers, ionizers, sterilizers, washers, humidifiers, and ozone air cleaners all running continuously.]

Sean and An Te Liu had invited me to write a text on Liu's recent work embodied by the climate-controlling megastructure "Cloud" found in the 2008 Venice Biennale in Architecture. The idea of boundaries in Liu's work is about invisibility. It explores the boundary of clean air from dirty, and varying degrees of processed air, and the psychological effects of that invisibility.

I recommend picking up a copy of the issue if you are interested in topics of modified environments, atmospherics, and the future of interior environments. Texts by Penelope Dean on green-washing and Michelle Addington on the illusive hermetic seal of building envelope round out a fantastic and thorough issue.

NEW GEOGRAPHIES #1 to launch March 31

Edited by doctoral candidates at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD), the second volume of the New Geographies journal is entitled "Volume One, After Zero." Contributors to New Geographies #1: AFTER ZERO include: Albert Pope, Ulrich Beck, Pier Vittorio Aureli, Martino Tattara, Erik Swyngedouw, Keller Easterling, Thomas J. Campanella, Francois Blanciak, Yasser Elsheshtawy, Matthew Gandy, Behrang Behin, Lola Sheppard, Mason White, Joseph Grima, and Peter Hall.

A reception to launch the publication will be held from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm on Tuesday, March 31, at the Harvard GSD. Copies of the journal will be available for sale at the event and thereafter at the GSD online bookstore and through Harvard University Press. For additional information, visit the new geographies website.

To purchase, please visit this online bookstore.

Just wanted to point out the excellent new issue (#9) of MONU is out now and has a contribution from Mason and Lola (aka Lateral aka Infranet Lab directors) on the Thawing Urbanism of the Arctic.

You can get a copy form the fine folks at BoARD and MONU for a paltry €10.

Here is the contents:
A City under the Influence by Vesta Nele Zareh
Cities of Girl by Laurent Gutierrez and Valérie Portefaix/ Map Office
Thawing Urbanisms in the Arctic by Mason White and Lola Sheppard
Living Facades – Green Urbanism and the Politics of Urban Offsetting by Owen Hatherley
Flying Grass Carpet by Joop de Boer
The 'Great Comeback' of The Chinese to Katendrecht by Els Vervloesem
Urbanism of the permanent Tourist by Deane Simpson
Plastic Wrapped History by Hannah Epstein
Golf Courses and Cultural Conventions of Nature by Jacqueline Schlossman
The Sky is not near enough by Shumon Basar
Defining the Exotic when Identity is Lost by Yasmine El Rashidi
Nondescript Exotism inside the Urban Tissue by Anne Seghers
Pseudo-Democracies and Pseudo-Commissions – Interview with Reinier de Graaf/ OMA
Elite Commune by Lei Liu
Re-fun by Yaowalak Baltisberger
Urbanism in a Minor Key by Gean Moreno and Ernesto Oroza
The Exotic and the Local – From Superhero to Supercity by Yehuda Greenfield – Gilat