R&Sie(n) / François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux with Stephan Henrich and Benoit Duradin

“I've heard about…”, a flat, fat, growing urban experiment, 2005-2010

3D print model by FDM (fuzing deposit modeling) and single screen video projection
59.4 x 50.4 x 79.8 cm
Architect: R&Sie(n)
Creative team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux, Benoit Durandin
Machine design with Stephan Henrich
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

The urban structure “I’ve heard about” is a habitable organism. It develops by means of adaptive, transitory scenarios in which the operational mode is uncertainty. “I’ve heard about” is written based on growth scripts, open algorithms, that remain permeable not only to human expressions (expressions of individuality, relational, conflictual and transactional modes, etc.), but also to the most discrete data such as the chemical emissions of those who inhabit it. This biostructure becomes the visible part of human contingencies and their negotiation in real time. Due to its modes of emergence, its fabrication cannot be delegated to a political power that would deny its exchange procedures and design its contours in advance, either through mnemonics or coercion. It seems to make strategic sense to evaluate architecture’s degree of reality on the basis of its ability to tell stories and in this way enlarge the dimension of its physicality. In a sense, we should consider the structure itself as a fragment of a scenario, the point where and from which speeches, strategies, scientific protocols and power games articulate stories and agendas.
(R&Sie(n))

R&Sie(n) / François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux with Stephan Henrich and Benoit Duradin,