Idiorhythmic (re)interpretation of the phalanstère
It can be speculated that the current socioeconomic system requires constant growth that causes exacerbated development in contemporary cities, producing systems, connections and architectures always directed towards a same standardized frenetic rhythm. The city, which assumes itself a wide network of networks and rhythms, begins to stop being complex to become a series of experimental spaces of monotony and uniformity. “How do we build for a society of individuals (!) comprehended as networks?”
Local
Spain
Madrid
It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
Generally speaking, it can be speculated that the current socioeconomic system requires constant growth that causes exacerbated development in contemporary cities, producing systems, connections and architectures always directed towards a same standardized frenetic rhythm. The city, which assumes itself a wide network of networks and rhythms, begins to stop being complex to become a series of experimental spaces of monotony and uniformity.
But the rhythms of the city are not only measured thanks to physical means, but are also present and determined by the virtual world, which consists of a network that brings identities to the same point, distorting and homogenizing them.
Therefore, it is worth asking what is the role of architecture in all this. “How do we build for a society of intermediary individuals as networks?” o How do we build for individuals who do not want to be part of these networks?
This theoretical framework allows us to speculate with a single consequence that is the purest and absolute “isorhythm”, whose antithesis is the idiorhythm. This concept is simply defined as the ability of each one to carry their own rhythm within a community, calls for accepting the body as a place and not as an object and repositioning its importance in the technological debate to try to contribute to the forces that contribute to forming our identity. If the system is the one that encourages the uniformity of rhythms, this concept is a plausible tool of criticism. The objective is to try to project a place in which each individual feels free to carry a unique rhythm in which the breakdown and analysis of Fourier's passions acts as a cornerstone to carry out a project that involves an Idiorhythmic Reinterpretation of the Phalanstery.
Idiothythm as the main concept. Live at the rhythm of each one inside a community.
Nature comprehended as something beautiful, something to contemplate and live. Eden.
Clôture-Anâchoresis
Constant fluctuation between Living together and Living Alone
The thelos of the community must be the eros, the pleasure. The more eros, the more idiorrhythmic the community will be.
The initial concept of criticism of the current system is based on the frenetic rhythm, both physical and mental. A lot has to do with this, the dimension of cities and the urbanism promulgated in recent years. Contemporary cities are NOT being designed based on identity or from understanding it as a system of INDIVIDUALS, but rather as a productive complex in which profit is the greatest exponent. This understanding causes an exacerbated development that induces the automobile as a generator of a physical rhythm foreign to the human being. The proposed idiorhythmic complexes are based on individual rhythms, on the physical and mental capacities of each one. The project approaches theories close to the 15-minute city, whose understanding of the city system is strictly human. Mechanized means of movement are not abolished, but the ideal would be their reduction to a minimum.
The complexes must be strictly self-sufficient, otherwise the concept itself would collapse. The construction, using removable systems, and the materiality, which uses local materials, the complex itself must follow the concept of circularity. The design is executed taking advantage of the bioclimatic criteria of the area in such a way that the need for external energy, which will be entirely renewable, is reduced to a minimum. However, the most important point in relation to sustainability is Eden. Every idiorhythmic community must distance itself from society, have a limit. In this case, it is porous, dense enough to stay away from the city and open enough to get back into it. We achieve this through vegetation, which is understood as an extremely important element. A forest has been projected that has 499 local specimens that generate a unique ecosystem and are defined as a lung for the city.
Communal life has an aesthetic based on nature. Between the "limit" and the houses, a permeable layer has been designed in a way that gains privacy as we approach the complex. The layer is Eden (IV), the ideal circumscription of an idiorhythmic community, a garden in which privacy is the most important thing. A Cartesian order or a random rhythm is not intended, so the garden is subject to an organizing grid in which the directing lines are not binding, that is, the traces exist, but nature is not forced to follow an order. or some rules by which to grow. The human paths can close and be invaded by vegetation and it doesn't matter. The biodiversity of the garden consists of 4 or 5 specimens of an intertwining process of the most predominant species in Madrid with those that consume the most Co2, adding a total of 499 specimens that complete a unique ecosystem. Each one has been individually positioned in search of protection against the wind, privacy and aesthetics. The latter motivated by the way in which the Buddhist monks of Ceylon understood the garden as a mystical space. Belonging to nature is the key concept in this system.
However, eremitic life is a completely different world, the complex follows a system of proportions that starts from the 40m2 cell, which stands as an original architectural element. In the complex, the room is separated from the whole, it is an individual and it is understood as a space that the subject can interpret through its own body. Each consists of two mutually integrated situations: the cell and the garden. The first is interpreted as a series of islands that are inserted into the second so that it is really a house within a garden and not the other way around. The limits between the islands and the garden are diffuse, lost in the texture of the concrete, or of the wood, subtly invaded by the vegetation.
The possibility of an idiorhythmic complex included in the current system seems very complicated. Idiorhythm requires a whole change in values and a way of life that competes with the exacerbated development and the need to increase the benefits of the capitalist system.
However, we understand this model as a necessary theoretical process to get out of the spiral that we have suffered in recent decades. The rhythms of the city and the loss of identity due to the networks generate a general increase in the levels of anxiety and depression in society. The feeling of not belonging is high. The need for acceptance is higher than ever, and yet also more difficult tan ever. What seems like many different ways of life really are not, and the experiences only seem to be if social networks are added to it, which disconnects us deeply from the sensorial world.
A theoretical return to primitive societies, in which the feeling of belonging is given by the mere fact of existing, is necessary. It is important to reassess individual rhythms, this is the only way to highlight personal identity and fully belong to a community.
The purely physical consequence of the exacerbated rhythm and growth is that the “rhythmic spaces” are no longer uniformly located throughout the city. The cartography of these spaces shows a clear imbalance between the various metropolitan areas. But the rhythms of the city are not only measured thanks to physical means, but are also present and determined by the virtual world, which is the culmination of what will be called "isorrhythm". According to Antoine Picon, individualization is being transformed, since identity no longer remains trapped in one's body, but lives in a media space alien to us and shaped by the digital. For Picon this makes us feel and experience differently, because the entire sensory system is redefined because of this new circumstance of the subject. In addition, the new ways of life in the city, physical and virtual, guided by its rhythm, are based on the pursuit and nullification of certain personal tastes (passions/pleasures) and the exaltation of other common ones.
In this case, Idiorhythm calls for accepting the body as a place and not as an object and repositioning its importance in the technological debate to try to contribute to the forces that contribute to forming our identity. It is a claim. The main premises of the complex separate it from the entire external system, reorienting the subject towards an essential renaturation to be able to find itself again. The two ways of life are oriented according to each individual so that they feel comfortable with themselves. The eremitic life is specifically designed for the individual and the community life offers all the pleasures of nature and the human system. In Eden the subject finds a space of transition between the outside world and the idiorhythm, a "wild" space that allows reconnecting with nature. In addition, being pleasure a main element in the life of the human being, the cloister is shown as an ecstasy of it, empowering and exalting the senses through which we perceive it.
They were not.
The design opens to investigate the externalities of architecture, see how other disciplines can influence and how different forms of knowledge can improve it.
Architecture is understood as a porous discipline, a reflection of the society that surrounds us. The transformation of the “Zeitgeist” into matter. So, really, it is a reflection of an infinite number of disciplines with which gaps and connections are generated. However, sociology, philosophy and economics are the three fields of knowledge that are most mixed with the main one, architecture, since the authors who serve as the basis of the design belong to them.
The project is called the Idiorhythmic (Re)interpretation of the Phalanstery, which is an open statement. The Phalanstery is an open scheme conceived by the utopian socialist and economist Charles Fourier (1772-1837), which is redefined through the concept of “Idiorhythm”, mainly defined by the French sociologist Roland Barthes (1915-1980) in his book How to Live Together. In which it is determined that the idiorhythmic community must have a cause, a Thelos, to remain united. In our case, it is pleasure, Eros. According to Barthes, the greater Eros, the greater idiorhythm and, to understand and design pleasure, fundamental principles of Charles Fourier himself and the philosopher Donatien Alphonse François de Sade (1740-1814) have been taken into account.
It is demonstrated how, only by the name, different disciplines are implicit in the field of knowledge of architecture. But these are not all the names that have been studied. The fundamental sociological principles of design are based on the anxiety generated by the loss of identity and the frenetic rhythms of the city that are obtained thanks to readings by the architects Iñaki Ábalos, mentor of this work, and Antoine Picon.
The design has a constant look at the past in order to improve the present and propose an alternative future. It will be difficult to find a mainstream concept in the project, because only by moving away from these concepts can you see the real problems.
Generally speaking, the theory and practice of the contemporary architectural discipline are very disconnected. The practice is far from proposing solutions to current problems, such as climate change and social anxieties. Perhaps the first is beginning to be treated but in an inefficient way, while the second is not even being considered. For this reason, this project tries to resolve this gap, a project in which practical design is closely linked to the theoretical concepts that surround it, where the architectural discipline is located at the center of a cluster of fields of knowledge, where it is nourished of them to improve a situation alien to the architecture itself.
Idiorhythm is a purely positive and communal fantasy, and all fantasies require a setting that fosters the fantasy's desires. The concept is a situation of constant fluctuation between eremitic life and community life. Of the terms coined by Barthes, always referred to in their original form, we find some that not only make it possible to generate an architectural project but also encompass all the others. Therefore, the theoretical discourse that shapes the project is formed around them.
In idiorhythmic communities it is essential the perfect balance between community life and hermit life. Being essential to organize them. The different groups must be ordered around an inhabited center where the Thelos occurs. The general scheme must be a Square or a rectangle, since it is a figure that denotes stability, "the fantasy is framed". The original terms Clôture (II) and Distance (III), with society, are key in an idiorhythmic community and must be symbolized in some way, physical and virtual limits are essential as they provide security and protection. The layer that grants them is Eden (IV), the ideal circumscription of an idiorhythmic community, in which nature is understood as the Buddhist monks of Ceylon understood the garden as a mystical space. Les Fleurs (V), an element of beauty that deserves contemplation. The entire complex follows a system of proportions that starts from the Chamber (VI) or the 40m2 cell, which stands as an original architectural element. A cause is necessary, a "Thelos" (VII) that keeps the relationship system strong. For Barthes, as for Fourier, the more "Eros", the greater the idiorhythm.
This are the concepts in which the design is based, following them, the Project can be replicated wherever and whenever.
Bypassing the aforementioned problems of loss of individual identity and lack of variety of personal rhythms, two terms are defined that we associate with many individuals in today's society. Akèdia and Xéniteia are two personal situations; of disinterest and estrangement. Akèdia: today we would call it anxiety or boredom, is the sensation of feeling prostrate, trapped in an impasse. “Acedy: repetition, boredom, exact moment in which you realize that you have had enough of your way of life, of your relationship with the world. (...) not being able to continue investing time in other people, in living with many other people and at the same time investing in solitude.” Xéniteia, is the key element of the ascetic doctrine, the temptation to abandon. The monks used to experience it in their cells, it is especially necessary for an idiorhythmic community. There must be a break with the world to be carried away by oneself (“idiorhythmic individual”). By being left alone; it would be possible to meet others (“idiorhythmic community”).
When experiencing the Akèdia, the individual needs to carry out a kind of introspection, an analysis in which he determines if he is still capable of living in community. Only then will he be able to achieve Anachôresis (I) (ana = distance; Chorein = return to a distant place). It is an act, even a state, in which the individual separates from the world by going to a lonely and isolated place, which does not have to be connected to a community. It is an act of abandonment and hindsight. This is the only way to have the clarity necessary to start over.
The complex is that place where you can start over. And over again. It is the place where you are supposed to feel safe, the place you are supposed to belong, because it is the place where everyone belongs with their own rhythms.
