fabric | rblg

Note: While the Biennale di Venezia (2025) slowly reach its end, next November, we published a few pictures on our PIxelfed account. 

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By fabric | ch (on Pixelfed)

Note: the new project Atomized/Retroffited Functioning by fabric | ch has been selected for La Biennale di Venezia / 19th International Architecture Exhibition (2025), curated by C. Ratti.

The piece is currently on display in the Corderie (main exhibition space of the Arsenale, Venice) and will stay exhibited until the 23rd of November 2025 (10.05 – 23.11.2025).

The project present a live iteration of the ongoing Atomized (*) series of work, at this occasion within a fictional space that gather dynamic planetary conditions, in the form of environmental data coming from meteo stations across the globe.

This is a series of radical algorithmic experiments that fabric | ch discreetly initiated in 2014 with a publication—Desierto #3, 28°C—, and an experimental project—Reponsive Atmospheric Patios—on “spatial and environmental intelligence”: real-time environmental data feeds into the automated and continuous assembly of previously “atomized” elements of architectural functions (as well as a diverse set of “atoms” of use/misuse/non-use of space). The results help us to study renewed and evolving assemblies for our changing planet.

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The whole project, its genealogy, and the current live feed are presented on https://www.fabric.ch/Atomized/

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By fabric | ch

The "Pulsar Map" (Peirce quincuncial projection), or live environmental data coming from the selected planetary and historical setllements locations: Venice (IT), Athens (GR), Uruk (IR), Tokyo (JP), Vancouver (CA), Chicago (US), Manchester (EN), Brasilia (BR), North Pole (-). These live data help us build a fictional and planetary live space, to be investigated by Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning. 

Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning

Loosely inspired by particle physics experiments, where collisions reveal fundamental forces, the project explores new spatial paradigms by rethinking past functional assemblies. It parallels retrofitting, adapting spatial configurations to evolving climates and digital realities rather than following fixed models.

Drawing at the same time on vernacular architecture, which historically responded to local climates through material intelligence (notably the work of Professors F. Aubry at EPFL, and B. Rodofsky at Cooper Union, as well as Philippe Rahm’s contemporary interpretation), the project extends this logic into computational realms. It examines the patterns and phasing effects of contemporary space between material and non-material milieux.

The project takes form as an abstract and speculative habitable volume, where environmental data from key locations in human habitation evolution generate shifting conditions—day and night, hot and cold, urban and desert—coexisting in one space. This approach enables simulations of future climatic conditions, while using real-time data from 2025 during the Venice Biennale.

Presented as a video screencast of an application running live on a server in fabric | ch's studio, driven by machine learning, the project autonomously generates spatial scenarios that stabilize twice a day. These can be downloaded in parallel as an immersive, walkable AR/VR experience.

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Then, tendencies can be drawn: what is the average presence of a certain type of content (functional, non-functional) over 3 or 6 months (from May to November 2025), for instance, or also only during Venetian nights? During Spring or Summer, etc.? Incoming climate behaviour could also be extrapolated from scientific forecasts: what will the climate be like in 2050? And in 2100? Or conversely, what was it like in 1972, for instance (the year The Limits to Growth was published, which was a clear first warning—even if imperfect—of what was to come if “growth” remained unchecked)?

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And then, from a haze of potential space use, and non-use, opened and closed volumes can be drawn. None of them being entirely suitable, frozen shapes framing freely evolving conditions. 

Images from the project Responsive Atmospheric Patios – extended experiments (fabric | ch, 2016).

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Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning is presented in a standardized way by the curatorial team, with the screencast video of the application running on the servers of fabric | ch. It is installed in the Artificiale section of the Biennale, next to the iconic–and somehow problematic–Seek project (1969–1070), by Nicolas Negroponte and Leon Groisser at the MIT Architecture Machine Group. Next to Architecture as a Living System, by John and Julia Frazer—as part of Cedric Price's Generator project (1976–79), but also of more contemporary (post-)critical takes on "computing" and "cybernetics" through the work of Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler (Calculating Empires, 2022), and others.

Atomized/Retrofitted Functioning in the Corderie building, at Biennale Architettura 2025.19th International Architecture Exhibition, Venice 10.05 – 23.11.2025.

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The project can also be "followed" during the Biennale, at this address: https://www.fabric.ch/Atomized/ , in live streaming during Biennale opening hours.

The whole genealogy of the research and its previous iterations are also accessible at the same location.

Note: fabric | ch is part of the exhibition Summoning the Ghosts of Modernity at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin (MAMM), in Colombia.

The show constitutes a continuation of Beyond Matter that took place at the ZKM in 2022/23, and is curated by Lívia Nolasco-Rószás and Esteban Guttiérez Jiménez. 

The exhibition will be open between the 13th of March and 15th of June 2025.

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By fabric | ch

Atomized (re-)Staging (2022), by fabric | ch. Exhibited during Summing the Ghosts of Modernity at the Museo de Arte Moderno de Medellin (MAMM). March 13 to June 15 2025.

More pictures of the exhibtion on Pixelfed. 

Note: fabric | ch has been selected to be part of the next Venice Biennial of Architecture 2025, starting in May '25.

While we cannot display much of the project engaged for now, these (below) are preliminary studies for what was planned first as a large media/data arrchitecture installation, inspired by previous works (notably Atomized Functioning). It will likely become a more standard presentation of the project driven by the curator's team, in the "Artificiale Canon" part of the exhibition.

Nonetheless, fabric | ch will take part in the Biennale Architettura 2025, alos known as the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

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By fabric | ch

Atomited/Retrofitted Functiong (early draft as large media/data architecture installation, 2025)

 Atomized Functioning & Atmospheric Patios extended study (2018, 2016)

By fabric | ch

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As we continue to lack a decent search engine on this blog and as we don't use a "tag cloud" ... This post could help navigate through the updated content on | rblg (as of 09.2023), via all its tags!

FIND BELOW ALL THE TAGS THAT CAN BE USED TO NAVIGATE IN THE CONTENTS OF | RBLG BLOG:

(to be seen just below if you're navigating on the blog's html pages or here for rss readers)

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Note that we had to hit the "pause" button on our reblogging activities a while ago (mainly because we ran out of time, but also because we received complaints from a major image stock company about some images that were displayed on | rblg, an activity that we felt was still "fair use" - we've never made any money or advertised on this site).

Nevertheless, we continue to publish from time to time information on the activities of fabric | ch, or content directly related to its work (documentation).

Note: as part of a year-long preliminary research into digital exhibitions, we teamed up with the Nam June Paik Art Center (South Korea) - and their incredible collection and archive of Nam June Paik's works -, as well as ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne, to deliver initial thoughts and proofs of concept.

Late last year saw the publication of Mnemosyne, a book on "History and Research in Arts and Design" (ed. Davide Fornari, published by ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne (HES-SO)). 

In this context, I had the chance to be in conversation with NJPAC curator Sang Ae Park about this joint research. Among other topics, we discussed the unrealized piece  – at the time – "Symphony for 20 rooms"  (1961) by Nam June Paik as a potential inspiration for "remote" exhibitions, at home.

This discussion gave ground to the paper "A Symphony for Nam June Paik, Digitally" (below), while this preliminary research is likely to continue in the form of a longer-term research.

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By Patrick Keller

Via

@beyondmatter @zkmkarlsruhe

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Note: a few pictures from fabric | ch retrospective at #EphemeralKunsthalleLausanne (disused factory Mayer & Soutter, nearby Lausanne in Renens).

The exhibition is being set up in the context of the production of a monographic book and is still open today (Saturday 17.02, 5.00-8.00 pm)!

By fabric | ch

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All images Ch. Guignard.

Note: a low-fi, unautomated responsive house, where residents still have to take actions, make decisions that are not delagated to a badly designed algorithm... When it comes (or will soon come) to smart houses, smart cities, etc., we (designers, architects, ...) will have to design algorithms and behaviors that matters and that continue to trigger decisions among people. This is obviously not only an engineer's job. It also is (profund respect), just not only. So, do they teach algorithms and processes design (which remains different than "generative design" commonly taught) in architecture schools? Rarely, I'm afraid...

Via Dezeen

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The resident of a compact apartment in Madrid demonstrates how she can rearrange walls and pull furniture out of the ceiling in this movie by photographer and filmmaker Miguel de Guzmán.

Designed by Spanish studio Elii Architects, the Didomestic apartment occupies the loft of an old building, so it was designed to make optimal use of space by creating flexible rooms that can be adapted for different activities.

Sliding pink partitions allow the main floor to be either opened up or divided into a series of smaller spaces, while a new mezzanine loft provides a bedroom where floor panels hinge open to reveal a vanity mirror, toiletry storage and a tea station.

The architects also added several fun elements to tailor the space to the resident's lifestyle; a hammock, playground swing and disco ball all fold down from the ceiling, while a folding surface serves as a cocktail bar or ironing board.

"Every house is a theatre," explained the architects. "Your house can be a dance floor one day and a tea room the next."

The movie imagines a complete day in the life of the apartment's inhabitant, from the moment she wakes up in the morning to the end of an evening spent with a friend.

"The idea was to show all the different spaces and mechanisms in a narrative way," said De Guzmán.

Getting dressed in the morning, the resident reveals wardrobes built into one of the walls. Later, she invites a friend round for a meal and they dine at a picnic table that lowers down from the kitchen ceiling.

A rotating handle on the wall controls the pulleys needed to bring this furniture down from overhead, while other handles can be used to reveal shelving and fans.

A metal staircase connecting the two levels is contained within a core at the centre of the apartment and is coloured in a vivid shade of turquoise.

A shower room lined with small hexagonal tiles is located to the rear of the kitchen, plus there's a bathroom on the mezzanine floor directly above.

Photography is also by Miguel de Guzmán.

More about if HERE.

Related Links:

By fabric | ch

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Deterritorialized Living is a new project by fabric | ch that we've just published online last week, in relation with the Call and the Talks we are presenting during Close, Closer, the 3rd Lisbon Architecture Triennale curated by Beatrice Galilee (first talk is today, September, 21 at 5pm, LX Factory, Rua Rodrigues Faria, Lisbon, while the second one will be on December, 14).

This project is the result of a residency we did in Beijing last spring, at the Tsinghua University (TASML) and has certainly some unconscious relation with the experience of climate we had in the city!

http://www.deterritorialized.org, the server of Deterritorialized Living, the artificial and livable troposphere.

Deterritorialized Living is an artificial troposphere that reverses our causal relationship to the natural rhythms of day and night, air, seasons, time. It is a “man made” environment where the atmosphere is the effect, continuously shaped from the global activities on the networks produced by humans and robots. The aim of this artificial, almost fictional atmosphere is to give permanent presence (at this stage only in the form of data flows) to what has paradoxically become an ambient, "atmospheric" and contextual experience of deterritorialisation / detemporalisation induced by the massive use of networks, transportation devices, flows of data or communication technologies. Therefore, to literally become able to "breathe" the environment we are generating through our common actions. To some extent, Deterritorialized Living could then also be considered as an information design, delivered in the form of an atmosphere.

As the result of its initial and designed rules, this milieu develops strange behaviors: daylight is always “on” (as there are always activities on the networks) but at variable strengths, nighttime never occurs, air composition regularly reaches “physiological enhancement” levels of high altitude, it is composed of a unique single day that goes back and forth and that ideally last forever, continuous. There are no months, no years.

Deterritorialized Living is delivered in the form of open data feeds which define this “geo-engineered” yet livable environment, computed by the deterritorialized.org server. We expect to develop and use the troposphere in the future in the form of installations, responsive devices and architecture projects.

But the artificial troposphere is also freely available to architects, artists, designers, scientists and makers of all kinds in the form of different “services”: Deterritorialized Air (N2, O2, CO2, Ar), Deterritorialized Daylight (visible light Intensity, IR, UV) and Deterritorialized Time (HH:MM:SS). Additional feeds and refined rules will be added along the time to mature this generated atmosphere.

The live parameters, data and charts that show the evolution of values for Deterritorialized Air (N2, O2, AR, CO2).

Values for Deterritorialized Daylight, including Intensity (lm, visible light), Infrared (w) and ultraviolet (w) as well as Deterritorialized Time (HH:MM:SS), with their related charts. It is interesting to note that the generated time changes along time... but not in a linear manner, it varies between 06:32 and 19:36.

Man page explaining how to access the different data feeds for the ones who would like to develop their own project out of Deterritorialized Living.

These algorithmically designed data feeds can therefore be used independently or combined to drive experimental devices, interfaces, software and speculative livable environments of all kinds (under the responsibility of their authors...).

Let us know if you'll be using it!

Related Links: