Presence and atmosphere
tools for the virtual and the invention of a new event structure
pp. 46-50
in: Roy Ascott, Gerald Bast, Wolfgang Fiel, Margarete Jahrmann, Ruth Schnell (eds), New realities, Berlin, Springer, 2009Abstract
In a lecture in Vienna, 2006, Francois Roche of R&Sie Architects spoke about his fascination with non-Euclidean, inexact or computational geometries for generating complex, changeable, and formless shapes. For Roche, this re-thinking of form has gained increasing attention in architecture largely due to the advancements of the new digital technologies for modeling, on the one hand, and the innovations in fabrication and specific material performances, on the other. In addition to formless geometry, R&Sie's projects exemplify how formless, highly sensual material operates across and through a surface disabling the imposition of form. One of his favorite projects, Roche stated, is the house for an art collector in Trinidad in 2003, titled Mosquito Bottleneck. Amidst the paradise-like environment of the tropic island, there lurk two threads that are on a rather different scale, the hurricanes and the mosquito-borne West Nile Fever virus.