Jean-Jacques Collective

Festival of Architecture, October 2021, Ostend BE

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Gewaarwording Loanword from the German dialect gewaarwordink
'to become conscious of impressions from outside, or of internal afflictions'
Root PIE wara, 'to see, to notice, to care for'
Extensions of this root are 'to perceive' and 'to preserve'

Body 'material shell'
Composition from the Old Saxon lijc, 'corpse'

and the Germanic haam 'casing, covering'
Root PIE leig 'form, shape' + kem- 'to cover'

Within architecture, bodily analogies are sometimes invoked, such as the urban fabric, the skin of the house, the structural skeleton... Conversely, there are architectural references within anatomy, such as the intestinal canal, the cell wall and the cell membrane. Or physical mechanisms are "translated" into architecture. The sewage system of a house is in some respect an extension of the digestive system. Only because the skin of a human being sweats and everyone breathes, the house should also be able to sweat and breathe. The metaphors also appear in sayings and proverbs: wiping the floor with someone, banging one's head against the wall, to go a bridge too far, to be a wallflower, your body is a temple, slamming the door...These expressions can offer a retrospect at everyday experiences and also make us reflect on concepts and actions within a particular culture. They suggest that body and architecture refer to each other. I am looking for a methodology that allows me to explore and express the relationship between body, architecture and the environment. If architecture can be considered a metaphor for the human body, what can they mean to each other?

Skin 'covering, skin'
Derived from Latin cutis 'skin' and Greek cutos 'skin, covering'
Root PIE (s)cue(h)- 'to cover, envelop, shelter, shed'
extension of this root is husa 'building as a dwelling, house' derived from Germanic

With admiration I study the anatomy of a turtle. Here cell, body and house coincide in a compact whole, which is also mobile. The house is carried by the body. The turtle is permanently nomadic and can therefore move and wander freely in its environment. This reminds me of a sentence that (ex)architect Wim Cuyvers once wrote for me when signing his book: "Architecture = that which makes it possible to be outside". This statement intrigued me because architecture usually encloses something in order to protect it from the elements. I enclose my body. The architecture becomes a second protective skin, around my own skin. By wearing the architecture, I am free to be inside and outside at the same time. Nomadic architecture is elemental, compact and contains only the essential. This allows me as a researcher to be closer in touch

with my surroundings.

The house is worn on the skin like a second protective shell. Architecture thus becomes almost an extension of the body. Between them, a compact micro-climate is created that separates the two. I read in the book 'Rebecca Horn' (Giuliana, Horn, Spector, Germano, 1993) of a piece on Freud, who cites that every technological advance is, in addition to their inherent mechanical power, a bodily tool. They serve to enhance our bodily capacities. For example, glasses, lenses, or telescopes serve to enhance the eye, and means of transportation expand our bodily movement... "Technology is ultimately a prosthesis, or rather, it is the ultimate prosthesis." Architecture too undergoes technological advances, and I consider the house a prosthesis that protects our naked skin.

In time, science could be so advanced that architecture in the built form would no longer be needed to protect the body and could be replaced by such technological prosthesis. Basic needs such as light, air, water, food and information would then be maintained through global networks that control the biomechanisms of our bodies. "In this synthetic nature, the city leaves behind its built form: it is only defined by spontaneous, temporary groupings of a nomadic humanity, free in its movements and relationships." (Superstudio, 2021). In this future perspective architecture and body merge into one.

Walking 'to walk, to wander, to go, to turn, to move, to change, to exchange, to wander, to change direction'
Root PIE uend- 'to wrap around'
Extensions of this root are wall, turn, reign, guts

The danger of this trend is that we lose touch with our own natural bodies. Yuval Harari talks in the book "21 Lessons for the 21st Century," about the impact of technology on the human body, "Over the course of the last century, technology has alienated us from our bodies. We have slowly lost our ability to pay attention to what we smell and taste. We don't do that anymore, because we are completely absorbed by our smartphones and computers. We care more about what happens in cyberspace than down the street." (Harari, 2019). We also need to be less aware. By now we are no longer living life as an alert hunter-gatherer. We don't have to rely on our sense of smell or taste to find edible food; we can go to the supermarket. Still, being in touch with your own body is important in order to feeling connected to your own experiences. "People who become alienated from their bodies, their senses and their physical environment often start to feel alienated and disoriented. - If you don't feel at home in your own body, you will never feel at home in the world either." (Harari, 2019). Thus, technology impacts our connection to our bodies, which in turn impacts our experience of space.

Rebecca Solnit also speaks about the influence of technological progress on our position in space in her book "Wanderlust". Since postmodernism, a dualistic positioning towards space emerged. On the one hand, people are hypermobile by using cars, planes and other vehicles to move around. This form of movement requires no help from muscles, the body is moved. On the other hand, humans live immobile, housed in offices and buildings.The body was stripped of manual labor and is thus free from all physical effort and pain. She advocates reconnecting with one's body and using it to position ourselves in a space: "Walking allows the body to return within its original boundaries, within something that is flexible, sensitive and vulnerable, but walking itself also reaches out into the world, as do those instruments that augment the body." (Solnit, 2001).

Both positionings, hypermobile and immobile, demonstrate a certain passivity and comfort. The word comfort is derived from the Old French confort, meaning 'courage' (11th century), 'help' and 'consolation' (13th century). The term is derived from the Latin com- and fortis, or "strong". In the modern sense, the word is borrowed from the English comfort (19th century), meaning 'material ease'. It seems that over time the term has become more passive and materialistic. By examining the etymology of a concept or notion, shifts in- or even narrowing of meaning becomes legible. The modern meaning of comfort can have a misleadingly pampering effect on its user and a crippling effect on the body. In development of new technologies or products there's barely any attention for this. "Most people, in choosing a new home, look for comfort: a serene atmosphere, smooth walls and floors, a logical layout. Nonsense. People, particularly old people, shouldn't relax and sit back to help them decline. They should be in an environment that stimulates their senses and invigorates their lives." (Gins, Arakawa, 2002). It will be important for me to re-engage, activate and sensitize the body when moving through a space. By going for a walk my senses are stimulated.

From an evolutionary perspective, walking is the first typical feature of being human. A child wants to learn to walk out of a natural curiosity. When a child experiences new sensory stimuli from the environment, it tends to explore that which is out of reach. This playful love of the new falls under the term neophilia and can be pushed back by a natural fear of the new, neophobia. Throughout life, both terms are weighed against each other. This urge to investigate as a goal in itself lies at the basis of the development of humans: "In the higher mammals, and to a very great extent in ourselves, research for research's sake has been emancipated as a distinct, separate driving force. Its function is to give us as subtle and composite an awareness as possible of the world around us and our own capacities in relation to it. - What we acquire in this way can be applied later, wherever, whenever and in whatever context. - But it is interesting that over time, and after technical development has become more and more linked, the pure urge to investigate has receded even in the scientific sphere." (Morris, 2007). I try to leave the neophobia behind and encourage the natural urge for investigation withinin myself. I turn to the research field and go out, ready for new discoveries.

WALKING METHODOLOGY

I implement the two approaches, walking and investigating, by making experimental walks. For each walk, I start from new instructions, causing me to relate to the space differently each time. Because of the constantly changing environment, the same instruction in the same place, but at a different time can always lead to new observations and interactions. I try to give form to the bodily stimuli I experience while moving in a space. In a sense, the body is the medium of communication between me and my environment. This methodology requires the researcher to have an open mind, a playful attitude with each step into the unknown. In the work 'Architecting Bodies by Emmersive Gestures' by Annelies De Smet she names the attitude play-legged: the 'play leg' is the leg on which the weight of the upright body does not lean. This leg slips its stability function, and therefore everything that is static, stable and known. The heel of this leg does not touch the ground, which offers the
opportunity to take a step into the dynamic, unpredictable, messy environment.

I become aware of intensities from the environment, such as sights, smells, sounds, movements and thoughts. Noticing those specific elements; seeing a dangling twig or feeling a piece of string in my pocket is crucial for the development of an idea. The prior image does not exist. The idea arises from a particular moment because of certain elements in an environment. In this sense, an action or artifact that arises from such an idea is a reaction rather than an action. The instructions I impose on myself and the 'skins' I wear, encourage me to become sensitive to these elements and to recognize them. I acknowledge that which was previously invisible, because we had become accustomed to the
the ever-present image or had simply forgotten it. Becoming aware of the environment can in this way be a start to (re)appreciate them. In this way, an attitude can emerge in which a sense of care and responsibility for the environment is a central value.

Care 'devotion, concern'
Root PIE suergh- 'to worry, to be concerned about, to grieve, to be sick'

A caring attitude is something that receives little attention in today's architectural world. The development of a design often centers on a predetermined image. In the implementation we then look at which materials, techniques, etc. can be used to meet that image. This means that concept and environment are completely independent of each other. In this case it is not the designers, but the maintainers of the environment; the residents, the janitor, the cleaning service, the garbage collectors, the gardeners ... who take on the responsibility of care. Mierle Laderman Ukeles acknowledges their importance in her Maintenance Art Manifesto: "Two basic systems: Development and Maintenance. The sourball of every revolution: after the revolution, who's going to pick up the garbage on Monday morning? - ... - Maintenance: keep the dust off the pure individual creation; preserve the new; sustain the change; protect progress; defend and prolong the advance; renew the excitement; repeat the flight;" (Laderman, 1969).

Maintenance is essential to the preservation of our living world, both on the scale of my skin, and on the scale of my home and my environment. I wash my skin, I take care of my wounds, I sew my house, I repair the cracks, I improve parts, I sand away rust, I remove trash, I weed, I repair sights, I sweep paths. What is made with care and then maintained, is sustainable. Hence it is just as much the role of the architect to develop with care for the environment as it is to (offer the possibility to) be able to maintain that which is developed.

MAINTENANCE METHODOLOGY

On walks, my body is the engine that determines my position in space. When I take on the role of mainainer, I reinforce my body with elementary tools such as a shovel, a file, a brush, an axe, a pair of pruning shears... tools that become the extensions of my body and strengthen it like a prosthesis. Like taking steps while walking, maintenance involves an endless repetition of the same movement. The different nurturing actions bring me into a certain rhythm each time:

shovel, kick, sway; shovel, kick, sway; shovel, kick, sway;

scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub, scrub,

sweep, step, sweep; sweep, step, sweep; sweep, step, sweep;

sway, sway, slash; sway, sway, slash; sway, sway, slash;

click, tap, snap; click, tap, snap; click, tap, snap;

knock, knock, knock, puff; knock, knock, knock, puff; knock, knock, knock, puff;

This maintenance instruction, like the instructions and suits on my walks, enables me to move through the environment in a different way. From time to time I lose focus on the maintenance work. My mind gets bored. At those times, my body is more sensitive to stimuli from the environment. Those stimuli, in turn, can be transformed into artifacts and give rise to interventions. The expressions gradually start to contribute to a new language that reflects the sensitivities of the relationship between body and environment. An advantage of this second method is that it can be applied to different scales. I can take care of both skin, house and environment. This gives me reason to test whether I can apply this attitude at the scale of a plot of land with a feral, fenced garden.

Garden 'yard, enclosure, enclosed space, site'
Possibly derived from root PIE dhunôti 'shaking, shaken up earth, burial mound'
Extensions of this root is 'dune'

The fenced garden envelops me like a new skin. The space between me and the fence is much larger than the space between me and my suits. The level of protection is lower. This in-between space is my new environment. I try to walk a path, a task that proves impossible due to the dense vegetation of trees, shrubs and grasses. To appropriate this space, I must first of all maintain, restore and preserve it.

This new working method does not leave my body unaffected. My skin gets scraped, burned, pricked, bitten and swollen. The pain, in a way, heightens awareness; it brings focus to a particular place. Novelist Lies Gallez has anything but a negative view of pain: "The connection to your body you feel through physical pain. What does that tell me? Pain wants to tell us something, we have to translate it, then it says something more.". (Gallez, 2021) I am once again using my body as a communication tool and I am alert to any sensitivity. As on my urban walks, I never know what I will discover.

In this protected third skin of the fenced garden I position my SKINHOUSE and WALKHOUSE. I plant them into this new environment. I re-enter the role of an anonymous spy. I experience subtleties, sights, smells, differences in temperatures which I did not notice before the maintenance work: the spiders on the sunny garden wall, the cries of the jackdaws protecting their nest from a buzzard, the trembling of the greenhouse windows during a thunderstorm, tasting the edible flowers that pop up from under the gravel... The unexpected sensations take me out of the focus of the work, but strengthen the relationship between my body and the environment. Although I have fewer comforts in this wild garden, I prefer it over the existing house that provides the best protection, but which strongly separates me from my surroundings. Besides, less maintenance is required there. From my new position I have 360° view and overview. The floor here smells like summer and feels damp and cool. A nest of blue tits in the orchard alarms me when there are visitors. My body learns to respond to their call, which functions as a reliable doorbell at twists and turns of the environment.

Charlotte Van Geyte