STELVIO. A NOVEL HANDS-OFF APPROACH TO DESIGN OF SETTLEMENTS AS SELF-ORGANIZING SYSTEMS OF GROWTH AND DECAY
Martin Ebensperger
Univ.Prof. Günther H. Filz
ended 2022
Abstract. "One must study not only finished forms, but also the forces that moulded them: the form of an object is a diagram of forces", D`Arcy Wentworth Thompson.
The term „settlement" is mainly associated with planned, organized and ultimately realized buildings. Settlements, in the sense of architecture and urban planning, are superimposed on the environment by humans. Natural but also climatic conditions have a great influence on how we design architecture and how we live and feel at harne in it. The history of civilization knows countless unplanned settlements. Under the pressure to find sustainable solutions, we orient ourselves on the models and systems of nature. This potential should be used to create architecture that adapts to a constant change of natural and biological processes. The structures should live from the natural conditions, but not destroy the environment, they should influence the processes of nature as little as possible. lt is therefore absolutely necessary to subject the architecture to a constant process of change in order to adapt to the landscape and climatic conditions.
This work indicates a hands-off approach to the design of self-organizing systems based on growth and decay of settlements. Nonlinear design processes are used to design and illustrate life cycles of the architecture. The starting point is the definition and simulation based on prevailing dynamic parameters. These include the play of light and shadow of a solar analysis; erosion caused by the constant flow of rain and melt water; wind, pressure and suction on landscape and objects; growth and decay. The extreme alpine region severely affected by climate change, from the valley to the Stelvio Pass at an altitude of 2,757 m above sea level in South Tyrol, northern ltaly, serves as the test site for this case study. Building in the alpine, high mountain and glacier regions poses great ecological and physical challenges. Therefore, it is essential to study the area for its individual climatic parameters, as self-organizing systems rely on such. However, the developed concept is not only valid for the chosen test site, it can also be applied to any location on our planet.
The results of the simulations, which were initially ca rried out sepa rately, show tra nsformation processes that constantly adapt to the landscape topography, climatic conditions and physical laws. These transformation processes are represented with the help of time periods, in intervals of one to 30 years. In the course, these simulations are superimposed, merged, tested, observed and evaluated on the representative test site of the Stelvio Pass. The observations and evaluations additionally include the growth and decay of habitable structures in cycles of up to more than 300 years, always under the effects of different parameters related to the context of the landscape. The investigations address a wide range of scales, including the macro-level, of the landscape, the meso-level, of the settlements, down to the microlevel, of the individual buildings, together with their nature-friendly materials and surfaces. This results in unthought forms and structures of settlements and buildings that cyclically reshape and reorganize the landscape by influencing erosion, redirecting the water flow, and purifying airflows, while integrating and adapting to the environment. Modern and futuristic technologies offer benefits for nature in general, not only exclusively for humans. The cycle of the resulting structures, settlements and buildings enters a state of permanent, sustainable development and thus forms a kind of second nature, which consumes and produces. Humans, animals and plants benefit equally from this ecological change. lt thus lives up to the claim of being a forward-looking and environmentally friendly alternative concept.