AB: Did you always want to be an architect?
CR: Uh-huh, yeah.
AB: Did you play with Legos a lot when you were a kid?
CR: I had Legos, but the thing that I loved most was Gerder and Panel System: a Kenner product that isn’t made anymore, but I collect it. It was inspired by Meis Vandero Mies Van der Rohe. It’s little tiny I-Beams and little tiny columns that you hook together to make a Seagram building and then there are panelized facade elements and the snap them on and you’ve got yourself instant Seagram. I played with that more than anything and I still do.
AB: I’m thinking about how to phrase this question – I was reading about the Eco House* – and I couldn’t stop thinking about the Borg from Star Trek. I’m not sure if you’re familiar, but they became one with computers, I guess. Nature and technology merge. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. So, this is a two-tiered question. Do you think it’s possible that there can be a house that gives as much back to the earth as it takes? And, concomitantly, do you think it will happen?
CR: It seems like to continue as a race – to speak very broadly about how we interact with the earth – to continue as a race, basically everything we make has to be almost 100% reusable in some way or another. The thing that we’re all realizing is that the Sun is the most powerful thing we have: it’s what gives all energy here. We have to come up with better ways to harness that. I think it’s on the way. There’s no reason why we shouldn’t be able to fuel all our lives with the sun’s energy.
AB: Architecture as natural assimilation. If you daily lives unfold in a build that gives back to the earth in someway, does that building then become part of nature or the earth?
CR: No. Building culture is always a human endeavor. I don’t think it can ever become natural, but I do think it can emulate nature. I think it becomes an organism and that’s perhaps natural. I think buildings can start to react – it’s like a second set of clothing or a second skin. We had a lot of that in the Eco House project. Certain things happened when the sun hit the house, certain things change: the glass changed, it shielded itself when it rained, the awnings opened up to harness the rain. It was already starting to be an organism. What could happen is that when you’re not there, the house turns into a ball or it changes its shape – it expands when you are there, when you need to occupy the space. Why have all that space when you’re not in it. So, it starts to react to – a second part of your body. That can happen as technology advances and we can build more out of fabrics and things like that and insulate between layers and make houses that are much softer and behave much more like animals. The problem is that we really like our solid surfaces so we can hang art on them.
AB: We could project things.
CR: Yes, but I think we’re still pretty enamored with the old fashioned way of objects. We really like our possessions. It’s an American or Western quality that doesn’t really translate in the East, all though it does now. We are collectors. Our whole economy is based on replacement of things with more things. It doesn’t make any sense. It’s really horrible. It’s unnecessary… I guess what’s happened is that maybe there’s an equation – there’s collusion or a merger of food and sustenance and pleasure and extravagance. They are, in our mind, linked: both are pleasure and both are necessary. That’s why we’re fat and that’s why we have lots of things.
*Download the NY Times article on Diller Scofidio + Renfro’s imagined Eco-House here.
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JP
Great Interview!
I love architects.
Matt
I’d totally forgotten how much I loved Girders & Panels when I was a kid too! (page 4) Especially the roof panels with the little bubble skylights…Interesting guy–Great interview, Q.
clm
“It was inspired by Meis Vandero.”
It’s spelled Mies Van der Rohe.
andrew
Ha! Thanks,
AB
hells kitchen guy
Miss Van der Ho would be a good name for a drag queen, though.
Matt
hellskitchenguy: Brilliant drag queen name!! I may take up drag just to use it…
Daniel Gonzales, AIA, LEED AP
Buildings have “reacted” to the environment around them in an automated fashion since the thermostat was invented. The buildings described in this article are just MORE responsive/sophisticated than what has been built previously. I don’t believe this means we as architects are emulating nature rather we are simply creating better buildings.
This article also describes a building “giving back to nature” but I would argue the best a building can do is to impact nature as little (and use as few resources) as possible.
charles renfro
Strange to tell-I get calls and letters about what I’m creating in New York. I am a Bucks Cty. PA architect and only do Park Slope in that area so please be carefull what you do and say as I will get some feedback. A coment by a member of the press prompted me to look for this site. I am living in my house on Cape Cod for a while but my E-mail address will allways reach me so you can warn me if you are going to upset the media in any way. That way I can be elsewhere. Best Wishes! Chuck
Hellorinis
I just wanted to say that Charles Renfro is one of the chicest men ever. I am quite taken with his personal style and find his outfits most engaging. The architecture is fine, the outfits everlasting.
Tom
Mr. Renfro, I have a question to ask you, please contact me at [email protected], thanks