Climatic Heterotopias As Spaces of Inclusion - 2020 - Mavromatidis

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Climatic Heterotopias as Spaces of Inclusion
Spaces of Inclusion
Climatic Heterotopias as
Volume 1
Sew Up the Urban Fabric
Lazaros Mavromatidis
Edited by
Research in Architectural Education Set
Lazaros Mavromatidis
coordinated by
First published 2020 in Great Britain and the United States by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as
permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced,
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938678
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-1-78630-677-7
Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix
Chapter 1. Climatic Heterotopias Architectural

Design Studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Lazaros MAVROMATIDIS
1.1. Reinventing the political dimension of
space throughout pedagogy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2. Reinventing an introspective pedagogy to enhance
the architectural conscience of the learners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.3. Tarrying with the Castoriadian “radical imaginary”. . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.4. Creation of an alternative pedagogical praxis: development of
the “climatic heterotopia” notion within a global climate regime. . . . . . . 5
1.5. Reinventing the “glocal” dimension of space through
a concrete exercise of “translocal” space creation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.6. Pedagogical program, content and constraints of
the “climatic heterotopias” architectural design studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.7. Intellectual outputs of the “climatic heterotopias”
architectural design studio . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
1.8. Synoptic overview of the “climatic heterotopia”
according to the students’ essays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
Chapter 2. Of Other Climates: Glocal Climatic

Constructal Heterotopias . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
vi Climatic Heterotopias as Spaces of Inclusion
Chapter 3. Redefine the Contemporary

Spatio-social Mentalities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
Carole BEAUFUMÉ
3.1. Change the mentalities: the first step of a sustainable transition . . . . . 45
3.2. My climatic heterotopia: an economical,
ecological and social experiment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Chapter 4. Redefine the Body as the Physical Constitution of

the Human Being . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Claire AUBRY
Chapter 5. The Pause or Dreaming in the Woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Estelle AURAY
Chapter 6. A Territory of One’s Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Fleur LAGARRIGUE
Chapter 7. The Hegelian Dimension of Climate

as a Feeling Atmosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Milan ENGSTRÖM
Chapter 8. Rhythm as the Tool to Create

Heterochrony and Innovative Territorialities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Jonas KAMMERER
Chapter 9. Story for an Illusory Hope Against

an Absurd Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Bérénice VALLANCE
Chapter 10. The Fluidic Climatic Heterotopia – Fractures,

Flows, Chaos, Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Vincent PAPAZIAN
10.1. The infinite fracture – anything is but continuous . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
10.2. The world seen as fluxes: interconnected
“climatic heterotopias” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
10.3. Praising the overload: climatic heterotopia
of movement and chaos . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
10.4. Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Contents vii
Chapter 11. Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Mélodie PEZET
Chapter 12. Introspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Aurore PEILLET
Chapter 13. Sew Up the Urban Fabric:

The Architectural Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Claire AUBRY, Estelle AURAY, Carole BEAUFUMÉ, Milan ENGSTRÖM,
Jonas KAMMERER, Fleur LAGARRIGUE, Vincent PAPAZIAN, Aurore PEILLET,
Mélodie PEZET, Bérénice VALLANCE and Lazaros MAVROMATIDIS
Chapter 14. The Auto-poetic Spirit of a Creative Learning Society

Within a Multifaceted Context of Crises . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
List of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Preface
In 2015, two of the best students I ever had captured me during the
official diploma ceremony at INSA Strasbourg. “Monsieur,” they said,
“you have a different manner of teaching that we really find penetrating,
liberating and extraordinary. Why don’t you write a book about your ideas,
which in our opinion are very original and could create a novel theoretical
current for the architectural pedagogy of the 21st Century? We, the students
of architecture, really struggle being put within an academic structure where
architectural pedagogy is oriented to teach us restricted methodological
patterns, while our auto-poetical dimension is penalized in the framework of
a severe evaluation by juries that have solely a restricted professionalized
vision that castigates creativity and openness.” I liked the suggestion and
started working on this book as well as on the development and the
institutionalization of an alternative architectural design studio that aims to
inverse the dominant pedagogical models.
The “climatic heterotopias” architectural design studio is part of my

pedagogical and research work at INSA Strasbourg and ICube laboratory
that focuses on the redefinition of architecture as an alternative scientific,
social and artistic discipline. This architectural design studio is an alternative
space with horizontal organization that adopts dynamic ever-changing
penetrating positions in order to offer to the students the freedom of
experimentation.
What exactly does it mean to adopt “alternative” positions in

architecture? This question is anything but innocent, naive and neutral,
insofar as it conceals a strong political dimension, constantly underlined by
Feyerabend (1993) in the past. We live in a time when humanity is under
x Climatic Heterotopias as Spaces of Inclusion
a threefold threat: invisible and visible wars, climate and social crises, and in
2020 we have also the sanitary crisis that is added to our agendas.
All these crises are directly and indirectly dealing with the way we conceive,
operate and administrate space. Social inclusion, climate change
anticipation, urban agriculture and improvement of urban sanitary conditions
are in the heart of our architectural investigations within the “climatic
heterotopias” architectural design studio.
Thus, the main idea of my intention (as an academic as well as a citizen),

working directly with these subjects, is to dare to attack the great myth of
modern times: the myth that consists of giving to architecture the status of an
interdisciplinary practice that spatially formalizes the ultimate shelter of
power and authority, becoming the spatial instrument at the service of the
State and its constraints. Throughout the pedagogical praxis that I developed,
I propose to defend the rights of the individual (conceiver and user) against
community encroachments, which, by channeling – through pedagogical
doctrines and “well established examples and references” – the
architectural/spatial formulation of these rights, tend in the last instance to
annul them. Hence, in the framework of the present architectural design
studio, I reject established models of knowledge and I do not comply with
any institutionally imposed “obligation”.
Being based on Feyerabend’s epistemology (1993), I wanted to create an

open-ended horizontally organized architectural design studio to fight
against the “tyranny of the method”. The approach that stipulates that
everything goes, anything works, it is above all my central argument with
the aim to restore the individual mind of my students in its fundamental
capacities of critical examination, and not only to deliver the process of
production of architectural knowledge from chaos. This is why I give them
the opportunity to express themselves through writing and to publish a book
that is composed of texts of all of us.
Thus, even though I accompanied the pedagogical praxis with my

theoretical lectures during our project sessions, I argue here that the ultimate
decision-making power must rest with the students’ individual will, in order
to be credited with inexhaustible creativity and inventiveness in themselves,
if, however, they are not contained by my outside intervention as an
“expert”. In other terms, within this architectural design studio, we are all
searching for a common and personal truth “inwards” and “from the
bottom”. For this reason, the “climatic heterotopias” architectural design
Preface xi
studio aims to introduce in the architectural teaching the tortuous techniques

of Socratic dialectic. I focus on establishing an environment where the
pedagogical praxis is an explicit reference to maieutic, that is, to the art of
giving birth to spirits, enhancing students’ creativity.
I smoothly intervened in their texts, and I certainly didn’t want to

transform their personal narratives into rigid academic reports/essays, even
though I admit that some passages may appear immature to the “ossified
expert” reader. This “imperfection”, however, is the seductive element of
this book that makes it unique in comparison to other similar pedagogical
handbooks.
Alternatively, since I personally find every text very rich in terms of

ideas, I desired to give theoretical value to the non-academic intellectual
models that are sketched within these instinctive and introspective personal
narratives. I decided, instead of changing their texts, to introduce in the form
of comments an open public dialogue inserting academic references that
deepen the introspective narratives of my students. Through this decision,
I also intend to place the reader within the architectural studio, making
her/him part of our learning community. This history explains the form of
the book. The book you hold on your hands is not a systematic treatise; it is
an open introspective public dialogue between a tutor and his students
mutually addressing their particular foibles.
So, I invite the reader to read beyond the texts and to imagine the rich
potential that can be asserted to the spaces that have been conceived on the
basis of this liberating exercise. In other terms, I invite the reader to observe
throughout the pages of this book how a common dynamic identity is
formulated without imposing prerogatives and methodological doctrines.
The main tool that has been used is an open dialogue with the members of
our small experimental community in order to enhance introspection. Being
based on Feyerabend (1993), my main intention is to learn to my students
how “to be ad hoc”, pushing their hypotheses thoroughly, without worrying
about whether these hypotheses are true or not, which is only possible after
the fact, or in other terms after the construction and operation of their spatial
arguments. For me, this is the only way to exasperate their Castoriadian
“radical imaginary”.
Conclusively, through my pedagogical praxis, I attempt to promote an

environment where each student is committed, with a maximum of
xii Climatic Heterotopias as Spaces of Inclusion
conviction in the realization of a scientifically and artistically thought-out

and reasoned architectural project which, undoubtedly, includes many
uncertainties, but which, if it were not accompanied by uncertainties, would
not have been an architectural project. The outcome of each student’s
proposal may not be guaranteed in advance but has nevertheless been
rigorously conceived, from an overview of all its implications (social,
spatial, etc.), the most important of which consisted of a global
reconfiguration of the concept of natural reality, putting an end to the
architectural reproduction of a closed contemporary world whose laws
blindly follow dominant architectural and spatial speculative narratives, as
well as the laws of economy that continuously transform space to
merchandise.
Strasbourg, May 2020
1
Climatic Heterotopias
Architectural Design Studio
1.1. Reinventing the political dimension of space throughout

pedagogy
How do we reverse the dominant narratives throughout pedagogy

regarding space creation in a contemporary complex environment that is
globally characterized by the accumulation of various multifaceted crises?
The present book has grown out of my pedagogical and research intention to
develop a new kind of architectural consciousness in my students’
imagination via an alternative model of pedagogy. In this pedagogical
approach, the architectural design studio is organized according to a
horizontal hierarchy in order to propose a novel relation between the tutor
and the students and eliminate our Vitruvian phantoms and obsessions that
persist today.
Thus, this book aims to reintroduce the fundamental ontological question

regarding what is architecture and urbanism through a pedagogy that is
developed in order to give the freedom to the students to find their own
answer-narrative. This means that instead of putting strict guidelines and
flirting with the professional and institutional jargon, my main concern was
to organize the whole architectural design studio in a way that promotes
a continuous dialogue with the active subjects (and not passive objects) of
Chapter written by Lazaros MAVROMATIDIS.
Climatic Heterotopias as Spaces of Inclusion: Sew Up the Urban Fabric,

First Edition. Edited by Lazaros Mavromatidis.
© ISTE Ltd 2020. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
2 Climatic Heterotopias as Spaces of Inclusion
my pedagogical praxis, the students/learners. Therefore, the aim of this

pedagogical praxis is to also insert in the dialogue about urban space the
arguments, voices, concerns and perspectives of those who are not in the
forefront of the scene and who do not hold positions of power. This book is
a modest proposition for alternative pedagogical perspectives based on such
concerns in order to redefine architecture and urbanism as major disciplines
that possess the power to transform neutral and commercialized space to
a political urban element for inclusion by reinventing everyday practices,
which may significantly contribute to make our cities more habitable and
sustainable.
Thus, the most significant intervention into dominant architectural and

urban theories offered by this book is to dismantle the central
dichotomization into architecture and urbanism, which appears due to the
theorization of space in relation to the scale of intervention. According to
this dichotomization, the dominant contemporary narrative is that urban
space has to be phantasmagoric, while architectural space has to be
politically neutral. With the passing of years, this dichotomization is
institutionally and academically supported, with the consequence of
disconnecting space from its inherent political dimension. Even though there
has been alternative research that have underlined the necessity of moving
past this dichotomy about space, none have neither offered a genuine
amplification of the implications this has on the effectiveness of an
architect’s work nor proposed a novel model of pedagogy to face this kind of
disciplinary dead-end.
Or what significant contributions can, nevertheless, be made by

developing through pedagogy a novel holistic conception of space that is
independent of the scale of intervention, in order to restore the direct
connection between multiscale spatial arrangements and their inherent
political substance? In other terms, how can a student of architecture learn
that each choice and design has a multi-scalar effect that can start by the
unconscious reproduction through architectural spatialization of dominant
family models at the building scale and can be expanded to the urban scale
by imposing through design dominant models of urban lifestyle that enhance
exclusion and marginalization?
This book directly deals with these ramifications, for the main purpose of
developing a critical architectural pedagogy that is concretely transmitted
throughout oral lectures and specifically conceived for the purpose of an
Climatic Heterotopias Architectural Design Studio 3
architectural design studio. The aim of this pedagogy is to understand how

these theoretical perspectives and hypotheses can be simultaneously applied
to a real case architectural and urban project situation in a way to provide an
insightful framework to analyze the significance of the deepening
de-politicization of contemporary liberal-democratic dominant in both
theoretical and institutional spatial narratives. This kind of pedagogy aims to
reverse the prevailing global contemporary context, creating during
a pedagogical praxis an alternative theory regarding architecture and spatial
design, by restoring the political and aesthetical characteristics of every
architectural action. Thus, this book aims to offer a discreet contribution
regarding the reinvention of the political dimension of architectural
education, since there is widespread acceptance that all the recent
educational reforms aimed at the de-politicization of the pedagogical praxis
in order to enhance the entrepreneurial dimension of the academic world and
especially of architectural education within a rapid changing environment.
In order to reinvent this ethical dimension of architecture – and in general

of spatial design – I will not propose guidelines or models. I will just focus
on a concrete projectual praxis while defining at the same time an original
theoretical framework that is simultaneously applied on the building and
urban scales and is briefly presented in the next chapter. In other words, this
book tries to identify what is the basis of the unity, cohesion and organized
differentiation of the symbolic dimension of space in relation to a global
society that currently faces multiple crises.
1.2. Reinventing an introspective pedagogy to enhance the

architectural conscience of the learners
Secondly, this book tries to initiate introspection on what is it that brings

about other and new forms of architecture? A question that aims to
investigate how we may understand the way the multiplicity and diversity of
social and political phenomena contributes to an alteration of the dominant
spatial and architectural narratives and theories. At the end of this
introspective process, the purpose is to ad hoc spearhead to an end of the
“old order” that is perpetually reproduced throughout pedagogy and governs
the architectural intuition of students of architecture. Then, the aim is the
establishment of a more personal “new order” that is based on a real internal
exploration of the theoretical potential of each student. In other terms,
the objective of this book is to show that a good architectural pedagogical

model is not a model that creates uniform architectural consciences being
based on a series of guidelines and past references but a model that enhances
introspection and develops distinct variable architectural consciences that are
able to evolve over time in a dialectic relation with the multiple crises that
future societies will have to face.
Furthermore, the presented pedagogical praxis aims at developing, within

the imagination of architect and engineer students, that a good professional
is not only someone who knows how to blindly fulfill normative
requirements and standards accomplishing the design and calculation tasks
being based on the reproduction of past spatial and engineering references.
By putting in the forefront of the scene the theoretical dimension of this
complex multidisciplinary problem in regard to space creation, the
pedagogical act presented in this book demonstrates that before designing
space, we need to identify the specific elements of the spatial problem and
develop a well theorized concept that treats the problem with its multi-scalar
dimension (in other words, independently of the scale of intervention).
1.3. Tarrying with the Castoriadian “radical imaginary”
This pedagogical approach reformulates one of the major arguments of

Cornelius Castoriadis’s work (Castoriadis 1975, 1984, 1991) transposing it
into the world of pedagogical ontology: the dichotomization between two
distinct types of creative incumbencies, autonomy and heteronomy. Within
his works, this dichotomy is shown to erode the capacity of creativity
(Castoriadis 1975, 1984). In our problem, the imaginary institution of the
acting subject is framed within a restrictive pedagogy where heteronomy
dominates and thus the active subject is progressively unconsciously
transformed into a passive object. Thus, the act of pedagogy is converted
into a “totalitarian regime” that blocks the development of what is defined
by Castoriadis as the radical imaginary.
This radical imaginary is completely and definitively replaced by the

socially instituted imaginary (Castoriadis 1974, 1985; Kaika 2011). In two
words, we can say that the instituted imaginary identifies and references the
existing forms, as well as patterns morphologies and architectural
vocabularies, while the radical imaginary is an intrinsic psychological

foundation of each human being who navigates to an ingenious
original utopic world of novel symbol formation (Castoriadis 1975, 1984).
As a result, the contemporary dominant models of “restrictive” pedagogies
make the learners as the passive objects of the architectural education, while
they are solely trained to reproduce past references that are inscribed within
the “dominant culture” relevant to the field.
1.4. Creation of an alternative pedagogical praxis: development

of the “climatic heterotopia” notion within a global climate
regime
Diversely, the pedagogy that is presented in this book aims to stimulate

and offer to the architectural creativity the Castoriadian dimension of
praxis. According to Castoriadis, praxis is a solely conscious lucid activity
that is totally contrasted to the simplistic rational application of prior
knowledge (Castoriadis 1975, 1991 cited in Mavromatidis 2020).
Therefore, in order to achieve this transformation, I had to define and
create a pedagogical praxis of my own while inserting it within a strict and
institutionally regulated pedagogical regime. Simultaneously, being
inscribed in an international official learning system no matter the original
dimension of the pedagogy, I had to fulfill the institutional quantitative
requirements that are presented in the form of curriculum. In other terms,
I had to reinvent the teaching of the architectural design studio in a way
that the learners’ radical imaginary will be stimulated in order to define a
universe of new symbolic formal, theoretical and spatial values. However,
the observable result should be an output that ingeniously gathers
theoretical, qualitative and quantitative characteristics and simultaneously
fulfills the institutional requirements.
To do so, I decided to introduce a novel concept and develop a concrete

exercise of space conception within a real socio-spatial urban context that
faces multiple crises. I initially named this concept “climatic heterotopia”
being based on the Foucauldian spatial dimension of the heterotopia notion
(Foucault 1967) and expanding its content by adding the climatic factor.
As we will see in the following chapter, the notion of heterotopia opens

a variable universe of possible interpretations, even though Foucault
spatially and structurally defined it as a concept with specific properties.
Nevertheless, as we will see throughout this book, heterotopia may obtain

multiple meanings since it is a concept that may introduce complex levels of
multidisciplinary interpretation.
In evolutionary sciences, heterotopia is a concept used to illustrate

evolutionary changes in the specific and well-defined spatial arrangement of
a subject’s development. This meaning completes the inherent property of
heterochrony that consists of a change to the rate or timing of a development
process, making a link with the Foucauldian philosophical definition, since
heterochrony is one of the fundamental spatial principles of heterotopia.
Synchronously, in philosophy, heterotopia is a concept unfolded by

philosopher Michel Foucault to describe certain cultural, institutional and
discursive spaces that are somehow “other” (Foucault 1967): disturbing,
intense, incompatible, contradictory or transforming. This theoretical
concept enriched in the past our agendas regarding the theoretical debates
about space. In the case of my pedagogical intention, the students have been
requested to use both definitions (epistemological and philosophical) in their
attempt to interpret the spatial dimension of contemporary social phenomena
and multifaceted accumulated crises and consequently conceive/design the
space in the framework of our concrete conceptual exercise.
We live in a time of transition where the concepts of “climate change”

and “global climate regime” have become important socio-cultural
phenomena that have a significant and brutal impact on architectural
production. In this architectural design studio, it is proposed to reinvent
architectural design through the interpretation of the concept of heterotopia,
by making the climate as a design parameter that comes from the beginning
of the conceptual act. This is how the notion of climatic heterotopia was
born.
Thus, the main objective of this book is to introduce a pedagogical

approach that does not aim to blindly reproduce dominant architectural and
programmatic stereotypes. On the other hand, in the framework of the
present pedagogical praxis, the students are requested not to treat space in
a simplistic way, but as another area on which the oppositions of social
reality should be “rationally” represented. It has been defined as the only
constraint of the exercise to study and conceive space as a heterogeneous set
in which particular local conditions (climatic, cultural, gender, social,
crises, etc.) must be analyzed to feed the architectural design towards the
goal of being linked to other social and spatio-temporal relations through the
architectural praxis.
To do so, the students have been requested to interpret on their own and
employ the introduced concept of “climatic heterotopia” (both
epistemologically and philosophically). In conclusion, students are requested
in the framework of the present pedagogical praxis to design a multisensorial
architectural, political, cultural and social space using ad hoc light, sound
and climate towards the goal of redefining the sensitive, sensorial and social
dimension of the Q of High Environmental Quality normative labeling.
1.5. Reinventing the “glocal” dimension of space through

a concrete exercise of “translocal” space creation
Let’s now see how the aforementioned intentions have been inserted
within a concrete exercise of space production. The last decades were
characterized by rapid economic and social change that is commonly
communicated under the names of “globalization” and/or “post-industrial
society” (Micha and Vaiou 2019). However, in recent years, a global
multifaceted financial crisis appeared under different forms and affected the
socio-economic phenotype of the urban entities.
Consequently, this fact enhanced and accelerated the urgency for the
development of neo-liberal urban policies that focused solely on the
macroeconomic processes of potential spatial restructuring ignoring local
diversities and particularities (Micha and Vaiou 2019). Thereupon, the
plurality of everyday spaces in contemporary urban settlements tends to be
eliminated, while the real mosaic of socio-spatial situations tends to
be eradicated under the rude commercialization of public space under vast
operations of restructuring (Micha and Vaiou 2019).
Nevertheless, past research, and especially the works of Doreen Massey

and Dina Vaiou1, showed that space is a complex relational system that is
produced due to dynamic interrelationships because of the simultaneous
coexistence of a variety of multiple distinct human trajectories (Massey
2001; Vaiou 2019).
1 Doreen Massey and Dina Vaiou proposed new methodologies for reading the urban space,
putting in the forefront the human trajectories that converge into a spatial arrangement.
Thus, space is not a simplistic neutral construction that can be solely

analyzed and conceived on the basis of technocratic quantitative standards
that propose a uniform treatment neglecting its particular local
characteristics. Space is a complex territory that accumulates material
elements, symbols, imaginary elements and lived experiences creating
diverse parallel networks (Micha and Vaiou 2019). Furthermore, Massey
showed that contemporary space simultaneously presents a local and
a global dimension due to the facility of human and material flows of diverse
origins that are continuously accumulated within the urban territories
(Massey 2001).
According to Peter Smith, cities become translocalities being crossed by

flows of diverse origins and exist via a network of interconnected relations
on a global scale (Smith 1999 cited in Schmoll 2019). We can even extend
this idea by stipulating that contemporary urban space is glocal since
simultaneously the global and the local dimensions coexist creating
a common sense of place.
Thus, having in mind the aforementioned concepts, this book aims to fill
a lag that always exists and is not covered by the agendas of pedagogical
activities in relation to the architectural studies and is especially ignored by
the pedagogical actions that are conducted in the framework of architectural
design studios. The main question that we will try to respond to, in order to
later enhance the political dimension of space through architectural design, is
how to include during the phase of spatial conception the reality of a
continuous diverse population movement in relation to the existence of
intense multiple global, climatic and social crises.
In other terms, the question is how do we reinvent an ingenious glocal

space that is not an a-political neutral human construction that fulfills
quantitative standards but a real sense of place that becomes a space of
inclusion, accepting the diverse human and material flows?
My personal conviction and theoretical posture is that architecture is not

just a discipline that has to follow the decisions of politic lobbies and/or
power centers but rather a science that has the potential to inverse dominant
spatial narratives creating alternative responses to face the multiple social,
financial and climatic crises.
1.6. Pedagogical program, content and constraints of the

“climatic heterotopias” architectural design studio
Thus, our concrete exercise in the framework of the 4th year

architect-engineer architectural design studio titled “climatic heterotopias”
focuses on the following keywords-programmatic elements:
– transition
– inclusion (or integration)
– housing (provisional + permanent)
– education
– free time spaces
– urban agriculture
– social fermentations
In a world of ever-growing dimensions of population movement, there is

a social need that is pushing back in finding patterns, and new models of life
and ways to track/host/integrate incoming and/or nomadic population with
the aim to reduce social exclusion through innovative architectural space and
participation. However, what is not keeping up is the infrastructure to host
a new kind of social fermentations. The cities of today are built on various
factors like cost, operational efficiency, energy consumption and
surveillance systems while being mostly dominated by thoughts of financial
profit. Especially since the global financial crisis, the official discourse
regarding urban regeneration has been closely (and solely) linked to the
investment potential of the urban space.
For this reason, I selected to propose a real site and use it as a case study
that presents real socio-spatial characteristics. This site is an abandoned
airport that is close to the seafront and is integrated within the urban tissue,
constituting a void due to the fact that it remains unused for many years
(so, as just an example, we employed the old Athens airport in Greece).
Even though it has a location with precise local characteristics, this place
is a non-space that could be located in any place on the planet. Furthermore,
this place has an inherent symbolic dimension, manifestly presents global
characteristics and is a distinctive example of a huge urban space with a
tremendous spatial potential that is currently transforming into an investment
area. It seems to be the most appropriate site to illustrate the notion of human
and material flows in a symbolic manner. Moreover, the fact that it is
abandoned introduces into the exercise the notions of territoriality,
rehabilitation, integration (inclusion) within the urban fabric, spatial
redefinition and spatial regeneration.
Additionally, to augment the relevance of the proposed concrete exercise

of space conception to the contemporary society and all the aforementioned
concepts, the exercise focuses also on the contemporary imposed nomadism
that is spatially expressed through migratory flows and homelessness. Thus,
the students are also requested to treat with theoretical and architectural
methodological tools the following precise question by conceiving, creating
and designing a “climatic heterotopia”:
– Do refugees, migrants and the homeless really deserve good design?
– Or, alternatively, do they deserve the dignity of good design?
Actually, refugees, migrants and the homeless are usually seen as

expendables and are considered to “deserve” no better conditions than what
current contemporary cities “offer” according to a general perception.
The social marginalization seems to be a kind of “sanction” that aims to hold
hidden societies accountable for their permanent transitions in order to
“protect” the whole society. In other terms, how could architecture be a
discipline of inclusion through spatialization and climate management?
How might ingenious urban restructuring create the conditions of living
within a community of tolerance and integration?
These two questions come equally in the forefront through the

pedagogical praxis that is presented in this book. In addition, urban farming
is currently emerging by becoming an interesting tool for cost-effective
urban sustainability. For this reason, in the framework of the present
architectural design studio, it is seen as a main point of this case study in
terms of innovative architectural programmatic regeneration and applied
thermal engineering investigation, in order to have the potential to anticipate
social, financial and climatic crises (Mavromatidis 2019).
Additionally, it is argued in the international debate that the

contemporary Occidental world employs urban agriculture as a new
boundary for land use planning, architectural and landscape design in order
to follow “a sustainable urban development and transformation of the
cityscape supporting community farms, allotment gardens, rooftop

gardening, edible landscaping, urban forests, and other productive
features of the urban environment” (Taylor Lovell 2010 cited in
Mavromatidis 2019).
The present architectural design studio introduces – among others– the

idea that urban agriculture can also be a programmatic response to the
contemporary global, climatic, financial and social crisis enhancing
programmatically and architecturally urban areas’ climate change mitigation
from a spatial and an applied thermal engineering perspective and point of
view (Mavromatidis 2019). Besides, according to Taylor Lovell (2010),
“despite the growing interest in urban agriculture, architects, urban
planners and landscape designers are often ill-equipped to integrate
food-systems thinking into future plans for cities while the thermodynamic
and socio-economic potential of such land use change is rarely explored”
(cited in Mavromatidis 2019).
1.7. Intellectual outputs of the “climatic heterotopias”

architectural design studio
Conclusively, the pedagogical challenge was to combine and conjugate

the notions of heterotopia and climate, creating a novel notion under the
name of “climatic heterotopias” that spatially represents inclusion, culture,
climate change mitigation and integration2. The students were requested to
evolve within a free and open-ended environment, having as their only
constraint to develop a program that spatially integrates urban farming
activities with the aim of converting into architecture the aforementioned
keywords due to the specific glocal social and spatial parameters. The
intellectual outputs of the students’ assignments were the following:
– An essay (in English) presenting the personal interpretation of the term

climatic heterotopia and developing an architectural and/or urban program
on the basis of this interpretation in relation to glocal social and urban
characteristics, presenting the main axis of their theoretical position and the
main project intentions (2,500–3,000 words maximum).
2 This notion will be explicitly analyzed in the next chapter, while a detailed complementary
analysis can also be found in Mavromatidis (2020).
– A collage or photomontage illustrating the spatial atmosphere that they

intend to create.
– A multiscale architectural outcome regarding the given site based on
the following submission guidelines: a) site plans (scales 1/10,000, 1/5,000
and 1/1,000), b) key conceptual sections, c) 3D views, e) floor plans, images,
sketches to support the architectural proposal, f) exploded views to discuss
multileveled conceptual models better.
The present book presents the intellectual output of the work conducted
within the architectural design studio titled “Climatic Heterotopias,” mixing
two introductory chapters (Chapters 1 and 2), the individual output of each
student (Chapters 3–12), the teamwork output (Chapter 13), that is, the
common project that this team submitted at the end of the semester, and an
overall conclusion (Chapter 14). Thus, Chapters 3–12 give form to the
theoretical investigation that each student was invited to conduct in order to
theoretically define a personal spatial narrative that is directly correlated
with the notion of “climatic heterotopia” according to a personal
introspective interpretation. Then, Chapter 13 presents the teamwork output
that is a dialectic synthesis of the different personal narratives in a common
multiscale project.
All the texts are written more as personal narratives than as academic
papers; however, they follow more or less similar structure and points of
view that potentially converge. The tone is personal since what it seems to
me to be important in this work is to illustrate a process that starts from a
pure theoretical investigation to conclude to an alternative, ingenious and
original architectural proposal that tries to give an answer through
architecture to the variable multifaceted complex contemporary crises and
not to propose well-experimented methodological tools to read the urban
space. In other words, the whole book is the mark of many personal
introspective narratives that aim to unlock the hidden creative dimension of
the learners through personal analyses of classical theoretical writings
about space.
1.8. Synoptic overview of the “climatic heterotopia” according to

the students’ essays
Carole Beaufumé proposes a “climatic heterotopia” that aims to

spatially enhance the change of mentalities in order to socially strengthen
sustainable transition. She proposes to spatially deal with the subject

starting from the definition of a novel non-gendered territoriality that
promotes an alternative and more sustainable way of living rather than a
green “lifestyle”. For her, the climatic dimension of the problem is
incorporated in the qualitative sustainable spatial potential. She defines her
“climatic heterotopia” as a spatial narrative that is characterized by
sobriety, efficiency and renewable resources. Then, she spatially
establishes the permaculture as the main activity allocated in different
territories of the site and proposes to reach inclusion and integration
through co-working around urban agricultural activities. She focuses a lot
on the notion of happiness and she correlates this notion to a glocal
territoriality since the main condition of happiness according to her is the
free access and the free appropriation of the territory sketched by her
“climatic heterotopia” in the symbolic dimension. She thus proposes to
conjugate happiness to inclusion through free time activities, inserting
a dynamic implicit condition for individual happiness that accustoms the
coexistence of local and incoming populations and flows. Consequently,
she advances her reflection, expanding it in the world of finance and
economy and proposes to identify a new kind of happiness indicator in
order to use it as a sensorial spatial and social measurable adaptive
mechanism to prevent future social urban crises and to replace current
financial indicators such as the GDP (Gross Domestic Product).
Claire Aubry aims to propose a “climatic heterotopia” that redefines the

body as the physical and symbolic constitution of the human being.
For her, the challenge is to spatialize a complex system of programmatic
activities and spatial arrangements that may progressively transform the
socially gendered human body (according to the dominant narratives) into
a communication tool. This idea is based on the need for spatial sustainable
redefinition of desirable conditions that empower a natural process of
spatial and social integration of all these mobilities, which dominant spatial
narratives and politics of power define as “undesirable”. Thus, for her, the
body should be transformed to a symbol and a tool of spatial integration.
Therefore, even though the program that she develops deals with the
classic activities of free time (such as art, music, painting, sport,
agriculture), the way she proposes to integrate these activities differs

because the body is seen as a territory and not as an object. If we expand
the ideas that are put in a very primitive form within her essay,
an interesting idea that is not present but could be developed is that the
contemporary nomadism whether it is imposed (migration) or not
(tourism) exactly deals with this nomadic territoriality that consists of
inserting to a spatial arrangement a whole territory of symbolic and
sensorial values.
Estelle Auray, in her text, unconsciously inserts the temporal dimension

through the notion of pause that considers as a fundamental element for her
“climatic heterotopia”. For her, the pause is a temporal counter-pose that
inserts within the “climatic heterotopia” the heterochrony in an
evolutionary and Foucauldian manner. The pause will be used as the
element that creates a distinctive thermodynamic and sensorial atmosphere
that seems to be static; nevertheless, this atmosphere is implicitly dynamic
and ever-changing. The phantasmagoric dimension of the thematic parks
and playgrounds also attracts her while she is seeking to understand how
these non-urban patterns obtain an attractive dimension in order to identify
potential spatial references within these kinds of urban attractions
(for example, Figures 1.1–1.4). Then, she correlates the journey of the
migration to one’s personal tale and so she dives into theatric references in
order to insert a scenography dimension for her “climatic heterotopia”. She
aims to create a real space where the personal experiences of these
populations will be told, narrated, represented as contemporary tales in
order to share a personal experience and transform it spatially to a common
sense of history. Her work is totally different, in comparison to the other
essays, since she tries to find the answer on the spatial and climatic
questions diving into personal experiences and literature sources. Then, she
transposes this utopian and symbolic dimension of the way that space is
present in the literature and tries to incorporate utopic representations into
real constructed spatial entities identifying also relative real existing
architectural references.
15
Figure 1.1. The thematic park as a heterotopia. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color
Climatic Heterotopias Architectural Design Studio
version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis/climatic.zip

Figure 1.2. The playground as a heterotopia. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color

16
17
contrast and artificial lighting sequences. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color

Figure 1.3. The fantasmagoric dimension of the Luna Park obtained through
Climatic Heterotopias Architectural Design Studio

urban fabric. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color version of this figure, see
multiscale spatiality that enacts a fantasmagoric heterotopic dimension within the
Figure 1.4. The contrast and the artificial lighting introduce a glocal
www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis/climatic.zip
18
Fleur Lagarrigue calls into the question the multisensorial subjective

dimension related to thermodynamics. The notion of feeling is closely
related in her essay to the spatial characteristics of architectural space.
Taking references from the real life, she underlines the subjective dimension
of a “climatic heterotopia,” correlating the spatial feeling perception to the
thermal comfort sensation, the acoustics and the materiality of a space.
For her, what really counts is the contrast. So, she aims to use every type of
contrast in order to provide a space that potentially will liberate the flowing
subjects to create juxtaposed territories of one’s own (for example, see
Figures 1.3 and 1.4). Then, she proposes a programmatic vision that
completes the ideas of Carole Beaufumé and Claire Aubry. For her, a variety
of local centralities are necessary in order to give space to the community
life, while the way that these centralities are dispersed within the whole
territory reflects the idea of creating a variety of contrasted territorialities.
Then, these spatial instances are coupled to a network of non-gendered
social sub-spaces creating heterochrony.
Milan Engström considers all kind of population flows within and across
national borders as the key issue for the constitution of a heterotopic
spatiality, linking the human flow with the import of climatic instances that
are spatially reflected through habits and general behaviors. He introduces
a Hegelian reading of the spatial problem since for him climate is a feeling
atmosphere. He often unconsciously implies within his essay the notion of
sense of atmosphere without providing a deep analysis. Therefore, according
to his point of view, this sense of atmosphere has to evolve over time in
correlation to the overall heterochrony that is necessary for his “climatic
heterotopia”. In other terms, Milan Engström concludes that this
heterochrony could become reality throughout the coexistence of parallel
“chronic heterotopias”. He then tries to identify realistic scenarios and
programmatic intentions to spatially apply his ideas and so he introduces
festivity as the keyword for his architectural intention due to the circular
time dimension that festivity may obtain. The idea is to create a spatial entity
that promotes the simultaneous existence of variable self-generated climates
through festivities that can unlock the dipole body-soul, providing parallel
spatio-temporal territories. Thus, reinventing the notion of festivity – that is
seen here as a psychological pulse that promotes openness – he aims to
design an environment that permanently accounts incoming and outcoming
flows.
Jonas Kammerer identifies the rhythm as the element that may provide
the heterochronic dimension of his “climatic heterotopia”. “Climatic
heterotopia” according to him is not just a trendy “greened” utopia, but
mainly an innovative territoriality. He even introduces the notion of topos to
enhance the characteristics of his point of view. His essay becomes then
complementary to the essays of Claire Aubry and Milan Engström. For
Jonas Kammerer, the main element that may constitute a topos is the rhythm
(or beat) since it could be used to create a novel universal language and an
atmosphere that can be invigorating. The rhythm could be approached as a
formal element, as a programmatic condition, as an emotional spatial
characteristic or as a utopic spatial characteristic. Furthermore, he concludes
his essay, giving to the rhythm a symbolic cyclic dimension that introduces
seasonality and alternation between different types of agriculture. So as a
conclusion, Jonas Kammerer sees the notion of climate as to be identical to
the notion of atmosphere, while the rhythm is the element that obtains a
multiple symbolic and methodological dimension to achieve heterochrony
and seasonality within the “climatic heterotopia”.
Bérénice Vallance, for her part, presents a dialectic comparative reading

of personal perceptions regarding the everyday use of urban space. She then
tries to identify a model of development in order to render the gendered
urban territories more democratic and participative. Then, she associates
space with desire, euphoria and/or pleasure. According to her point of view,
in order to spatialize these notions, she has to inverse the dominant
narratives that govern contemporary cities. Contemporary urban territories
are oversaturated by excessive use and commercialization. This fact imposes
a time–space compression that is associated with the iconic and material
existence of architecture. This happens because time and everyday use of the
urban fabric are solely inscribed in the order of global economic reality.
According to her analysis, during the post Keynesian capitalist era, work
activity is always put at the center of human organization, significantly
influencing spatial patterns, transport and urban lifestyles. She shares the
idea that work activity is closely associated with gender, exchanges and
economic interests, dictating flows and territory. Then, she builds her
“climatic heterotopia” on the notion of community, proposing unconditional
free access without restrictions, establishment within this experimental
territory of an unconditional income of existence, the use of less processed
and recycled materials and restoring seasonality and sustainability through
agriculture.
Vincent Papazian underlines the fluidic dimension of his “climatic

heterotopia”. For him, a “climatic heterotopia” should be permanent,
interconnecting, flowing through everything, ubiquitous. The existence of
multiple complex flows within a spatial arrangement is very present in his
analysis. Actually, he argues that these flows are primitive chaotic forms that
after being spatialized (randomly or rationally) they give to the territory its
inherent spatial characteristics. Furthermore, this genesis of a rationalized
space from a chaotic primitive structure obtains a symbolic dimension with
the passing of time. Additionally, according to him, space is fragmented and
these fluidic subdivisions may create a mosaic of spatial interconnections,
memories and realities.
Mélodie Pezet puts in the forefront the notions of transmission and

counter-space. She sees the journey of incoming people as a methodological
tool of transmission. For her, the personal narratives of incoming individuals
have an existential dimension and so her “climatic heterotopia” aims to host
and document this journey. Her approach has some characteristics that are
similar to Estelle Auray’s approach. However, Mélodie Pezet proposes
a kind of a continuous living memorial that will be spatially expanded in
order to construct a common narrative. This happens in order to anticipate to
spatial phenomena of exclusion. The original part is that this invisible
memorial could be spatialized everywhere, since agriculture is not seen as
a commercial activity but as an activity that aims to create a community.
Thus, within this territory, different potential territories may coexist
(for example, artistic activities that spontaneously happen within the
agricultural spatial elements, etc.).
Finally, Aurore Peillet deals in a psychoanalytic way with an inherent

human psychological mechanism, putting in the forefront of the scene the
notion of introspection. She tries to compose a spatial network that offers
sub-territories of retreatment for meditation purposes. She also proposes
evolutionary housing in order to anticipate to the future glocal spatial
characteristics. She architecturally links through this strategy autopoesis to
creativity and considers that this link (in situ manufacturing) will enhance
the mechanism of introspection that she finds necessary for inclusion and
further personal development. Creativity is also for her a key notion and is
spatially inserted through manual activities. The notion of seasonality is
investigated in her analysis throughout evolutionary architectural elements.
Nothing is stable in her heterotopia. Nature is not confined and is the main
materiality of the territory in order to provide multiple symbolisms. Finally,
she concludes with a statement. She supports the idea that spaces are created
by people that participate as acting subjects and not only by a “genius”
architect and/or a powerful political entity.
In this sense, the theoretical contributions to this book along with the two
introductory chapters (that sketch the framework and present the theoretical
dimension of a penetrating pedagogical praxis) and the project’s intensions,
directly transpose relative research interests towards the architectural design
studio. By encountering through pedagogy a variety of spatial and territorial
issues in all their complexity and particularity, this book aims to unveil
different research dimensions that can be inserted within the everyday
architectural education and practice. Thus, the modest output of the
presented pedagogy is to gradually accompany the students of architecture
and engineering towards graduation, offering them a palette of theoretical
tools and methodologies to develop their personal autopoiesis through
a process of assisted idiosyncratic peculiar introspection.
During the 1980s, Castoriadis radicalized his project of autonomy by

connecting it to Varela’s and Maturana’s project of autopoiesis, formulated
in 1973 (Adams 2007). Castoriadis by defining six overlapping
levels reinvented the existential ontology approach to understand human
creativity: the living being, the human psyche, the social individual, the
social–historical, as well as the “emergent capacity” of the autonomous
subject and the autonomous society (1990, p. 119 cited in Adams 2007).
In contrast to the inorganic nature, the living being according to Adams has
the ability to create a unity and an interior, a “subjective instance” (Adams
2007); however, this potential is gradually ripped by the pedagogical
systems that many times finish to be “totalitarian regimes” of speculation,
solely promoting dominant narratives created by the sociopolitical elites.
Thus, the direct perspective of this book is to open a debate regarding the
development of novel pedagogical praxes within the architectural education
in order to restore the autopoietic dimension of architecture in the radical
imaginary of learners and reinvent the political, social and poetic essence of
architectural design.
2
Of Other Climates: Glocal Climatic

Constructal Heterotopias
The dominant infatuation of the 21st Century is climate: with its

multifaceted domains of investigation and of abeyance, its multiple complex
crises, crises that have been born due to its internal variability and because
of the anthropocentric dimension of dominant occidental cultures. The 21st
Century tries to identify its fundamental mythological archetypes in
reversing the climate change phenomenon (commonly called global
warming). However, even though the debate is timely and continuously open
while huge amounts of budget are sacrificed to funding the research that
should produce tangible positive climatic impacts, we experience
a contemporaneity that did not develop ad hoc the necessary methodological
tools to anticipate this phenomenon. This happens due to the fact that climate
change is a spatial phenomenon; however, it is not investigated as a spatial
phenomenon but as an “enclosing environment”.
The 21st Century found its essential mythological resources in computer

science and informatics. In computer science and programming, an
“enclosing environment” is the association of a variety of distinct free local
variables – that are defined within an enclosing scope – with a mapping that
holds the name of a referenced value, which dominates the investigated field
when the closure was created. We actually are in the epoch of concurrence,
whereas high computing is in the center of interest in order to reduce the
temporal dimension of our Big Data contemporary problems. I have the
conviction that we are at the moment when our experience of the world is

virtual and transposed to an ideal mathematical world. This abstract

idealistic mathematical world is entrusted to the computers. We “feel” and
conceive the world on the basis of complex mathematical approximations,
while time is perceived as a discretization element that is introduced in the
contemporary equation to mathematically integrate the heterochronic
dimension of the studied phenomena. These phenomena are formalized
through illegible databases. Then, computers operate complex calculations in
order to provide to us an output that in reality is just a virtual performential
conclusion.
Diversely, we may say that certain ideological contrasts naturally oppose

the conceivers (who have to follow the technological outputs in order to
survive within a competitive world) and the real users of space (who are
looking for the sensible dimension of reality); nevertheless, the way that
contemporary discourse is composed reveals that space is totally absent from
the horizon of the concerns, theories and systems. The notion of space is
replaced by the notion of performance. In other terms, we cannot even claim
that nowadays we conceive spaces or at least spatial environments.
Dominant narratives disregard the fatal intersection of space with nature.
Space merely became a product and so architects and engineers have to
conceive performances and not spatial instances.
This phenomenon constitutes a serious contemporary perversion. Space

itself is not neutral, but has a history and is interconnected in various ways
with time (Foucault 1967). Space evolved over time to be adapted to the new
forms of life. It may create a multiple system of complex hierarchies; is
infinitely open, comprising the Earth as well as the whole universe; is an
emplacement as well as a topos; is social and political; is multisensory; is
gendered and not gendered; is an ontological inherent existence of life; is
defined by relations of proximity between points, elements, temporalities,
genders, flows, products or bodies; flows and is not static; is simultaneously
multiscale and divisible; is an atmosphere; is multifaceted; is de-sanctified;
is nature; and nature is space.
On the other hand, performance is a virtual human construction. It is an

output of a mathematical operation; is an instant perception that is directly
dependent on the dominant narrative of the moment; is an arithmetic
regression of a complex mathematical operation; is the dominance of a
“unique truth”; is an ad hoc rejection of the alternative narrative; is the
abortion of different possible realities; is optimization; is an indivisible
Of Other Climates: Glocal Climatic Constructal Heterotopias 25
doctrine; is a conviction that virtual reality is optimal; and cannot be

de-sanctified.
However, I believe that performance is a direct product of spatial

investigation even though this dimension is totally neglected. The storage of
data, the intermediate calculations of complex mathematical processes, the
optimization algorithms, the programming, the storage of Big Data, etc. need
parallel spaces to operate, while these parallel virtual spaces are arranged
according to single or multiple hierarchical classifications. In other terms,
performance can be reduced to space but space cannot be reduced to
performance.
Anyhow, I am convinced that the anxiety of our era regarding climate

change has to do fundamentally with space, more than with energy
production, distribution, management and consumption. Climate change is
a spatial problem. Energy is just an element that is spread out in space.
The fact that this element, being controlled by human, doesn’t flow with
a natural manner, according to the natural laws, creates the spatial
phenomenon of climate change. Climate change is the “indicia” of the
dominance of prevailing technocratic narratives.
Actually, despite all the technologies for appropriating energy

production, distribution, management and consumption, despite the whole
academic network that mathematically formalizes this natural phenomenon,
contemporary space is institutionally considered to be the reason of the crisis
and not the solution. All the contemporary reports and regulations converge
and underline that space is one of the highest consumers of energy.
Thus, instead of becoming a part of the solution, space tends to be totally

eliminated as a notion in order to give its place to a sanctified “enclosing
environment”. The spatial dimension (technology, spatiality, sense of place,
materiality, etc.) of the problem is replaced by the association of a variety of
distinct free local variables (materials, systems, components, volumes,
forms, temperature, humidity, weather data) that are defined within an
enclosing called system (urban settlement, building, apartment, etc.). In this
case, “climate change” is just the referenced value that offers its name to this
contemporary dominant mapping instance. Thus, this problem is transposed
to a virtual non-real mathematical world and the solution is the optimization
output of this variety of distinct measurable parameters. When reality proves
that a largely used method cannot provide effective outputs, instead of
changing the methodological approach, a novel different mathematically

driven operation is conducted to produce a potentially better “enclosing
environment”. Yet, it is necessary to note that this perpetual reproduction of
potentially efficient but realistically inefficient solutions is restrictive and
doesn’t allow the production of innovative spatiality that may provide
ingenious spatial solutions to the spatial problem of climate change.
But why has humanity abandoned the idea of space and replaced it with
the notion of performance? How has this happened and how has this
inversion concretely influenced our everyday life? The response is hidden
behind the so-called spatial densification of contemporary urbanities. In a
contemporary city, space and time are linked very closely while both of them
are oversaturated due to the excessive use (Paolucci 2019). Gabriella
Paolucci clearly showed that this oversaturation created a spatiotemporal
compression and directly associated time and space with the material
conditions of existence (Paolucci 2019). Thus, since time is seen as an
economic resource, a utilitarian perception of time dominates the social
imaginary and consequently a general gendered perception of compressed
and/or dilated time dominates the contemporary urbanities (Paolucci 2019).
This “order of speed” (as it is defined by Virilio 1977, 1998 cited in Paolucci
2019) dominates the symbolic existence of our societies and is directly
linked to all the activities of contemporary societies comprising research.
Thus, contemporary research is dominated by the obsession that results

have to be quickly produced and evaluated. Consequently, dominant
academic research proposes a narrative, which presupposes that analyzing
every complex problem, employing the storage and calculation capacities of
contemporary computer technologies, will more quickly give us the most
accurate results. Thus, symbolically, accuracy and optimality are directly
correlated to the compressed time dimension that is offered by the computer
science advancements. Climate change, being a very complex phenomenon
and simultaneously a classic Big Data problem, which has to be investigated
in a multidisciplinary manner, is the victim of such a methodological
perception. If we want to find the answer to why climate change is one of the
most studied phenomena, in which humanity is unable to reverse our
pessimistic teleological dimension and future, suffice it to reread Heidegger.
Since 1927 we have known, as Heidegger clearly demonstrated, that “being
aware” of time in terms of calculation leads to the dispersion of meaning and
individuality (Heidegger 1927 cited in Paolucci 2019). In other terms,
the way that we produce solutions for anticipating “climate change” is
meaningless, since our analyses and proposals are solely based on

calculation and quantitative outputs.
Thus, let’s now try to define a framework that sketches an initial proposal
of studying “climate change” as a spatial problem. The first element that we
have to underline is that climate is a variable non-uniform and
non-homogenized notion. Thus, from a phenomenologist point of view,
this characteristic is in common with space. Furthermore, the fantasmatic
hidden spatial and climatic quantities can also exist when we are thinking
about climate as atmosphere in the broader sense. Actually, climate is
a thermodynamic element that plays a very important role in the definition of
spatiality. For example, the space of our primary perception, our dreamland
is never symbolically thought without inherent sensorial climate
characteristics. The dimension of sensoriality is inserted within a spatial
arrangement exactly throughout the notion of climate. Climate is an intrinsic,
inherent spatial quality. If we dream an afternoon under the cherry trees,
we unconsciously define the necessary climatic conditions that will enhance
the spatiality of our dreamland in a flawless optimal manner. In this
approach, optimality becomes a subjective notion because there is not at all
a unique truth, or in scientific terms a unique optimal solution, since the
subjective sensorial dimension and the scenario that is inherently attributed
by us to our dreamland introduce the relative dimension of the notion of
optimality. Our dreamland could have a variety of distinct characteristics in
terms of spatial qualities1, light, thermodynamic characteristics, perceptions,
sensorial ambiances and flows.
Furthermore, this dreamland, this “space of our primary instinctive

perception” according to Foucault (1967), seems to be inherently related to
a specific point in time for the perceiver. This is a very important element
since as we saw earlier dominant narratives eliminate both subjectivity of the
perceiver and this temporal dimension while defining an optimal condition
as a unique objective condition that is time independent. In our problem,
diverse distinct climates can potentially be optimal conditions for our
dreamland depending on the specific point of time that this dreamland is
perceived. For example, if we return to the example of dreaming under the
cerise trees, if this dreamland is perceived during a very cold winter,
the inherent climate could be hot enough to create a real contrast with the
actual reality of the perceiver. Diversely, if this imaginary space is perceived
1 Foucault (1967) explained this in a very explicit manner.

within a contemporary stressing urban reality during an everlasting heat

wave, wind may be a dominant climatic characteristic, while a fresh climate
will be more adequate to enhance the sensorial dimension of this perceived
spatiality. This means that the notion of “climate change” has to be spatially
redefined within the global debate. For instance, if “climate change”
symbolically obtains a negative dimension, maybe “climate variability” is a
more adequate notion to use as an inherent spatial characteristic. Since space
is not homogenized, climate should also not become homogenized and
present a certain variability in order to continue sensorializing the spatial
elements.
We just spoke about dreamlands that are mainly internal spaces. How
about analyzing the external space or in other terms the space in which we
live? Our lives happen within a cluster of relations that overlapping variable
climates. Flowing from one point to another, we pass through different
climates within our everyday life. We overheat our apartments but we are
transiting through cold and unfriendly environments in order to flow within
the urban tissue. The temporality of our flows (and consequently the velocity
of our movement) also defines a variety of optimal climatic types to
sensorially accompany our transitions, while the spatial arrangements of
temporary relaxation totally impose different subjective optimal climatic
conditions. This complex network of related spaces during our everyday life
imposes the study of a variety of closed and semi-closed sites, climates and
environments. Among all these sites and climates, I am particularly
interested in those ones that are defined by Foucault as heterotopias
(Foucault 1967). Employing Foucault’s terms, I focus on these spatialities
that have the intrinsic property of being in relation with all the other sites
and simultaneously have the potential to inverse the symbolic value and
neutralize or reinvent the inherent dominant set of spatial and climatic
relations (Foucault 1967). Extending so the idea introduced by Foucault,
I also study the climate as a space of its own in order to directly correlate it
with spatiality.
First, we could imagine a utopic world. In this non-real world, climate

obtains a perfected form and possesses auto-regulatory characteristics in
order to automatically optimize its thermodynamic characteristics to produce
the desired subjective spatiality of the perceiver. Simultaneously, this
auto-adaptive climatic environment is thermodynamically autonomous.
However, this imaginary world is fundamentally an unreal spatial condition.

Respectively to Foucault’s definition for spatial heterotopias, we may follow
his pattern to describe such climates as counter-climates. This means that
these climates may be intermediate thermodynamic systems that obey their
proper rules. The inherent climatic characteristics, being overlapped to the
specific spatial characteristics, compose a complex universe that is real but is
perceived as an intermediate spatiality, where the thermodynamic condition
contributes in the global perception of space. Let’s just take an example of
real life: let’s imagine that we are reading a book in our living room.
This activity is directly correlated to a subjective thermal comfort perception
due to the spatial thermodynamic characteristics (weather, materiality,
clothing, humidity, etc.). When this interior climate generates a thermal
condition below the thermal comfort subjective threshold, the cold feeling
dominates and so the perceiver reacts by introducing heat within the system
through the available heating system. Diversely, when the thermal condition
is above the thermal comfort threshold, the perceiver tries to extract heat
from the system. A climate with heterotopic characteristics is a climate that
contributes to the general spatial sensorial experience without dissociating
from the spatial dimension the thermodynamic dimension of the problem.
In other terms, spatiality is unique and the climate of a topos can change and
evolve; however, this evolution does not gravitate around the notion of
comfort but around the notion of multisensory spatiality. So, the main
question is how we can conceive climates with this kind of inherent
heterotopic dimensions? How can such climates be described scientifically,
aesthetically and semantically in order to respond to this ontological
question? How can a climate finally obtain this kind of mythic spatial
dimension contesting reality?
I will try to find an answer to the aforementioned questions by trying to

observe nature and especially this set of relations between spatial and
thermodynamic characteristics. In Figure 2.1, we observe a misty landscape
and a tree. The existence of the mist is due to climatic conditions. It’s a
thermodynamic characteristic of space that is captured in the photo. The air
due to the thermodynamic characteristics is saturated. This crucial moment
of saturation is, from a thermodynamic point of view, an equilibrium state.
This thermodynamic state offers a sensorial dimension to the space that is
sketched by the photo. The climate obtains a spatial dimension, and when we
see this image we do not think about comfort but about spatiality.
Figure 2.1. Misty landscape no. 1. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color

30
This image may be perceived as a mirror of reality that enacts a climatic

heterotopia. In this climatic heterotopia, a classic real site becomes original
due to the overlapping of climatic characteristics. The image as a photo is
a climatic utopia and a placeless topos where time freezes. However, the
same image within the brain of a conceiver as a kind of dreamland is a
potential climatic heterotopia, since the conceiver (architect) will enact to
bring it to reality. If the conceiver, instead of creating space, processes this
problem solely from a performential approach, it will be necessary to enact
in order to inverse the thermal condition and dismiss water vapor that creates
uncomfortable conditions from a thermodynamic point of view.
Nevertheless, nature is not performance. Nature is full of such counter-
climates that contest and inverse the normalized constructed environments
that dominant culture presents as normality. Nature is not uniform and
creates joint experiences, where non-realistic spatiality is juxtaposed to the
perceived world.
But why throughout our everyday life do we pass through this kind of
counter-climates without noticing them? Or why, even though we
experience such spatial instances, instead of developing adequate
activities, do we just pass through quickly and miss the inherent sense of
place? The reason is that we are neither educated enough nor used to
perceiving this kind of naturally generated heterotopic spatiality, because
we live in the epoch where time is over-condensed and so the
heterochronic dimension of nature is evinced from our everyday life,
being considered a non-productive dimension. This fact has as a direct
result the loss of the mythic dimension of everyday life that is also
enhanced due to the climatic variability of space. If we go back to Figure
2.1, we will observe that time is an important element in the creation of
the “climatic heterotopia”. The absence of movement and the static
dimension of the landscape are contrasted by the flow of the mist, which
creates a blurry environment potentially full of surprises. Furthermore, all
the elements of the composition are in the correct scale, while the image
is taken from the correct point of view. Let us now see Figure 2.2. It is
the same landscape from a different angle.
Figure 2.2. Misty landscape no. 2. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color

In this image, the effect of climate is not as dominant as the previous one
and the scale of the different elements attenuates its inherent mythic
dimension. The tree seems to be very small (and hence meaningless) in
relation to the whole landscape, while the existence of the road gives the
impression that the space is a transitory field juxtaposed to circulation,
symbolically introducing the chronic dimension. So, the climatic dimension

of space is not at all integrated to the other spatial characteristics in such
a way to form a common sensorial experience. That explains also why these
kinds of counter-climates are not perceived in our everyday life. This
happens because architecture does not evaluate and valorize correctly during
the conceptual phase the mythic dimension of climate. Space is conceived
independently of climate. Moreover, from Figures 2.3 and 2.4, we exactly
observe the same phenomenon within the urban fabric. Climate puts in the
forefront the artificial lighting through the saturation of water vapor
contained in the air (Katsafados 2008). However, in Figure 2.3, the mythic
dimension is enhanced, while in Figure 2.4, the scale equilibrium of all the
elements attenuates the whole effect.
This analysis is very useful when we have to conceive space. The notion of
“climatic heterotopias” inserts in the discourse in an alternative way the climate
as a vector of space. However, climatic and spatial characteristics have to be
considered in a synergistic way in order to produce a real sensorial “climatic
heterotopia”. A topos of this kind is outside all real constructed environments
and places and usually doesn’t indicate its location in reality. In our examples,
we cannot imagine a specific locality for Figures 2.1–2.4. This happens due to
the fact that similarly to heterotopias (Foucault 1967), this kind of topos is all
absolutely different from all the potential sites that it evokes.
Furthermore, they combine local and global characteristics so as to obtain

a glocal dimension, as explained in Chapter 1. Gathering all the
aforementioned ideas, how we can describe as such in a few words following
a sort of systematic scientific description this kind of “climatic
heterotopias”? How can climatic heterotopias be described and conceived?
What meaning do they have and how can a novel sustainable spatiality be
asserted to them? I will try to briefly demystify the notion of “climatic
heterotopias” using a heterotopological approach, a method that was
introduced by Foucault (Foucault 1967 cited in Mavromatidis 2020).
As explained also throughout the use of the images in order to be able to
conceive such spaces, a systematic spatial analysis is necessary to
simultaneously deal with the mythic and real dimension and controversy of
a kind of space that is institutionally called sustainable (Mavromatidis
2020). Thus, similarly to the way that Foucault follows in order to define
heterotopias, glocal climatic constructal heterotopias are constructed upon
distinct intrinsic principles (for more details, see also Mavromatidis 2020
where the definition of “climatic heterotopias” is also explicitly presented).
Figure 2.3. Misty urban landscape no. 1. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color
34
35
Figure 2.4. Misty urban landscape no. 2. © Lazaros Mavromatidis. For a color
Of Other Climates: Glocal Climatic Constructal Heterotopias

The first principle deals with the inherent climatic variability within the
heterotopic space. In a concrete way, these spaces have the potential of
overlapping and appending variable intrinsic climates within a potential
sensorial spatial structure. These climates are incongruous and antagonistic
(Mavromatidis 2020). Nature is constructed on the basis of ever-changing
thermodynamic parameters. Nature is not uniform. Thus, “climatic
heterotopias” have to inverse the dominant narrative that is institutionally
speculated by the imposed normative restrictive approaches proposing the
climatic internal standardization of spaces, which reduces the sensorial
dimension of space via an unnatural thermodynamic standardization
(Mavromatidis 2020). Briefly, “climatic heterotopias” are not uniform
spaces.
The second principle of this description of “climatic heterotopias”

hypothesizes the intrinsic existence of a network of counter-climates
overlapped to counter-spaces that are envisioned upon an arrangement of
opening and closing. This conformity isolates spatially and
thermodynamically “climatic heterotopias” and makes them perceptive
through a kind of spatial and thermodynamic porosity (Mavromatidis 2020).
Actually, according to this principle, a “climatic heterotopia” can be
conceived in a way of gathering multiple incompatible spatialities and
climates with the aim to give birth to a concept of coexistence of variable
and distinct internal thermodynamic states that may sketch different real
climates. As I analyzed elsewhere (Mavromatidis 2020), this principle could
be described as an intrinsic synergistic isolation/segregation and completes
the first principle, making the climatic heterotopia multifunctional from a
thermodynamic and spatial point of view.
The third principle of “climatic heterotopias” deals with the complexity

and the multiple systemic dimensions that they dispose (Mavromatidis
2020). A “climatic heterotopia” should be conceived as a multilevel complex
system that internally re-questions all the spatial and thermodynamic
instances in relation to the whole conceived sensorial space and its
functional dimension. This functional dimension, similarly to Foucault’s
heterotopias (Foucault 1967), has to unfold between the two extreme poles
of each intrinsic internal subsystem, while the extreme dimension of each
pole for each subsystem (thermodynamic, spatial, social, etc.) has to be
defined during the conceptual phases (Mavromatidis 2020).
The fourth principle consists of considering that climatic heterotopias

have a constructal dimension and obey a natural law of thermodynamics
introduced by Bejan: the constructal law (Bejan 2000; Bejan and Lorente
2008; Bejan et al. 2013; Bejan 2016; Bejan et al. 2016). The constructal law
is a law in thermodynamics that stands for all the animate and inanimate
systems and stipulates that: “for a finite-size flow system to persist in time (to
live), its configuration must evolve in such a way that provides easier access
to the currents that flow through it” (Bejan 2013, p. 3). Transposing this
thermodynamic law to our spatial problem, we observe that space is a
complex system composed of different distinct animate and inanimate
subsystems. According to this law, everything that flows (bodies, materials,
climate, products, etc.) within this system is considered a flow system that
obeys to the natural laws of thermodynamics.
Transposing thus our spatial problem to a thermodynamic analysis, we

can stipulate that our system and its local subsystems are composed of two
distinct properties: the current that flows (mass, energy, people, bodies,
humidity, information, etc.) and the design through which it flows
(Bejan 2013). Thus, space and its distinct subsystems macroscopically obey
a general natural law2 that installs a novel apperception of what it means to
be alive. In our problem, I believe that the constructal law may guide us to
methodologically adapt our process of creation in such a way that space
obtains the potential to evolve over time towards a way that facilitates the
flow of the different sub-system’s elements, including climate, body,
circulation, materiality, etc. (Mavromatidis 2020). The symmetries or
asymmetries that are created during a design conceptual process have to
unconsciously obtain an evolutionary form that may facilitate the flow of
every element, which constitutes the system (Mavromatidis 2020) that is
designed each time (circulation, ventilation air paths, body, etc.).
2 To better understand the idea behind this principle, imagine how Newton’s law of universal
gravitation affects spatiality and architectural production. In our imaginary realm, real space
is intuitionally conceived obeying the Newton’s law that stipulates that “every particle, every
manifestation of real mass, attracts every other particle in the universe with a force which is
directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square
of the distance between their centers.” Newton linked inherent spatial characteristics within a
physical law: mass and distance. This natural law differs from restricted institutional norms,
because this law describes a physically observed natural phenomenon: gravity. Similarly,
Bejan’s constructal law (Bejan 2013) is about nature. Since human beings and real space are
part of nature and consequently governed by its laws, constructal law is a “hidden” spatial
prerogative, linking flow (current) and evolution and that has to be considered through design.
The fifth principle of this definition of “climatic heterotopias” deals with

the way that their temporal dimension is linked to evolution through the
constructal law. Heterochrony is a very important element while conceiving
heterotopias in general (Foucault 1967) and especially when we aim to
design “climatic heterotopias” (Mavromatidis 2020). From the prism of the
constructal law, heterochrony is seen here as the constructal change of the
spatial finite system in the timing of developed, refined, expanded spatial
and climatic episodes and events (Mavromatidis 2020).
The constructal evolution of the institutionally defined sustainable

spatiality is intensified, by conceiving a constructal “climatic heterotopia”
that survives over time and develops an autonomous ability to rearrange
itself in order to follow potential climatic and/or environmental changes. In
other words, this means that when conceiving “climatic heterotopias”, we
must pre-establish during the conceptual phase how this multilevel complex
system will evolve over time (Mavromatidis 2020). Certainly, according to
the constructal law and in general according to the way that nature evolves,
the change in timing won’t be identical during the different phases of
development of the spatial system (Mavromatidis 2020). However the
constructal law inserts into the problem the co-existence of multiple spatial
and climatic temporalities, whereas time is compressed and dilated in order
to adapt to external parameters. Notwithstanding, as I explained elsewhere
(Mavromatidis 2020), this kind of heterochrony will not amend the
purulence of the reproductive dimension of the conceived sustainable spatial
system while being in a continuous quest of specific internal symmetries.
The sixth principle of my perception about “climatic heterotopias” deals

with the glocal dimension they have to obtain. Constructal “climatic
heterotopias” must evolve over time to produce a contemporary space that
simultaneously presents inherently local and global characteristics in order to
sensorially enhance the inclusion facilitating the flow of human and material
spatial elements of diverse origins (Massey 2001).
This principle enhances the multilevel territorial dimension of

heterotopias by continuously accumulating and overlapping local and global
currents within the spatial arrangement of the urban territories. This principle
deals also with the notion of translocality introduced by Peter Smith and
studied in the field by Camille Schmoll (Smith 1999 cited in Schmoll 2019).
Therefore, a constructal “climatic heterotopia” has to become “glocal”,
instituting a common sense of place that is crossed by diverse flows of
diverse origins in order to endure and evolve via a network of interconnected

relations (Massey 2001) on a global scale, preserving at the same time its
inherent local spatial and climatic characteristics.
Conclusively, my main idea presented here is neither to provide a reading

of the existing urban agricultural space nor to create a repertory for further
use. The idea is to bestow a shortlist that gathers and exposes the inherent
principles of such other climates and spaces in order to assist architects in
the definition of a novel methodology where climate is seen as a spatial
parameter of conception and not as a “symptom” of certain pathology. This
radical approach aims to initiate a debate that will help us as a whole society
to overcome the impasses regarding climate change and use the climate in an
integrative manner while conceiving space. We must not forget that, after the
industrial revolution, we inserted solely quantitative parameters in the study
of space being obsessed by an everlasting accumulation of performential
standards, and, as a result, we contributed to the manifestation of
uncontrolled complex phenomena such as “climate change”. I thus believe
that the best response to inverse this current is to deal with “climate change”,
considering it a spatial problem and introducing qualitative sensorial
parameters in the debate.
3
Redefine the Contemporary

Spatio-social Mentalities
Since the beginning of our time, nomadism becomes an inherent

characteristic of humanity. For instance, to survive, the very first humans
had to follow the flock and leave the North when winter came.
Our settlement into static territorialities is very new, according to our
2-million-year history. We quickly became tied to our land, to our territory
that obtained institutional mental and physical barriers under the name of
a country and in general to a limited spatial arrangement that imposes
borders. People rapidly became very belligerent.
Wars have replaced land quarrels. Due to the use of “innovation” for
creating disasters, wars became more barbaric. The globalization had
increased the exchange of goods and people promoting permanent or
ephemeral nomadism. However, changes in the geopolitical status of space
spread out localized conflicts. During the 20th Century, the wide world has
been a potential or real warzone. Nowadays, the inheritance of this
instability can be socially and spatially observed in specific territories.
People are flying away from war and from political spatial or social
instability, trying to find a new land, a new spatial situation to call home.
Often, these people are not really welcomed or integrated. Urban space
becomes a gendered space of exclusion.
Chapter written by Carole BEAUFUMÉ.

Additionally, the unprecedented climatic upheavals multiply the global

crisis context with yet partially unknown consequences. The world is
undergoing an ecological and spatial cataclysm for which humanity has been
judged highly responsible. Therefore, the imposed contemporary nomadism
expressed spatially through variable migration flows that will happen in the
future are also due to expected climatic disasters. Indeed, the least alarming
reports on the evolution of the global situation of the world document a rise
in water large enough to dislodge millions of people. The contemporary
general context is therefore very complex, made up of a multitude of issues
that challenge most of our social basements.
My approach regarding the notion of “climatic heterotopia” will be

a statement about a new kind of sensible sustainable development. At first,
I aim to establish a concrete path of social action – ecological as well as
economic – to provide a complete response to the various crises that we
must now face. By contemplating the world, I observe a certain lack of
perspective concerning our common global future. This argument
presupposes that our society must reinvent those constitutive elements,
which in their actual form are both resource consuming and socially and
spatially unfair. Therefore, my work mainly focuses on how to engage the
whole of humanity in an inevitable transition through spatial conception.
In this approach, transition could be the keyword that demystifies the
passage from a state of exploitation without limits and without the share of
resources (particularly regarding fossil fuels) to a more protective,
economical and generous (both socially and spatially) management of
natural resources. In other words, my climatic heterotopia is a modest
proposition on how it will be feasible to make the planet “a garden of life,
to be cultivated for our own use today and for others tomorrow.”
Nowadays, everyone is aware of the fact that our planet is

finite; that resources are limited and that the life that thrives here
is a real miracle in relation to the empty vastness of the Universe.
We are also aware of our responsibility1 in the weakening of this
1 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: It would be interesting to enrich the idea that is sketched
here with the notions of “conflictual negotiation” and “resubjectivation” that are explicitly
analyzed by Doreen Massey in Geographies of Responsibility (Massey 2004).
Redefine the Contemporary Spatio-social Mentalities 43
existence2. Everybody uses today the institutional term of the

“Anthropocene” to define the weight of this crisis, even regarding the
accelerated modification of local climates. We thus consider that we know
and understand the great challenge of all human societies, which is to
survive without jeopardizing future generations. Indeed, scientific reports
show that we can no longer live carefree. Our transition must therefore be
threefold: economic, social and ecological. More specifically, the transition
must affect many purviews as our energy, our food, our demography and the
way we manage and spatially design and define our territory.
I believe that transition must lead to action3. That is, we must no longer
just try to heal the wounds of our society and camouflage them; the
challenge now is to tackle all those urgent problems head on and deal with
them with at least enduring intentions. Many reports confirm this position
while many prospective scenarios are based on it: we need to make drastic
rectifications.
2 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: In this passage, Carole Beaufumé unconsciously deals with
the notion of consciousness. The whole introduction until this passage reproduces classic
statements about nomadism and sustainability. What is really interesting is that through this
reproduction she puts herself into an uncomfortable condition of considering herself as a
member of the society feeling co-responsible for the climate crisis. From a psychoanalytical
point of view, the reproduction of a narrative that presents in an evolutionary manner the
society within everlasting crises automatically increased to her the inherent level of
consciousness (even if she chose the word responsibility to tare with this feeling). Cornelius
Castoriadis (1975) in the “Imaginary Institution of Society” said that consciousness could be
in reality a “false consciousness”. What is interesting to observe from now on is how Carole
Beaufumé gradually will develop architectural methodological tools to demystify the deep
meaning of consciousness and evacuate the “ideological” ambiguities that may be produced.
The problem is that according to Castoriadis (1975), consciousness may be considered a
superstructure, and as all superstructures it finishes to be an ambiguous psychological
mechanism since expressing a “real situation” it simultaneously masks it.
3 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: Hereinafter, Carole Beaufumé starts to formulate a
straightforward methodology to reverse the dominant model of social and spatial
development. She links in a heterochronic way the future and the past to gradually insert the
historical evolution of space and society and tries to tare with the “embodied” meanings. She
aims to use her doubts in order to transform into meaningful elements the institutional
parameters of the “sustainable change”. Nevertheless, none of these meanings is ever
complete and closed in on itself; each always refers to something else. It is interesting to
observe how she will try to create a system of notions that are platitudes, albeit the novel way
that she is trying to correlate them could semantically create a novel sense with a different
meaning. Instead of tarrying with the introduction of novel elements, she mobilizes a
mechanism of “creative recycling” of bland notions generating a novel meaning through a
novel synergistic relationship.
It is throughout a real mutation of the ways of living that we need to

engage ourselves in order to put the transition to the height of the immense
climatic challenge. We need to deeply review our ways of eating, buying,
consuming, throwing away, living, warming up, working, moving, traveling,
relaxing and entertaining. This is a non-exhaustive list of the many aspects
of our contemporary behavior that we need to adjust. More specifically, it
involves proactive interventions in five purviews at the same time:
– the economy (we have to make improvement on our waste
management, on the development of circular and frugal economies, on the
short circuits),
– mobility (especially on the soft and shared transports, the electrical
alternative),
– housing (there is a huge research field that deals with urban forms and
intensity, on the way to add agricultural programs in town planning, the
mixed use of districts, the public spaces),
– agriculture (the types and practices of in harmony with the living
environment, a more controlled forestry, more protective maritime crops),
– renewable energies (there are many improvements that have to be done
to create a world completely independent of fossil resources).
At the same time, it is necessary to design resilient territories4, in order to

respond to four major issues:
– overheating (by adapting public spaces, urban and architectural forms
to fight against heat islands in cities),
– the degradation of soil and biodiversity (by working on an ecological
framework, melting both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, by adapting
cultural practices and using specific and well adapted species in different
areas around the world),
– the risks of erosion, submersion and flooding (by adapting town
planning and the habitat of the exposed sectors, as well as increaseing
consumer awareness in the tourism industry of the management of the
coastal zone),
4 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: For the first time, she deals with the notion of territory. The
use of this notion reveals that she starts enacting as a member of this territory. So, she creates
a psychological dualism being at the same time the conceiver and the user.
– the scarcity of water resources (by intervening in industry, agriculture,

tourism and leisure, public spaces, housing, etc., in order to reduce water
consumption).
But above all those required actions, there is a major change that has to
be engaged. We all need to change our everyday behavior and mentality
about how we imagine our future.
3.1. Change the mentalities: the first step of a sustainable

transition
My climatic heterotopia indeed calls for an upheaval of our way of living.

We are living on credits. According to World Wildlife Fund (WWF) at the
beginning of the 2030s, humanity will consume the equivalent of two planets
per year. This means that we will be using double of what Earth produces
per year. For example, for the year 2018, we exhausted the planet’s
resources on July 29.
It is an extremely difficult and ambitious undertaking because it is a

question of deeply changing our occidental cultural foundations. The cultural
changes are numerous in human history; however, those changes are taking
far too long in view of the climatic and ecological emergency. The radical
change of life that we need to survive this crisis is currently the work of a
small minority of people5. This change is almost always due to a life’s
accident, often coerced. A separation, the loss of loved ones, a job lost, a
forced exile, uprooting, a heavy illness, a catastrophic war, a massive
destruction, a sanitary crisis. All these facts can potentially lead to a
reorientation and even provoke a form of rebirth.
5 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: A very interesting idea is starting to appear. Carole

Beaufumé unconsciously defines the crisis as a scale problem. Thus, to resolve this problem,
she starts by thinking of changing the scale of intervention in order to reduce the time needed
for the change. She starts to unconsciously produce very interesting ideas while thinking as
an architect (and not as a theorist), she transposed her dialectic methodological tools into the
problem of formulating a concept before designing. So, she starts sketching a territory that
obtains conceptual, programmatic, architectural and temporal dimension while the common
element is the scale of the conceived meaning.
Nevertheless, our common action has to start, since we cannot wait to

face those natural disasters that scientists are predicting to react. We must
take the lead and shape our mentalities today in order to redesign a more
eco-friendly society, spatially and climatically. Thus, the action that
I imagine first of all will have to commit society to environmental changes
that are able to reverse the curve of CO2 emissions and the erosion of the
living one.
This can no longer be only the fact of a minority, because the impact of
pollution on our planet is global and thus should unite all of humanity
against it. But we have to admit that actually the world is facing a global
inertia, and so the citizen and local transitions are the most constant.
The population is becoming increasingly sensitive to the alerts given by the
whistle-blowers of the scientific community.
However, we can see that social crises, which currently shake up many
countries of the world, are not really turned towards a radical change in the
lifestyles or towards a less energy-consuming future. Indeed, some
populations prefer to turn towards climate-skeptical politicians (for example,
the USA and the Brazil), while other ones see climate change as a “godsend”
phenomenon, which opens up new maritime routes, for example (such as
Canada or Russia).
It is in this very tense context that the first phase of the transition that is
proposed in this climatic heterotopia must take place. To give a chance to
my climatic heterotopia, I need to redraw a sober and unambiguous territory.
In fact, all of these thoughts are about changing our lifestyle; however, this
change has no longer been randomly and disorderly orientated but rather
guided towards a direction that makes sense.
Among all our different behaviors to redirect in favor of climate, the most
important is our relation to energy and thermodynamics. Indeed, this is due
to the fact that we massively extract energy from underground fossil reserves
and that this kind of energy is the main source of greenhouse gas emissions
that pollute the air we breathe and modify our climate. According to a study
conducted by Jean-Marc Jancovici and presented in “Energy and us:
how much am I a slave trader?” in the energy consumption area, each
Westerner has the equivalent of 400 slaves available 24 hours a
day just to live on. This is much more than what we should use and need in
reality. The energy sustainable response must therefore be threefold:
– it has to be sober,
– it has to be made of renewable energies,
– it has to be efficient.
So by this major change of mentality, my climatic heterotopia can

gradually be established. It must place the society of tomorrow at the center
of its priorities and thus propose principles of a sustainable way of living.
3.2. My climatic heterotopia: an economical, ecological and

social experiment
In order to best meet the needs of the world of tomorrow, we must predict
them and know how to anticipate them. For example, to have the “best to
flow” approach concerning the preservation of ecosystems, it is necessary to
carry out a precise diagnosis on the state of the environment as well as on its
unpredictable evolutions. From these diagnoses arise a whole process of
compulsory modification in the population. This behavioral change is
supposed to highly reduce our consumption of energy and water, as well as
building a new relationship with our environment and thus with our food.
These results – in a kind of return to basics – could potentially orient people
closer to nature using local population benefits from local agriculture and
adapted to their needs. This means that the “climatic heterotopia” must
spatially incorporate a different, more sustainable circle of production.
The most suitable method to achieve such a kind of qualitative agriculture

from all the different point of views is “permaculture”, that is, low-energy
agriculture. The concept of permaculture is linked to the interaction between
the components of an ecosystem, in order to allow their development by
integrating human actions that are respectful of the natural process. By
letting plant species proliferate and help each other, we are helping to create
a complete ecosystem and thus reducing the primary need to maintain these
plants. Permaculture is also a thought and a practice that brings humans
closer to nature and induces them to behave more respectfully towards the
living environment. The challenge in this intention is the way that a common
agricultural activity may obtain inherent spatial qualities.
Another part of the process is rather economical. Nowadays, the economy

becomes a highly linked notion creating spatial and social networks. Indeed,
in today’s society, the economy takes the lead over ecology, superposing its
values. Balance needs to be restored. It is through our virulent need to grow
the economy of a territory that we inevitably come to a harmful carbon
impact for the planet. Conceiving a spatiality that enhances a system of
micro-economy and circular economy, we can stop this race. Thanks to a
circular approach, it is also possible to set up logics for recycling waste, less
impacting than their treatment and incineration, for example. It is also
possible in certain cases to resell the agricultural surplus by the use of a local
currency or by exchange. The frugal economy is an environmentally
conscious economy that seeks to ease the burden we place on the Earth.
In addition, with an economy refocused on a small territory, we could
acquire greater control and equity that we do not meet anywhere in the world
today. We can already see some kind of small-scale local economies that are
known as post-growth solution. Indeed, the economic growth of a society
has been leading us to the breaking point. I argue to switch socially and
spatially to a post-growth system.
This equity and the stability created by a healthy economy are the first
basements of a fairer and more equitable social system. Indeed, there are
notorious social fragmentations caused by a lack of mutual aid and equity
within our societies due to the competitive dimension of contemporary
societies. Therefore, we can observe a strong nationalist protectionism,
which induces more rejection of others. One way to fight against all social
crises would be to create a place where everyone would be free to develop
their potential. It seems to be a very utopian place because it induces perfect
equity between people, and eventually a lack of hierarchy. To a lesser
degree, it would be great to welcome a novel conceptual process that could
encourage the emergence of such free places. Those areas could be the
ground for the development of this contemporary spatial manifesto. Spaces
where everyone could find the place he/she belongs.
For the creation of such spaces, it is necessary to dispose vast areas to

allow permaculture, which could coexist with craft workshops, residences,
health, sport and education facilities, etc. Thus, large territories that are left
fallow within contemporary megacities can be the ground for this
experimental sustainable territory. Maybe, departing on these bases, we may
also need to find a new kind of happiness indicator that could help in real
time the society to adapt itself to a rapid changing environment and then
prevent future social crises. I believe that the GDP (Gross Domestic Product)
49
Redefine the Contemporary Spatio-social Mentalities
is no longer enough to measure the real development of a country.
Figure 3.1. Sustain + ability. © collage: Carole Beaufumé

To conclude, this heterotopia is meant to be inherently sustainable and so

requires reinventing a new relationship between society and space
(Figure 3.1). Since the long period of global instability of the 20th Century,
we have witnessed the true invention of the notion of overconsumption of
space. The development – among others – of mass tourism, the construction
of mass housing, the mythical ideal of the detached house in the middle of a
large garden and the commercial brand expansions have heavily degraded
our relationship and our conception of space. My “climatic heterotopia”
proposal aims to return and re-question this spatial relation and to propose a
very different viewpoint, which relies on novel relationships, links,
thresholds and margins to define a new landscape/cityscape, both urban and
agricultural. These relationships must be material and immaterial, while they
must involve workforce and be affective enough to be fully tangible and
sensitive. “Spaces are not beasts of burden; they are subjects who ‘speak’:
through their landscapes, they give us information about their long process
of humanization, transmit us symbolic and emotional messages, and shape
our identity, our language, our culture.” Finally, my climatic heterotopia has
also to rely on the real notion of economy: the economy of resources first,
and then the economy of the territory as well. My climatic heterotopia
spatially deals with the return to Nature, or to an alternative way of life,
looking to the future.
4
Redefine the Body as the Physical

Constitution of the Human Being
Michel Foucault defined heterotopias as the physical location of utopia.

In the framework of the research conducted within our architectural design
studio, the tutor defined a theoretical framework, in which climatic
heterotopias should be spaces of inclusion where a new age of architecture
containing population movement, integration, culture and climate change is
developed. Thus, in these terms, our object of investigation could be directly
related to the social and refugee crisis of the 21st Century, raising the
complex multifaceted question of the fragility of the human existence. The
social issues of the refugee crisis urge us to understand how what is
commonly called “marginalized populations” can be spatially and socially
integrated. Within urban territorialities, many researchers (Schmoll 2019;
Raulin 2009; Miranda 2015, 2019; Massey 2004; Vaiou 2019) have shown
that plenty of different cultures merge and gather within a same and unique
place, with different levels of education, different ages creating unique
spatialities1.
This context creates a very heterogenic population, mixing several

languages, cultures and ways of life. This place of gathering that we aim to
define can quickly be submerged by this mix of human beings, having
completely different backgrounds, which can have difficulties in finding
their own place and in coexisting with each other as well as with the local
Chapter written by Claire AUBRY.

1 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: This question is well analyzed by Camille Schmoll (2019) in
her book chapter “A City of One’s Own. Territorialities of migrant women in public spaces”
and Dina Vaiou (2019) in her book chapter “Gendered aspects of the everyday. Restructuring
of urban life in Athens”.
population2. Thus, it is important for us as architects to propose a spatial

arrangement where each human being feels spatially and socially integrated,
finding a territory within society, through interaction and personal evolution
during a short or a long period.
Thus, as architects and engineers, we have to invent new spatial qualities

and dimensions to enhance social and urban fermentations and really gather
the human beings, by erasing physical, cultural, lingual, social or even
financial barriers. Therefore, we have to conceive a spatial entity, which has
the potential to erase the notion of scale and hierarchy and which can place
all individuals on equal terms within a specific territory3. Nevertheless, the
main difficulty is to identify this spatial dimension, which has the power of
gathering people in order to create interactions and inclusion. The challenge
is to spatially identify a common thread where the spatial integration
happens throughout a process where the structural, syntagmatic and
functional elements of the language system, the origins, the cultural
background and the gendered and the old age spatialization are erased.
It is proposed here that the main common thread between people could be
the physical constitution of the human being: the human body. Wherever we
come from, we are all composed of an envelope, the body, and of an inside
or an inner part, the spirit (or soul, or psyche) that interact with the elements
of human culture being in a close relationship to a broader, overarching
enclosing structure such as society4. Throughout the body and the spirit, all
the human beings are able to see, hear, smell, touch or taste. We are all able
to use our five senses in order to appropriate and define a space. In addition
to the senses, the human is able to move from one space to another. Above
all, the human is able to feel using its body. This territory, the body, could
become the beginning of a gathering, the beginning of a “climatic
heterotopia”. But the question that we have to answer as architect-engineers
is how a multitude of bodies can create a gathering. Why do children from
different countries manage to play together in spite of the language barrier?
2 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: The idea of the creation of “translocal” spaces is starting
to emerge. The fact of imposing through the exercise to deal with contemporary imposed
nomadism guided Claire Aubry to focus on the diverse spatial profiles of the people who will
use the new territoriality that she is going to propose.
3 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: The notion of territory as a specific spatial arrangement
that obtains an affective dimension starts emerging little by little.
4 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: This observation and analysis of the body and its
components that flirts with structuralism becomes the main point of the architectural concept
that Claire Aubry will develop in order to deal with spatial inclusion.
Redefine the Body as the Physical Constitution of the Human Being 53
Because they are able to develop another “language”, using the symbolic
dimension of the body and creating a new “language” without words. This
universal corporal verbalization is what I aim to spatialize through my
“climatic heterotopia”.
The human body could be exploitable in many ways within a spatial

narrative. First of all, we can use it throughout sport activities and collective
games, which gather people and create interaction between humans.
Additionally, sport could be an important tool for social reintegration
because it permits us to regain self-confidence, to find once again and
maintain a harmony between body and soul. For example, in France, the
association Pass’Sport pour l’emploi uses this concept. This organization
helps people to feel better thanks to the regular practice of sport and helps
them to find a new job when they feel ready and have increased their self-
confidence again. Results are satisfactory enough because 100% of the
helped people find a job at the end of this social accompaniment and have a
new stable situation of life.
The second common point between all the human beings is the soul. In
other words, the soul could be everything that is physically not a body, but is
contained in our body, like our mind, our spirit, our thoughts, our feelings,
our sensations and our knowledge… According to many psychoanalysts,
humans need to express their feelings and their stress in order to reestablish
equilibrium. Externalizing our non-physical fluxes is often difficult. My
“climatic heterotopia” is a modest proposition that aims to offer different
possibilities to externalize all these hidden dimensions throughout sport, art,
dialogue, reading, dancing, playing, drawing, listening, crying, screaming
and painting. All the forms of existence should be welcomed, and nobody
should be ashamed to express inherent feelings even in a primitive level.
All these actions are programmatically seen as a kind of catharsis, which

allows humans to express and purge pent-up emotions, as well as a way to
develop spirit and pondering. Music, like reading, is seen within this
heterotopia as an art full of varieties that can affect all kinds of personalities.
It could be considered as another form of art permitting a person to calm
down and could also metamorphose the way of concentrating the mind on
something other than individual problems and ourselves, being members of a
new community. These programmatic intentions could become a solution to
escape from the ordinary and to live during specific time sequences in
another world created by the imaginary5. Thus, this kind of “climatic

heterotopia” could permit us to disconnect from reality, which is sometimes
hard to be achieved within the contemporary urbanities, and to feel free of
any problems. Art, like painting or drawing, are activities that allow us to
create a link between soul and body, because the mind freely conducts the
hand in order to create something on a substrate and to purge pent-up
emotions. Sport, dancing and playing also enable us to reconnect mind and
body, to unwind and externalize negative feelings or emotions, which may
trap the human existence in a negative disavowal mental state.
These three programmatic axes, sport, music and art, are seen here as the
ways to externalize pent-up emotions and spatially express what they have in
common: the notion of rhythm, which can be an expression of a universal
language that we are searching to make evolve in order to give birth to this
kind of “climatic heterotopia”.
Since we do not need any words to share a moment of sport, of music or

of art creation with somebody who is coming from another spatial and
cultural origin. We can feel a variety of emotions and understand the other
without speaking the same language but with doing the same action using
our body and soul. We can spread a word with our body, with songs or any
representation of art like painting or drawing.
Besides body and soul, all the human beings own another common point:
the surrounding environment. In fact, we can exist only if there is a notion of
space in which our body can move and evolve. On a macro-scale, space
gathers people because we all share the same territory named Earth and live
more or less in the same environment.
We obey the same physical macro-scale laws such as gravity, while we

face common spatiotemporal natural landscapes such as mountains, sea,
5 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: Here, Claire Aubry deals with the imaginary, which will be
motivated through architecture in order to facilitate inclusion. What is really interesting in
the way she develops her arguments is that she builds a program tarrying with the imaginary
of the user. So as a conceiver, she puts herself in the place of the user. Furthermore, in order
to facilitate integration, she proposes to conceive positive spaces in order to positively
exasperate the imaginary. It is important to work on how the imaginary of the user will/could
be put in an implicit dialogue with the spatial and territorial arrangement in order to provide
inclusion not as a programmatic target but as an inherent natural process enhanced by
spatial elements.
continents; natural elements such as grass, trees, sun, rain, wind; and
temporalities such as seasons. In a context of climate change that urges the
need for actions that enhance environmental protection, it is important to
renew through spatial production this link between humans and nature.
In the book “Ré-enchanter le monde”, written under the direction of

Marie-Hélène Contal, the authors develop a similar point of view. Saying
that humanity, so inclined to venerate its own spirit, has totally forgotten its
physical, flesh and family links, which linked it to the Earth. Nowadays, the
Earth begins to express its limits, and the fragility of the Earth is our own
fragility. But how can human beings spatially renew with nature? And how
can we develop a universal language through space creation? How can
spatiality change our relationship with nature?
The objective of this approach of “climatic heterotopia” is to enhance a

better understanding of the world in which we live and provide an alternative
narrative of space through our body and psychical existence (Figure 4.1). We
have to step back and evaluate the consequences of the way that humanity
deals with nature by linking architecture and nature’s features. Seasons,
winds, rains and sun are the first parameters of an urban composition and are
the subjects of change with the passing of time. The current architecture has
to be adapted to the actual and future new environment.
The climatic dimension of this “climatic heterotopia” is based on the

aforementioned analysis. Nowadays, overweight people are as numerous as
the undernourished. In order to change the balance, we have to eat less and
eat better, in other words, we have to grow less but grow better. I propose,
albeit, to reintroduce the concept of seasonality through the spatial
dimension and to grow depending on what nature can give to us, according
to the climate and the seasons, since the seasonality is tending to disappear
because of the intensive farming and the capitalist lifestyle.
This vision of the climatic heterotopia is emerging like a counter-place

where all human beings communicate with the help of their bodies,
throughout sport, art, music or dance, the users of this spatial experiment are
owned by the notion of rhythm and learn to coexist in symbiosis with the
surrounding environment and nature. This climatic heterotopia could be
visualized as a kind of bubble, without any form of mass dominant culture as

it is identified within a capitalist system of production6.
Furthermore, this climatic heterotopia aims at enhancing the spatial

dimension of an alternative culture, which will be born from the particular
atmospheres, and features of this uncommon place. This counter-place will
have its own identity, and each occupant will find a spatial entity there,
wherever he or she comes from. In this new sense of place, the user may find
a new balance and may recreate a close link with nature, using and
developing the five senses. This place will be homely, pleasant, invigorating
and therapeutic and adapted to rediscover the equilibrium between body and
psyche.
Let’s now see how this concept of “climatic heterotopia” could be

translated in an urban and architectural program. The three main linchpins of
this approach of “climatic heterotopia” are the body, the spirit and the
nature. These elements have to coexist in a large urban program, where
humans, nature and architecture have to be put in symbiosis. On a huge
scale, we can define a new district where nature is abundant. In the
imagination, it will look like an incarnation of the Garden of Eden that puts
in place projectual strategies that have been used in the Park of the Villette
designed by Bernard Tschumi in Paris, being a composition of buildings and
micro-architecture that are scattered in the abundant nature. This vast garden
has to be something different as a common park, more varied with a lot of
planting evolving with the seasons, with flowers, fields, fruit trees, forest,
groves, gardens, fallow land. Let us imagine now a space where architecture
and Earth are the same substance. Architecture has to be linked with each
human being, other species and Earth. This climatic heterotopia suggests that
humans and nature are deeply linked and that they have to learn to
communicate and to live in symbiosis, to take advantages from these two
elements in a new way of life.
6 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: Here, Claire Aubry deals with what is called a “dominant
culture” by Castoriadis (1975). Actually, unconsciously after the whole analysis, she tries to
define an architectural praxis in the Castoriadian sense. She doesn’t want to be just a
conceiver. She doesn’t want to work just as a designer. She wants to become the person that
aims to produce a spatial arrangement that is an imaginary experimental world. So as a
conceiver, she takes the risk to propose a territory that doesn’t obey the dominant spatial
narratives that reproduce social patterns of life and spatial standardization. The important
element of her trajectory throughout her essay is that, at the end, she proposes to create a
space where an alternative narrative of one’s own may be created and supported spatially
and architecturally.
57
Redefine the Body as the Physical Constitution of the Human Being
Figure 4.1. Flowing bodies. © collage: Claire Aubry

In this climatic heterotopia, the topography will be drawn in order to

create catch basins or hills to develop intimacy and diversity of the
landscape. This counter-space will have a magic and singular atmosphere,
like a dreamlike world providing heterochrony, in order to be possible to
escape from the real world. The “Garden of Eden” will be a “garden of the
world”, with several plantings coming from several countries, in order to
show, to accept and to emphasize the difference, as we have to do with
different cultural backgrounds and especially with migrant populations in
this contemporary project context. This “climatic heterotopia” is a wild and
natural garden where people have to lose themselves, in order to feel the
seasonal variations. This counter-space has no physical limit, but a notion of
entrance and exit thanks to a change of atmosphere and of climate between
the overpopulated city and the juxtaposed contained nature.
The garden will, in parallel, develop a program that spatially integrates

urban farming activities with the aim of converting into architecture
inclusion, culture and integration. The vegetables, fruits and other
agricultural production will be sold on-site to encourage short cycle
consumption. Regarding the architecture in a smaller scale, all the
constructed space will be “lost” and disseminated through natural and
cultural landscapes to keep this strong relationship between human and
nature that is reintroduced to this version of “climatic heterotopia”. First of
all, micro-architecture will play a very important role within this heterotopia
as a tool for spatial arrangement and as a scale indicator. It is important to
spatialize small pavilions to host senses, contemplation or even reading,
allowing a person to be alone, to disconnect from the reality or to think about
future. In the imaginary realm, micro-architecture can also be a very close
bubble where it is possible to express ourselves by screaming or crying, or
even a dance scene or a little exhibition place hid in nature while the user
may discover it haphazardly during a promenade.
I believe that architecture has to be built in relation to the human body

scale, and in harmony with the environment, the climate and the local
materials. To accommodate the migrant populations, homeless people or just
curious people who are searching for novel kinds of urbanity, a concept of
cheap and easy-to-build individual houses will be developed7. This concept
7 For example, like the project 20k House of Rural Studio in the Alabama. In this project,
architects designed tiny houses for only 20,000 dollars, including materials and labor, because
that is the amount that anyone can borrow from a bank when he/she just has only a pension
for living (for more information, see: http://ruralstudio.org/project_tags/20k/).
could be adapted in the entire context and especially with regard to the
intensive actual and future migration crisis. Construction techniques will be
standardized in order to shorten the build timeline, while allowing more
money to be budgeted for materials instead of labor. But the main
particularities will be that all houses will be unique and tailored in contrast to
the contemporary globalized uniformization. Process and techniques will be
standardized but the plan and the design can evolve allowing people to feel
truly at home and not just within a copied and pasted home.
The other forms of architecture will respond to the three linchpins of this
concept regarding the more sustainable and imposing notion of “climatic
heterotopia”. Throughout this project, I intend to assume that the body could
become the most important tool that we have to care about in order to reach
high levels of self-confidence and create a dialogue with our psyche.
Sporting facilities will be integrated in the “climatic heterotopia” in order to
allow people to externalize their energy overplus, to gather, to reintegrate, to
regain self-confidence and to find themselves once again in harmony with
their body within a communal life.
This spatial complex will interact with an artistic and educative complex
for dance, music and art. In order to find a balance between spirit and soul,
sport and art will be spatially encouraged. The artistic complexes will be the
spatial incarnation of art, including changing exhibition and expression
places. This programmatic part and its spatial expression will offer concert
halls and rehearsal halls and also more educative rooms for pure creation,
like painting or drawing for children and for adults, and libraries. Art is used
as the medium to externalize pent-up emotions being part of a universal
corporal vocabulary. It will also be used as the medium to help people meet
other people and to share a privileged community moment. This complex
will be linked with a more informal place allowing spontaneous art, allowing
people to scream, to beat, to express themselves and to externalize pent-up
emotions and pain. All this volumetric material expression of the “climatic
heterotopia” will be adapted to a variety of different thermodynamic and
social atmospheres in a respectful manner.
To conclude, the architectural program of this climatic heterotopia is

directly linked with the human dimension and has for target to help them to
be in harmony, to regain self-confidence and especially regarding refugee
and homeless populations to begin a new emancipated life after all the pain
and the upheavals that humans can meet during their past. This program
aims at allowing people to reinvent a new universal language thanks to the

body, the soul and nature. These three dimensions will be the common
ground for inclusion and interaction within this approach of “climatic
heterotopia”. This project of “climatic heterotopia” will target to concretely
show how architecture directly impacts our lives and our way of life by
revealing why it is very important to think and draw architecture focusing on
the details. Whereas, at last, I believe that nowadays we have to consider
architecture as a complex interdisciplinary reflection and not just as a
simplistic formalistic building exercise.
5
The Pause or Dreaming in the Woods
Michel Foucault said in his well-cited text titled The Other Spaces (1967)
that we do not live, we do not die, we do not love in a white and neutral
space. Our lives take place in contrasted spaces, made of collages, reliefs and
passages, opened and closed spaces, etc. And, among all these sites, some of
them are absolutely different. First, there are the utopias. Utopias are sites
and spatial arrangement with no real place. They present society itself in a
perfected form, or another society turned upside down, but in any case, these
utopias are fundamentally unreal spaces.
Conversely, Foucault defines heterotopias as embedded utopias in space

and time1. Heterotopias are, according to Foucault, real places opposed to all
the others. They are something like counter-sites. They are meant to erase
these other places, to neutralize them, to purify them. Children know
heterotopia very well. From the bed of the parent’s bedroom, which becomes
an ocean or a besieged fortress, to the small shed in the back of the yard,
posing as a refuge, we can list plenty of examples. However, these spaces
have been organized by adult society. Foucault raises as other examples
gardens, cemeteries, the asylum, jails, brothels, or also Mediterranean club
villages.
Heterotopias also exist in every primitive or contemporary culture, in

every civilization: they constitute a constant of every human group. They
have although various forms and they are constantly evolving. In what he
named “primitive societies”, there did exist sacred places according to the
Chapter written by Estelle AURAY.

1 Des Espace Autres, March 1967, Michel Foucault.

bodily spatial existence, addressed to individuals considered in a state of

crisis. Foucault cites adolescents, menstruating women, pregnant women, the
elderly, etc. In our society, these crisis heterotopias tend to disappear but we
can always identify many examples. The boarding school, in its 19th-
Century form, or military service for young men, has certainly played such a
role. These “other spaces” – hetero + topia – have been designed by society
to move away and to hide the first manifestations of sexual virility from the
parent’s house. For girls, Foucault evokes the honeymoon trip, a tradition
explained by the fact that the young woman’s deflowering could take place
“nowhere” and certainly above all not at her parents’ dominated space.
Of course, when Foucault cites a state of crisis, I cannot stop myself

thinking about the main intentions of our architectural design project for this
semester that tarries with the contemporary refugee and social crisis
addressing an invitation to spatially accompany and shape this contemporary
kind of imposed nomadism. I wanted then to recontextualize the definition
of climatic heterotopia with our year’s project, located in an abandoned
airport. The project has to be a space of inclusion, with a particular attention
to the refugees’ crisis, the homelessness’ crisis and in general the social
crisis. There, I have thought about what a climatic heterotopia could be,
within this particular context and according to these few fundamental
notions about heterotopia.
I first thought to re-evaluate the notion of the pause, as a temporal bubble.

Indeed, contemporary human movements, human fluxes, and in general this
newfangled imposed nomadism although it is considered to be singular mass
movement, is composed of the addition of several thousands of human
destinies that flow over diverse spatial arrangements. These “journeys”
consist of a painful experience in all their unity. Individuals that escape from
a so unbearable situation being ready to leave everything behind drive all
these mobilities2.
In these transits, journeys, escapes, I thought about the importance of the

utterly heterotopic moment of the migration’s oblivion. That is why the first
heterotopic site that came in my mind was the theater stage. Indeed, the
2 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: Here, Estelle Auray tarries directly with heterochrony. For
her, this kind of imposed nomadism is contextualized through the notion of mobility, while
mobility obtains spatially and socially a clear heterochronic dimension whereas past and
future are overlapped within the spatial flow and the personal narrative.
The Pause or Dreaming in the Woods 63
theater, place of all possible, appeared to me as a heterotopia with the

meaning of Foucault3. According to Foucault, a heterotopia has the power to
juxtapose in a single real place several spaces, several locations, which are in
themselves incompatible (Foucault 1967, p. 1577). This is how the theater
succeeds on the rectangle of the stage a whole series of places, which are
foreign to each other (Figure 5.1).
Figure 5.1. Pause, nature and heterochrony: the spatial overlapping of

the serial place of imagination. © collage: Estelle Auray
The theater is, in fact, a shining example of a “climatic heterotopia”, with

its constant replicated and innovative scenes and atmospheres where actors
and spectators experience other worlds, other languages, other climates,
other spaces, other territories. Different spatiotemporal dimensions
simultaneously exist in a parallel manner within a theatric representation
creating a constant heterochrony. The theater stage appears then as the
3 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: Even if it is not directly said, we see that unconsciously
Estelle Auray deals with heterochrony throughout all her analysis. The pause, the mobility
and the theater are notions that have a direct heterochronic dimension. Especially, the
theater is a site where it coexists and overlaps many times. The really interesting point is to
observe how gradually she departs from the abstract notion of pause as a static time sequence
within a contemporary urbanity that imposes its own time, to arrive at the theatrical stage
that is the exemplified space where different time sequences coexist, passing through the
notion of mobility, which is a transitory element that correlates diverse spatial, cultural and
temporal elements.
perfect place for the oblivion of our past and future. A concrete real place,
anchored in present being simultaneously a place of imagination. Of course,
although the concept is quite strong, the theater stage could not be the unique
program of a big scale architectural/urban project. However, the transition of
the inherent theatrical spatiality in order to promote inclusion through
heterochrony and representation will be the important elements of my
programmatic philosophy.
That guided me to develop afterward-different reflections linked to this

first idea. I theoretically explored other vaster places that potentially could
reflect the inherent heterochronic spatial characteristics of a theatrical stage.
Theme parks and playgrounds, for example, could be considered
heterotopias, since the primary intend of their creator was to make them fairy
places, fantasized places (see also Chapter 1 and Figures 1.1–1.4)4,5.
These parks are dreamed places, where public forgets the natural rhythms
of everyday life. These kinds of heterotopias become the oblivion of the real
world that is intended, in a very concrete place, consisting of a cardboard
imitation. Many times, we can even experience parks that are artificial
replicas of the real world such as Coney Island Luna Park, some districts of
Las Vegas or Tiandu Cheng in China. According to the French architect
Françoise Fromonot, all of these Coney Island attractions are a kind of
increasingly delusional artificial reproduction of the world, which Manhattan
will then take hold of and exaggerate in its town planning.
Since these non-spaces significantly influence urban planning and

architecture, we may wonder how the phantasmagoria is concretely
spatialized there. It might be the spatial miniaturization of the world the
element that fires our imaginations since the whole world seems to be on our
hands. This kind of miniaturization enhances the heterotopic dimensions of
the real multiscale space. It is this continuous scale game that happens
throughout a permanent miniaturization that contributes to the creation of
heterotopy and heterochrony (main characteristics of heterotopias).
4 From the early 1950s, Walt Disney became interested in an area that seemed far away from
cartoons, the theme park: the first Disneyland opened in 1955 in California, near Los Angeles.
5 The whole Disneyland park is the concrete construction of a collective fantasy, according to
Pierre Chabard.
However, the same kind of scale game we experienced throughout the

first World Expositions that were reproducing entire cities, canvas, wood or
stucco streets. These reflections on theme parks and World Expositions lead
us to open our eyes on this theater setup that potentially may become our
future cities. The rediscovery of a sensible and phantasmagoric dimension
through urban and architectural design may become a fairy and enchantress
answer to the errors of modernism. Although the theme park is an
enlightening vision of what could be a heterotopia on a vast territory (such as
an abandoned airport), I think that the climatic dimension of a “climatic
heterotopia” is a little bit forgotten.
The third – and last – part of this evolving reflection came from a theater
play that develops this climatic dimension. This play is The Wild Duck by
Henrik Ibsen (1884). The story takes place in the Ekdal family’s house. As
context, it has the vast North forests, a domain where fortunes were built by
decimating trees. The wood capitalists have in some ways exceeded the
original sin: they do not just bite the apple, they frankly cut the tree. That
explains the guilty feeling of the Ekdal family, who recreate, in its attic –
kind of both a playground and a refuge – an artificial forest with firs, hens,
rabbits and a duck. In other words, they create a concrete spatial version of
the climatic heterotopia (see also Figure 2.1 in Chapter 2).
Nevertheless, this entire family world is based on family secrets. Idealist

Gregers, back from a long voyage, is going to turn upside down the set
family ecosystem. By willing to bring the absolute truth, the “idealist
imperatives”, all is chocked. Each person within this story was living in an
imaginary world that satisfied him or her. In other terms, each person was
living within a kind of personal “climatic heterotopia”. The forest in the attic
existed as a compensation (to the fact that the family fortune was based on
deforestation) and evasion place. It is as a pole on which all is based. But
Gregers wants to bring the truth and to stamp out all lies. All is then going to
collapse. One of the characters, doctor Relling concludes that: “If you retire
the lie from an ordinary person’s life, at the same time, you retire the
happiness” (Ibpsen 1884).
In view of this somber play, the idea is sketched that the forest could be a
“climatic heterotopia” by extending what the forest is peddling as imaginary.
This Ibsen play sketches a mise en abyme of “climatic heterotopia”. A
theater, as we previously said, on which is played a scene dealing with an
imaginary forest in the attic, and where we can play or hide. In the collective
imaginary realm, the forest is often a refuge place.
Outlaws, heroes, walkers, lovers, persecutes, they all found the forest as a
gigantic hiding place. Forest draws the margins of the occidental society6.
The primary idea of the forest and its semantic dimension reveals that a
forest will always sound as a spatial element that is positioned at the exterior
and anterior to our civilization. Forests are linked to the imaginary as the
illustration of primary places, full of resources. However, being within a
generalized contemporary climate change context, we observe the birth of a
quite harrowing feeling. The fear of losing this frontier, this limit, this
margin becomes dominant. Deforestation reveals to us the fear of losing the
civilization’s edges.
Thus, as architects and engineers, why do we not conceive a place, a

genius loci, a forest, with real trees, as a “climatic heterotopia” inserting
ingeniously a real architectural program within contained and savage nature?
We cannot ignore the blessing of trees, which participates to the air filtration
and the thermodynamic equilibrium of our contemporary urbanities. Not to
mention the ecosystem that the forest protects. Bringing the forest into the
city appears to be an utterly heterotopic fact with an enhanced climatic
dimension. Indeed, the city usually builds itself out of the forest. The idea of
bringing a piece of forest in the city in the shape of a contained natural
landscape that is conceived as a spatial element appears to be an interesting
idea that contributes to this concept of making an absolute other Foucauldian
place.
Indeed, as a matter of fact, in 2012, a young architectural agency (ABF-

Lab), won an idea contest with their project “[IN]-closure”7. The
consultation invited to think about environmental, social and economic
opportunities of a 3.5 ha site in the heart of Seattle. The ABF-Lab
proposition was to install a red cedar forest – the ones that the conurbation is
surrounded by – on the site. It will be surrounded by wood kiosks. They will
depend on citizen’s initiative and are conceived to be mutualizable. The aim
is to feel and reinvent an original atmosphere of marketplaces and small-
scale commercial activities. This forest landscape in the center of the city
6 According to the ideas that are developed by Robert Harrison, in Forêts, Essai sur
l’imaginaire occidental, Flammarion, Paris, 1993.
7 For more details on this project: https://archello.com/project/in-closure or http://abf-
lab.fr/projets/in-closure.
offers rich social interactions to multiple scales. This organic, evolving and
replicable system suggests that the heart of ecological resilience is in the
implication of the community.
To conclude, this version of “climatic heterotopia” is conceived based on

the initial idea: the spatialization of the pause and its heterochronic inherent
characteristics. In times of negative feelings, there is nothing better than a
walk in the forest8. We could imagine a forest of pines where we could walk
in warm weather and maybe, in a clear glade, we would find a theater stage
where The Wild Duck is played!
8 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: It would be really interesting to theoretically enhance this

idea regarding the interaction between psychological underpinnings of human agency and
institutional space and urbanity. At a theoretical level, the subject of the affective side of
institutions has already been investigated, as pointed out by Damasio (1994), Becker (1996),
Elster (1998), Hodgson (1998), Rafaelli (2001), Patalano (2007a, 2007b) and also by “old”
institutionalizes, such as Veblen (1994), who interpreted habits as being the fundamental
driving force of institutional emergence and sustenance. The original point of the research
conducted by Estelle Auray is that she proposes a framework to spatially promote an
alternative narrative that aims to brake this well-observed link between habits and
institutional emergence and sustenance, through specific and original territorial
heterochronic characteristics. From this point of view, her work becomes quite original since
there is a lack of literature on this subject and especially on the way that architecture should
be conceived in order to propose novel expressions of life. Most of the available theoretical
research and literature deal with the analysis of existing spatial arrangements. The
importance of this essay remains on the fact that it aims to theorize and initiate an open
dialogue regarding how as architects and engineers we could reverse the dominant models of
space production that tend to institutionalize the way of being and existing within the spatial
arrangement that encloses us. Estelle Auray, therefore, proposes a spatial narrative that
tarries with the notion of pause seen here as a conceptual spatial element with inherent
heterochronic characteristics, while the theatrical spatialization is considered to become the
main tool that will be used to spread different phantasmagoric spatial instances within the
studied territory. These tools will be spatially experimented in order to disconnect habits from
institutionalism and standardization, offering a spatial narrative where everybody could
identify and enhance inherent personal heterochronic existentialism.
6
A Territory of One’s Own
Heterotopia is a word made of Greek root words: hetero, which means

different, and topos, which means place. A heterotopia is then a “different
place”. I believe that the notion of “climatic heterotopia” may refer to a
place where the atmosphere, the climatic stake is different. In my opinion,
“climatic heterotopia” may sound like a place where landmarks are different,
almost lost, and where senses are stimulated in a brand-new way: new
feelings can be experimented with heat, cold, humidity, lights, shadow, etc.
A “climatic heterotopia” could be a place that we are not used to stand, that
makes us get out of our comfort zone, in a positive or a disconcert way.
With this point of view, I believe that “climatic heterotopia” is a very

relatable notion: it can be experimented in every place in which we feel our
senses destabilized. Those kinds of new sensations can be created by nature;
we can find them while we travel to new continents with very specific
climatic conditions (that are, by the way, heightening due to climate change),
for example, the blazing sun in the Sahara Desert, or even the biting wind of
northern lands.
But it is also possible to feel a “climatic heterotopia” throughout the

spatial design and architecture: the mildness of the Middle-east courtyard,
the cold of an igloo, the silence and solemnness of the Jewish museum in
Berlin, spaces that make people feel uncomfortable. On the antipode, there
are spaces that enhance the contrast between the constructed climate and the
natural environment, such as the Therme Vals where people walk with their
nude skin in a warm atmosphere nearby the snow of Switzerland, churches
Chapter written by Fleur LAGARRIGUE.

and cathedrals, known for their cold wall effect, their stone pavement and
their very own acoustic, or greenhouses, within an out-of-nowhere tropical
climate.
The anthroposphere is crossing a huge climate crisis, and many

populations must leave their country and territories for a variety of reasons,
creating migratory flows. For example, just in Greece, 817,175 refugees
crossed the Aegean Sea between 2015 and 2016 (according to UNHCR
data). Most of them were Syrian and Afghan, and 410 died during the
journey, while 138 are still missing. Continuing to take Greece as an
example, in relation to the global ecological crisis as well as economic and
social crisis, more than 40,000 homeless live in Athens, 61% of them are
between 41 and 55 years old, and 21% between 26 and 40 years old. They
are, however, fully capable populations, most of them possess at least one
diploma, but they do not have the chance to have a job. We observe 45%
unemployment for those between 25 and 40 years old, despite the majority
of them possessing a higher education diploma and having attended college
or university.
The pedagogical experiment of the current architectural studio, as the

tutor framed it, relies on the intention to respond to all the aforementioned
socio-environmental crises throughout innovative and ingenious spatial
conception. Our project spatially deals with an abandoned airport, which
hosted in the past the Olympic Games of 2004. It is actually during the last
20 years a perpetual wasteland, a waste ground, with a dead soul. Migrants,
refugees and homeless people used to squat the old sheds and infrastructures,
as well as the sports fields that are no longer used, living in very bad
conditions. The abandoned airport, totally ignoring its political and spatial
context, is very typical of today’s world’s injury, and could be the perfect
illustration of worldwide glocal crises: capitalism reached its most cruel
point when it turned a blind eye to the real issues of the country.
The issues related to this project are both social and spatial: they are
about trying to locally solve the controversies directly related to the migrant
crisis, the unemployment, and sheltering the homeless populations. In
addition to this, there is the spatial issue. The abandoned airport is
preventing three entities to connect: the sea, the mountain and the urban
tissue. It is like an open scar in the urban fabric, that no one can heal, or
wants to heal.
A Territory of One’s Own 71
As architect-engineers and urbanists, our work is to solve issues created

by a not-optimized master plan, and to change the way people see their lives
through their town and cityscape. In this case study, the airport and its area
represent a huge void in the urban fabric, creating a huge scar, that every
flow avoids, at either its west or east side. In our project, we want to sew up
this traumatized urban fabric by creating new flows that cross the abandoned
airport, and then generate new knots and voids. We want to let the existing
flows cross the abandoned airport without bypassing it, as if they could have
done if there were no fence.
I am convinced that to be accepted by people, an accomplished project

must gently enter in their life and mind, and allow them time to become
accommodated to such a change. Architects and urbanists must guide people
flows towards spatial evolution, and not decreeing it, especially when a
project has such concerns. That is why this huge plot of global change will
be carried out bit by bit, one thing after another, to help people see the city
under an alternative point of view, and make them gradually change their
lifestyle. To respond to the refugee and social crises, we aim to offer
migrants and homeless a shelter and first aid. So, we reuse old sheds to
shelter and reconvert them, as these infrastructures already exist, allowing us
to act fast. Our housing program could be unconventional, developing
innovative spatialities. Furthermore, this huge plot is an opportunity to bring
back vegetation in the city, by creating gardens and agriculture. By creating
fields and a plant nursery, we could offer food to people in need, and/or a
way to generate an alternative economy in an equitable manner.
To pay tribute to the Olympic heritage of the given site, we aim to keep,
as much as possible, the existing infrastructures and the stadiums. Some
infrastructures will remain, and after being integrated to a holistic urban
regeneration, they will be renovated and converged into spatial arrangements
that aim to gather people who want to join a sport club among those existing
in the sport hub near the beach. Some other infrastructure will be used to
host events, to offer a large place that can welcome thousands of people. A
kind of big event could be what we could call a festival. People could come
from all over the world to listen to music and discover all kinds of art. We
propose a festival as the way to gather people, and offer seasonal jobs to the
unemployed populations.
The entire beach path in its actual form is very hard to be reached,
because of the highway along it. A solution to give back the beach path to
the inhabitants living in the area is to make the road underground. By doing
that, cars will no longer be an obstacle to cross, when people want to reach
the sea. It has not to be all the way long, but only in a very strategic spot, for
example, near the sport hub that we intend to create. This road that used to
be almost impossible to cross, with lots of traffic jam, in this version of
“climatic heterotopia” is conceived to be smooth and calm, only taken by the
tramway line and some bicycles. The beach path will be easy to reach, and
people could chill in a brand-new place at the beach, near the sport hub.
After deep analysis, in order to multiply the divergence of populations that
we aim to frequent this territory, I believe that a university campus and
schools could help the “climatic heterotopia” to increase the international
interest and its visibility, developing innovative pedagogical activities. Joint
with a university program, we could naturally add housing for students,
alternative markets, restaurants and so on.
Additionally, a co-working hub could find its place in the new territory.
In the middle of the fields and parks, we may offer a great balance between
work and rest, accessible by taking a new tramway line. By offering work,
we want to create an attractive spatial element, and bring people to this land,
which used to be abandoned.
Our project needed a central spot, which could gather people. We studied
the flows created by every part of the program, and highlighted a place that
we called Agora. The Agora is a major spot when the festival will take place,
but during the year, people can enjoy this square, where markets and other
events happen. These programmatic intentions enhance the heterochronic
dimension of our climatic heterotopia. The Agora is also the suggested place
to construct music and theater academy, museums and other cultural
infrastructure: near the beach, just next to the sport hub, and accessible by
car and by tramway. Parents could bring all of their children to their favorite
activities only by driving at one unique spot.
By creating all of these different attracting points, we aim to arouse the

interest of people, and allow them the time to accept all of those changes. To
let people reach the different programmatic elements, we have to open the
airport frontiers and let the roads and the paths enter the plot. Then, flows
will naturally soak into the plot, and the abandoned airport will no longer
read like a scar in the urban fabric.
73
A Territory of One’s Own
Figure 6.1. Climatic territories of crisis. © collage: Fleur Laggarigue

The notion of “climatic heterotopia” is very vast. To me, it was the link
between a place one has never seen before, and the climate shock that one’s
body can feel1. In our project, it could be when people cross the different
fields of agriculture, with different odors, or when they arrive in the crowded
agora, or when they do the warm-up under the sun of the beach, during their
training at the sport hub.
Maybe “climatic heterotopia” is more than that. Maybe the places

referring to “climatic heterotopia” are places that cannot really exist in the
framework of global warming, or climate change, as well as our project, that
is the direct result of issues caused by climate crisis, social crisis and
economic crisis (Figure 6.1). Anyhow, climatic heterotopia is a very
millennial notion that we are all going to deal with, in the future.
1 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: When reading this essay, I directly thought of a very timely
paper of Jeff Klooger (2017) on ontological anti-naturalism and the emergence of life and
mind. Klooger (2017) analyzing Castoriadis’ philosophy investigated the indirect way
through which Castoriadis implicitly critiques naturalism. According to Klooger (2017) from
a Castoriadian perspective, naturalism is not a correct description of life since it represents a
unitary ontology by asserting that “there is only one type of being, natural being, and that
this being obeys one set of laws”. Therefore, naturalism is the reflection of a deterministic-
ontology where “being” implies “being determined”. According to naturalism, what cannot
be determined following logic processes does not truly exist, it is not real, it is imaginary and
has a solely phantasmatic existence. On the antipode, Castoriadis defined a philosophy where
he explicitly showed that there are some phenomenal domains that do not conform to this kind
of deterministic ontology. These domains are characterized by doubt and indeterminate
essence; nevertheless, this indeterminate ontology “seems essential and cannot be dismissed
as mere appearance” (Kloogger 2017). Architecture may also obtain this indeterminate
ontology, especially when dealing with “climatic heterotopias”. Fleur Laggarigue develops
some preliminary arguments, introducing her doubts within the way of conceiving space.
However, she produces a very interesting spatial argument that will obtain a non-
deterministic ontology since in her “climatic heterotopia” there are multiple potential truths
directly relating to feeling atmospheres.
7
The Hegelian Dimension of

Climate as a Feeling Atmosphere
In 1966, Michel Foucault started to develop the notion of heterotopia.

Following the same pattern as utopia and dystopia, heterotopia finds its
etymology in ancient Greek combining the two words ἕτερος (heteros)
meaning “other” or “different” and τόπος (topos) meaning “place”, thus
creating the new concept of “other place”. In a radio conference, after
talking about all the places that differ from each other, Michel Foucault
asserts that “in a certain way, some (places) are absolutely different, they
are opposed to all the other, in a way that intends to erase, compensate,
neutralize or purify them. They are a sort of counter-spaces”1. In other
words, these “localized utopias” according to Foucault are deviant places
compared to the average. According to him, a heterotopia can be of different
orders, a space for all times, as if it could be definitely out of the time, for
eternity, for instance museums or libraries. Heterotopias can also be linked
to the time not through eternity but through a variety of chronic
temporalities: heterotopias of festivity or chronic heterotopias. These include
theaters and fairs, for example. They are sorts of vacuums in or outside the
cities that can once or twice a year be fully appropriated by different
populations, being filled with activities. Anyway, these kinds of spaces are
always extremely linked to temporality and a specific division of time and,
as Foucault says, “they are parent to heterochronies”1.
Chapter written by Milan ENGSTRÖM.

1 Michel Foucault, Les Hétérotopies, France culture radio, December 7, 1966,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxOruDUO4p8.

In addition to entertaining a deep relation with time, this notion can also
be connected to the notion of climate and should take increasingly more
importance, especially nowadays with climate change, global warming, its
aftereffects, impacts and multiple related crises. A “climatic heterotopia” can
be interpreted in various ways and on many levels. First, we can mention the
notion of climate brought to light by the climate change crisis through the
increase in natural catastrophes: rising of sea level, floods, storms and
earthquakes. The Maldives can be seen as a “climatic heterotopia” for its
paradisiac landscape and climate but, in my opinion, considering the rising
of the ocean, it is more importantly a “climatic heterotopia” due to the
threats of its disappearance. Actually, in the present day, it is not really a
threat anymore but more of a certitude held by an unclear countdown
dictating a future submersion. It is a climatic heterotopia for that reason and
again we clearly see that it withholds an inherent bond with time. Venice as
well is in a similar situation. With increasingly bigger tides, the city is
changing face and climate along with the sea going up and down. Yet, this
time technology might save this heritage. According to the last specifications
of “climatic heterotopia”, the Caribbean islands are also in some ways large-
scale ones, considering that hurricanes are becoming wilder and stronger. A
general definition of “climatic heterotopia” could be a singular place
different from the others regarding its climate and atmosphere. Following
this definition, we can differentiate the localized ones and those less
geographical. For the first kind, those limited to specific places, we can find
the mountains, jungles and deserts with very specific climates or always
varying climates, either random or cyclic changes of humidity, rain and
temperature. Perhaps climatic heterotopias should be more the places with
differing climates compared to their surroundings. An oasis is then a truly
remarkable “climatic heterotopia” because there is a sort of mise en abîme
with a “climatic heterotopia” within another bigger one.
The second type is the less localized “climatic heterotopias” that are more
universal and can be found in most places, wherever we are. Caves can be
seen as such or just the shaded area under a tree for the feeling of coolness it
is offering. In this category we can also distinguish the ones that are more
artifacts, made by humans, therefore often introducing architecture into the
heterotopia. The most obvious is probably the greenhouse made with the aim
of creating a favorable atmosphere to grow plants. It then was interpreted in
another way, and this spatiality has been transformed into verandas, this time
The Hegelian Dimension of Climate as a Feeling Atmosphere 77
offering a warm and pleasant temperature to the occupants. As funny as it

can be, the fridge alleys in the supermarkets could be also considered as
“climatic heterotopias” because we may really feel the transition of
atmosphere in a radical way when walking in the rays of a store. Last but not
least, the example of a church is definitely relevant for several reasons. The
particular freshness brought by the stone structure is used to interfere with
the human mind, to put at ease space users and serves a serene atmosphere
suitable for praying, deep thinking and meditation.
The following position of Tadao Ando also applies to religious homes.

According to Ando, the house protects the body, which, in turn, contains the
spirit. It must bring security and comfort to both the body and the mind. Just
as the body must feel comfortable with the spirit inside itself, building
environment must provide us with comfort, that is to say protection, and also
offer us places of reflection and meditation – a real reflection on each
person’s relationship with the world2.
There is another aspect of “climatic heterotopia”, which is at the center of

my interests. It is not particularly linked to the climate in terms of
atmospheric conditions like temperature or humidity but rather in terms of
feeling atmosphere, a climate of tension, brought to one through feelings and
memories. In the same way that people talk of political climate, we are
talking here about a climate of spirit or spiritual climate. I want to talk about
a self-generated climate, one resulting from emotions.
The feelings one has do trigger reactions on our body, which may
translate into heat, cold, tension, shivering, etc. Like music does, I aim to
create architecture able to communicate emotions resulting in singular
climates for each and every individual. In this particular form of climatic
heterotopia, architecture takes an important place. Indeed, it is an open
dialogue between body and space, which can take place in static structures or
dynamic spaces.
There are different ways to penetrate heterotopias. It can be by

constraints, it is the case for prisons, asylums or when one is subject to
myths and cults. Some can also be for a kind of purification: religious and
2 For more details see also: Tadao Ando, Du béton et d’autres secrets de l’architecture,
L’Arche, 2017.
hygienic such as hammams. The other heterotopias are fully open.

Everybody can access but once in there we may realize that the “climatic
heterotopia” is just a dead end illusion. Heterotopias have this inherent
property to be open but to maintain you outside.
Everybody, everything, every place has its own history, a past making it
unique as time passes by. It is based on this, on the essence of things, taking
hold on the story of each element I would like to create a “climatic
heterotopia” that would be able to transpire history, to testify and reveal the
traces left behind by humans who have passed by (Figure 7.1). Architecture
consists of “designing an environment” according to Penelope Dean3, so
with the strength of the genius loci and the iconic power of materials, I
would like to create a space making the visitor to cogitate but, more
importantly, to feel his/her surroundings in order to generate a psychological
climate change. It would be a place with various climates to remind us of its
importance. It is the different climates that shaped humankind. According to
Montesquieu, it is the different needs in different climates that have shaped
the different ways of living; and these different ways of living formed the
various kinds of laws4.
Additionally, according to Hegel5, man uses nature for his ends, but
where nature is too powerful, it cannot be reduced to the state of medium.
According to a Hegelian phenomenological point of view, the hot zone and
the cold zone are therefore not the theater of universal history. In this
respect, the free human spirit has rejected these extremes. In short, humanity
established a dominant narrative, whereas it is the temperate zone, which has
served as a theater for the spectacle of universal history. Among the different
temperate zones, it is, in turn, the Nordic zone that is the only one capable of
fulfilling this role. To me this “climatic heterotopia” must be open to all with
no restriction. It is a place of meditation, self-reflection as well as a place of
gathering and joy6. Renzo Piano said during an interview on this matter that
3 For more details see also: P. Dean, Delivery without discipline: Architecture in the age of
design, PhD dissertation, Umi Dissertation Publishing, 2011.
4 For the detailed analysis, see also: Montesquieu, L’Esprit des lois, 3e partie, Livre XIV,
chap. X, 1748.
5 For a detailed analysis, see also: Hegel, La Raison dans l’histoire, IV – Le fondement
géographique de l’histoire universelle, 1822.
6 Lazaros Mavromatidis: After reading these lines, a recent article of Maria Kli (2018) came
immediately into my mind. This short essay investigates the Castoriadian viewpoint on the
subject of autopoiesis (Kli 2018). According to Kli (2018) Castoriadis aims to bridge the
chasm between the individual and the social, reversing the Lacanian viewpoint that
as architects and engineers we must succeed in imposing in the suburbs this

search for the “happy city”. He also wondered where does it say that a city
must be sad to be true. The “happy city”, according to Piano, is a concept
that needs to be introduced into the suburbs7.
In our case study, the airport is related to the “climatic heterotopia”

notion in the fact that as a non-space it is a “nowhere”, yet it can be
everywhere. It has simultaneously a global and a local dimension. It is only a
transition space, someplace with the sole purpose of gathering people going
from one place to another. But this makes it special; it is a topo-heterochrony
because it is a place of a variety of different times that coexist. It is a détour
(deviation) that eventually makes people win time in the long run. Time
exists there as a very special aspect.
In terms of legislation as well, it has a special status with areas

completely restricted and may be more importantly with others of
international ground. In the symbolic sphere it is a space of everyone, a
space of everywhere but where only a few people can actually go. All this is
a common history to every airport in the globe, but when one is abandoned
within this spatial instance, there is a great opportunity to create a special
space, a counter-space, a third-place, a heterotopia, and why not include the
dimension of climate to it? Investing in an abandoned airport is a way to free
up and open to the public a ground where very few people have had access.
An example of this type of realization is located in Berlin on Tempelhof
Airport and I genuinely think that this kind of intervention can only result in
a climatic heterotopia no matter what is done or not done. If abandoned, an
airport will inevitably be considered as a tremendous urban void.
emphasizes solely on the alienating aspect of every social construction and inherent human
limitations. Milan Engström throughout his essay aims to modestly propose a heterotopic
space that is the fruit of open conceptual conditions. Therefore, he tries to create a space that
recaptures in a different manner the inherent dualism that is partly brought about by people’s
alienation due to spatial creation, social exclusion and partly due to their latent
psychological inclinations. To do so, he will try to conceptually use climate in multiple ways:
as a thermodynamic condition, as a feeling atmosphere, as a medium, etc. This is, I think, the
main original contribution of this perspective, since space will be conceived and perceived in
a very personal way, enhancing its inherent auto-poetic dimension through a multitude of
potential subjective feelings, perceptions and atmospheres.
7 For the entire interview on this subject, see also: Renzo Piano, La désobéissance de
l’architecte, Arléa, 2016.
Figure 7.1. Crossing natural and spatial boundaries. © collage: Milan Engström
80
Overall, in his writings, Foucault encourages us to look back and see in

history many ways of doing things that are perhaps superior to the present.
He is not trying to get us nostalgic; Foucault wants us to pick up elements of
way back in order to improve how we live now. I will then try to do so and
anchor myself to the essence of things to build my next “climatic
heterotopia”.
8
Rhythm as the Tool to

Create Heterochrony and
Innovative Territorialities
What is a “climatic heterotopia”? It is an alluring, multi-syllabic word to

express a concept we all know, we all felt sometime, somewhere, but
never put a word on it. To ease the comprehension of my interpretation I
would like to split this idea in two. First, climatic is an adjective, which
characterizes something related to the climate. In the last years, the climate
has taken a particular place in the press and on the Internet. It has such an
impact on our society that it became a business argument: it is now common
to see “good for the planet” or “CO2 free” slogans in advertisements and
multinationals’ communication activities adding green on their logo to make
it more trendy. This phenomenon is called green bashing and it sadly
concerns architecture and urbanism as well. Our mission is thus not just to
“green” our concept but to integrate it so that both climate and concept are
no more separable.
Second, heterotopia, a word that is less common than the first one but not
so far in its meaning from a word that we all know: utopia. A heterotopia is
indeed defined by Michel Foucault as a physical localization for utopia. To
illustrate his concept, he starts with spaces that we all experienced in our
early years; the bottom of the garden, the attic, the hut behind the duvet are
all places where the imagination overtakes the physical idea of the space.
Chapter written by Jonas KAMMERER.

Children are not the only creators of heterotopias; the adult society
creates indeed counter-spaces such as holiday villages, brothels, prisons or
asylums. Places where a new kind of society appears, with other rules, other
habits. In the holiday village for example, even more where naturalism is
promoted, we reconnect, even if it is not consciously, with our origins, by
rediscovering the simplicity of life. The reconnection with our origins can
happen in a library as well, but the way is totally different. In a library we
accumulate knowledge that we try to forget in the holiday village during
vacation. From a different angle, heterotopia can also be seen as a place that
includes all shapes, all times, all tastes; in this way we can consider theaters
and cinemas as heterotopias. Finally, the boat is often taken as an example
of heterotopia because of its physical and psychical disconnection with
the land.
After this short introduction, we can describe a “climatic heterotopia” as

a place for a potential climatic utopia, “a space outside of any place
although localizable” according to Nathanaël Wadbled1, who presented in
such a way this notion of heterotopia. A “climatic heterotopia” is not just a
“greened” utopia but also a spatial arrangement, a place and a territoriality
that is inspired by the topos to enhance its characteristics.
Once I established the borders of the notion of “climatic heterotopia”, I

tried to identify a more specific axis of development. My idea was to work
around the notion of common languages, (not worldwide spoken-languages
such as English, Spanish or, more recently, Esperanto) focusing on something
we all have in common: we all felt in the womb of our mother the rhythm,
the beat, the heartbeat. In that case, I can link my work in a complementary
manner to the other works that are presented in this book, and particularly
focus around what we have physically in common: our body.
I have always been interested in trying to understand why in general

human beings like rhythm, and why a rhythmic scheme has the potential to
create an atmosphere that can be invigorating. Just as my philosophy teacher
once linked the act of smoking with the act of suckling and explained by
making this connection why it is reassuring, I thus found it interesting to
identify rhythm as the unifying creative element, considering that it has the
potential to link our imaginary realm with the heartbeat of our mother.
1 For more details on this definition of heterotopia, see also Nathanaël Wadbled:
L’hétérotopie de Disneyland https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BTRLw_q00M.
Rhythm as the Tool to Create Heterochrony and Innovative Territorialities 85
It is common to use rhythm or, more generally, music to convey

emotions, to create an ambience. It can happen to amplify the atmosphere of
the enclosing space or to contrast with it: lounge music is smooth and calm
just as a lounge, but in cinema someone can search for dynamic music in a
fixed atmosphere to announce what happens next or, vice versa, a silent
audio on a war scene to enhance the disillusion and the shock. The power of
music to gather people is no more to be proved and that is why I want to
focus on a less known phenomenon, with the example of techno music and
therefore techno clubs. In the last years, this style has been developed
exponentially. We can simply explain this fact by saying that tastes of people
change with time, but if we observe it differently we can see it as the
expression of the need of introversion. Indeed, in an overconnected and
oversocial world, we sometimes need to re-find ourselves.
Meditation is a good way to reconnect with our body and soul but dancing
in a techno club is a good way too. Instead of focusing on the heartbeat and
breathing, we may focus just on the external beat. No need for friends and
social interaction, since your best friend is you. Of course life is not just about
finding or re-finding one’s self, but it has to be well-balanced between the
social and the autonomous. Here I will try to explain why the rhythm can be
linked to the notion of heterotopia, and how it may become an element to
introduce the climate dimension (Figure 8.1). I see the rhythm as the energy of
a vicious cycle, as the repetition of a phenomenon. Cycles are everywhere:
transitions between two opposites, two poles: night and day, active and
passive. In agriculture, and especially in the crops rotation, cycles are even
more present: alternation between production of one type, “fallow agriculture”
and production of another type, cycle of water and seasonality. We lose a part
of the utopia once we speak about agriculture, but those physical cycles
help us to find out our cycle, our rhythm of life. Invented cycles have existed
all over the ages, often based on physical cycles, partly in any case.
The cyclic vision spreads officially to help and reassure people and
informally to make people more docile and to better dictate their life.
Religion has its times of prayer, television has scheduled series and
evening news broadcasts and, more recently, the smartphone has constant
notifications. Nevertheless, even if suggested or imposed cycles can be
boring or stressful, I believe, that they could be used in a comforting manner.
In chaos situations, routine disappears and gives its seat to instability.
Migrations, wars, crises disrupt people’s lives indeed not just physically but
also mentally. Chaos is not the only cause of disturbance; homeless and
loneliness as it moves one aside prevent someone from following the

rhythm of life dictated by society, for the better and for the worse. I will
develop how I propose to try to solve this issue at the end of the essay but
first, I would now like to expose the evolution of my thoughts.
Figure 8.1. Spatial rhythmic sequences. © collage: Jonas Kammerer
After a deep reflection on the notion of heterotopia, my vision evolved;

the idea of rhythm guided me towards a more palpable but not less
heterotopic object: the festival, and especially the music festival. To explain
my choice, I am going to make a comparative study with one of the most
convincing heterotopic object, besides the boat: the theme park and
especially Disneyland, based on the work of Nathanaël Wadbled.
– The entrance, a break with the real: Just like the theme park, the
festival embodies a certain kind of new liberty, far from our society. Rules,
time, money, goals, everything is redefined. To mark this transition, the
entrance has to reflect these ideas with strong images and/or simple words.
These dream societies become instantly desired places and one thing that has
to be well defined is the access. Once people want to come, a heterotopia has
to filter its visitors to be preserved. In our two examples, the pass is first and
sadly money, and it will not be the last time I will speak about money.
Nevertheless, we cannot ignore other codes such as the dress code, for the
burning man festival for example, or the fact of being an architect, to be able
to participate to the constructive festival Bellastock. Inside the festival exist
other heterotopias, a kind of fractals of the original heterotopia with different
codes and rules, the green room where artists gather and rest or the VIP
space where money is again a way of distinction.
– Music, the witness of generations: How can we speak about a festival
without speaking about music? I already introduced the question of rhythm
and music but to complete my introduction I want to shortly speak about the
podcast “Dancefloors are Heterotopias of Deviance” produced by the media,
Curious Apes2, where I will intend to base my comparative analysis. In this
short analysis, the author link the heterotopia of time defined by Michel
Foucault as “the will to enclose in one place all times, all epochs, all forms,
all tastes, the idea of constituting a place of all times that is itself outside of
time” with a DJ set. Indeed, for him “a great DJ set will transform the club
into a museum of sounds, the DJ becomes like as a historian joining the dots
between electro, afro, techno”2. It is interesting to become conscious of
something we experience almost every weekend and this idea makes me to
want to talk about something we could develop in the program of our
project, in the form of a music library. As we intend to gather people from
different regions of the world around one project, where the creation of the
festival plays an important role within our programmatic narrative, we
deeply believe in the fact of giving to the users of the “climatic heterotopia”
the tools to play music together; but it could be even more relevant to enable
them to leave their footprints on the site, to record their creations, to create
the museum of sounds of the festival and its process.
2 https://soundcloud.com/user-672257334/dancefloors-and-heterotopias-of-deviance-thorsten.
– The spatiality: Nathanaël Wadbled describes the utopic space of

a theme park as follows. According to him, Disneyland can be considered
a utopia endowed with its own system of spatial coordinates, making it
possible to locate itself, different from ours and whose hiatus with reality
would prohibit any real geographical inscription3. We can illustrate this
analysis with maps of a theme park and a festival. The space and its
representation are indeed essential in the notion of heterotopia; losing the
notion of scale helps people to feel in another place, in another territory, in
another world. Similar to the Disneyland scenery, festivals play with
infinitely small and big structures to create their spaces, providing a
spatiality that is a multi-scalar rhythmic composition.
Throughout this short comparative study, I wanted to explain what

inherent elements could give to a festival the status of a “climatic
heterotopia”. We can see that similarities between the festival and the theme
park are abundant and could be the subject of a fully fledged essay but I
would like to end this essay by speaking about our project, and especially
how we blended all our thoughts in one piece.
Our project takes place in a particular space on the social, economic and
urban scale. Our project takes place within a particular global context
that faces multifaceted complementary crises: indeed an economic crisis, a
social crisis, inequality and, more recently, a tremendous migration and
refugee crisis. As a result, a lot of potential inhabitants of our space – no
matter their origins – struggle to re-find a rhythm. In fact our goal is not to
create a new rhythm and impose it but to offer the means for people to help
them find their own common rhythm4. The objective of our proposal is not
just to create a festival in itself in an autistic manner but to sew together all
the process needed to make it work as a rhythmic element that may enhance
3 For a detailed analysis of this interpretation, see also Nathanaël Wadbled: L’hétérotopie de
Disneyland, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BTRLw_q00M.
4 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: The way that Jonas Kammerer develops his arguments and
gradually constructs his concept around the notion of the rhythm clearly follows a
psychoanalytic process. This is why his proposal, in my opinion, can never obtain a definitive
– considered as absolute and final – form, even if he later sketches many programmatic
elements in a deterministic manner. Therefore, I find very interesting the idea of developing a
spatial argument that shapes the notion of the rhythm in a way to asseverate an enunciation
and affirmation of the condition of human autonomy through clear spatial and territorial
arguments. I believe that this idea is quite original and could be a very interesting perspective
for further development.
ingenious territorialities. From the design of the space, to the artistic

program passing by the food service and the campsite, there is a lot of work
to do and everyone can make their contribution.
By speaking of the project, we leave behind its utopic dimension, but I

think that it is necessary to understand how this concept could really fit in
our actual world. The organization of the festival is made by a new
horizontally organized community that proposes how to share a new way of
living. To help the members of the community to find that rhythm, we
identified different types of moments of the day; key moments of gathering,
where people share a meal, play music together while eating, and also
distinguished more private moments to work on oneself.
Regarding the hosting of the incoming nomadic flows, we considered that

after months or even years of wars, conflict and migration, these people have
to re-find their place in the society through inclusion. Workers, doctors,
teachers, they all had a specific competence before and our goal is to assist
them, to offer them the tools to feel integrated again. The goal is to see
everybody contribute in some way to the project, acting to make it better,
leaving away individuality, since the result of everybody’s work is shared.
Thus, the following steps are necessary to correctly temporalize the birth of
this version of “climatic heterotopia”:
– Create a climatic utopia: Considering the rather arid climate due to
perpetual climate change, the main purpose of our topography is to allow
agriculture by draining the rainwaters into large basins intended to store
waterfalls. By doing so we salute and promote a traditional Mediterranean
agriculture, the so-called restanque agriculture that generates different
climates for the plants.
– Create an architectural and urbanized utopia: The site of the project
has a lot of utopic characteristics since it is an abandoned non-space. First
of all, we have to deal with a classic scale problem (since an airport is
indeed much bigger than any other space in a city). Second, we have to deal
with the way that we intend to use it due to the fact that the airport has not
been in use over the last 20 years. We had a double mission for this space:
to enhance the utopia for the visitors and to give a more understandable
space for the inhabitants. Our choice has been to keep the monumental
landing track but to rhythm it with agriculture, free space and art installation.
– Create a social utopia: As explained in the introduction, contemporary

societies face complex multifaceted social crises, while some of them deal
with intensive migratory crises. The goal of the project is to welcome all the
incoming people in need, wherever they come, wherever they want to go. A
lot of barriers could obstruct the good process of integration and the social
mix, and the first one is the language. Of course we could solve this problem
pragmatically, by offering language course, but which language do we
choose? In my opinion, it is not significant in the early days just to learn
another language code. It is more useful to use what everyone has in
common such as the culture of rhythm and/or of music.
Despite our work to create a real and sustainable project, we can see
through these three approaches that the project aims to keep its heterotopic
characteristics. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, I would like to briefly talk
about a more objective vision of “climatic heterotopias”. Of course, it is
interesting to develop that type of project, since it gives hope in difficult
situations such as to face the different crises presented before but the danger
approaches quickly, and the notion of “climatic heterotopia” – similarly to
other notions – must be protected to avoid becoming just a promotional
argument. As Nathanaël Wadbled describes regarding Disneyland and its
drift, the place seems open but reserved for a certain practice; it seems open
to the marvelous, but this marvelous is that of an illusionist who uses
cardboard and other devices to make customers believe that they are in
another place and to lead them to consume. Thus, the main danger regarding
our urban project is that the festival could become a commercial product if it
is not in safe hands.
9
Story for an Illusory Hope

Against an Absurd Life
Utopia is on the horizon. I move two steps closer; it moves two

steps further away. I walk another ten steps and the horizon
runs ten steps further away. As much as I may walk, I’ll never
reach it. So what’s the point of utopia? What is a “climatic
heterotopia”? The point is this: to keep walking.
paraphrasing Edouardo GALEANO
Cities, villages, areas of civilization – any space occupied by humans –

are complex systems. They are formed by juxtapositions, superpositions or
associations of spaces that result from the interaction of individuals with that
place. Space, in the sense of an occupied place, is in a way a characterization
of the people who inhabit it or frequent it. It reflects, in a certain way, the
organization, the functioning, the interactions and the codes of this human
group. Space is therefore specific to a given place and a defined time. The
territory responds to rules, explicit or not, which are the result of legislation,
or simply of habits and customs. In Robert E. Park’s book titled Human
Behavior in the City Environment, which describes the relationship between
humans and their immediate environment (the city), it is cited that the city
is rooted in the habits and customs of the people who inhabit it. The
consequence is that the city possesses a moral as well as a physical
organization, and these two mutually exclusive substances interact in
characteristic ways to mold and modify one another. It is the structure of
the city, which impresses us with its visible vastness and complexity,
Chapter written by Bérénice VALLANCE.

but this structure has its basis, nevertheless, in human nature, of which it is
an expression.
The city – or inhabited space – is the very proof and result of community
life. It causes encounters and interactions between the individuals who walk
through it. Park later defined a vision where the whole city is a “growth
machine”. It is the undesigned product of the labors of successive
generations of men (Park 1915). It is itself created by these individuals, and
is in permanent transformation, subject to the evolution of individuals within
this space.
However, if the city is the fruit of the successive life of societies, it also
has an impact on these individuals. The relationship is reciprocal; it is not
only people who create the city, but also the city that influences the behavior
and social life of these human groups. We can find in the same work by
Park, a definition where he presents the city as a vast organization, which
has arisen in response to the needs of its inhabitants (Park 1915). According
to Park, the city, once formed, impresses itself upon them as a crude external
fact, and forms them, in turn, in accordance with the design and interests,
which it incorporates (Park 1915).
Yet space causes neglected places, underserved areas, sometimes

excluded from society. Space is in a way not neutral. There are sudden and
unselected spaces, as well as deserted and overcrowded places, space
finished to be unequal and gendered. Fruit of society and formative of it, the
city is not a corner of paradise dreamed of for all. And the behaviors it
engenders are not always those expected. It is the complex result of the
expression of human nature, and it sometimes brings out its darkest sides, it
seems to justify or intensify unparalleled inequalities.
Walking each day with our heads down in front of people begging for a
piece of bread, seeing families crammed into unhealthy buildings, letting
people travel for hours on end to barely manage to feed themselves at the
end of the month, closing our eyes to be able to bear to go through this world
again and again, we are basically all aware that something is not right. That
this city, which is a territory of cohabitation, sometimes turns into an ordeal.
But we are helpless, drowned by this complexity, the keys to which we
certainly lost a long time ago. The city is moving forward, taking with it the
society that is out of its depth. These two inherent substances – city and
Story for an Illusory Hope Against an Absurd Life 93
society – are linked and make their way together, but both seem to be slowly
going under, being victims of an uncontrolled process.
It seems then that the space no longer fully meets everyone’s needs
and desires but rather meets certain necessities linked to factors beyond
our control: the unethical law of an over-powerful economic market or
superficial politics that are too far removed from the citizens’ realities. We
often no longer try to understand where people want to go, but where it
would be wise for them to go for financial profit. In most projects or urban
plans, the budget is at the heart of the project: to finance the operation, to
make it afterwards profitable, etc. From a private individual’s point of view,
the choice of creating a real living environment is more often linked to
proximity to the workplace or the price of real estate, rather than to a specific
environment with inherent spatial qualities.
Space is therefore a representation of a society at a given time; it is the

result of the interaction of people with their living environment. But it seems
that it can be in contradiction with the real interests of this population. That
space is often undergone more than conceived. That kind of space constrains
the blossoming or the design of a society. A space that is something more
than a constraint should be the true expression of cohabitation. This kind of
space should be able to meet everyone’s needs. It should not be governed by
influence, but should be a free open-ended space of permanent choices and
freedom.
The difficulty certainly stems from the universal dimension of space: it

belongs to no one and to everyone. How is it possible to create a universe
that would meet the needs of everyone without constraining a subdivision
that is named neighbor? Is it possible to find a cohabitation that benefits
everyone? How can public space be given back to society?
It seems, if we analyze a few examples where space is associated with

desire, euphoria or pleasures, that there are spaces of exceptional
frequentation, or on the antipode temporary spaces. It is very difficult to
identify this type of space in the planning of everyday life. This is the case,
for example, with amusement parks, which for many are associated with one
of the particular sensations. We note that the outing to such a park is
organized once a year, sometimes more, sometimes less, but it rarely
contributes to a family’s weekly planning.
The festival, an allegory of madness and leisure, is also a limited space. It

is generally defined in time, restricted to two or three days, sometimes a
week but rarely more. These two places are associated, in the imagination of
a majority of people with a moment of pleasure, a particular euphoria. There
are activities that provoke, just by their evocation, a particular joy. These
heterochronic spatial substances temporally coexist with holidays, which, by
a change of space, provoke a different state of daily life, assimilated to
positive sensations. This status of absence from work gives a connotation to
the moment. Indeed, holiday centers or tourist resorts therefore have the
power to be attractive places, but which are only reached temporarily. It is
rare for people to feel that they are on holiday in their everyday lives. So
certainly, these places of pleasure partly have this entertaining character
because they are exceptional, by virtue of being a divergence from everyday
life. Certainly these spatial expressions would lose some of that special
character if we frequented them regularly, or daily. It would be an interesting
perspective in this sense to explicitly analyze the feelings of persons who
work annually in one of these places.
But it also seems that there is a hidden code present in our society, a kind
of unspoken rules that are applied by the vast majority. It seems that these
local moments of pleasure or entertainment have to be earned. As if in order
to enjoy something, we must owe it to society, or just to ourselves. We have
to work all year round to get a vacation period. But more than being rooted
in mentalities or dominant culture, society dictates that it is impossible to
live without earning an income. It is as if our existence is conditioned by the
fact that we have to accomplish certain tasks. It is indeed very difficult today
to live without an income. And in spite of a minority who tries to live on
their passion, the general impression from the discussions we may have is
that work is, in a sense, a necessity in order to be able to live1.
Our whole existence then seems to be centered on this precise objective:

to work in order to earn our life. It is often frowned upon in society to
receive money “without doing anything in return” or without deserving it.
All scholarships, allowances or payments of money have a reason that is
deemed valid by society: whether it is the salary in return for work done,
1 Funny personal anecdote: While I am writing this text, while I am wondering about work,
about the necessity of work, and the non-freedom to work, the waiter at the café where I am
points out to me that I am working too much for a Friday night. I retort that he also works,
even more than I do, since he is on duty, whereas I chose to come to a café as a place of
relaxation to work. He responds me, “but I do it to be able to live”.
unemployment, which is given on the condition that we have already worked

and will start working again, family allowances, because we have children to
support, etc.
Today, work becomes necessary because it provides a resource to live on,

and not because it meets indispensable needs. And pleasure or leisure is
placed in opposition to work, something that is not necessary and therefore
must be secondary. Yet, can it really be said that work is more necessary
than leisure, inasmuch as it is necessary largely because it is remunerated
and thus leads to the subordination of humans to activity?
And this work activity, at the center of human organization, has a great
deal of influence on the arrangement of space, transport and the choice of
life of individuals. Work, associated with exchanges and economic interests,
seems to dictate flows and territory. These are the reasons for setting up a
new airport or a motorway. Work also, very often, justifies the creation of
new monotonous cemented suburban suburbs.
Would not the space – that is nowadays thought up for developing

intensive human activity and is mainly governed by work and commercial
exchanges – be of more benefit to people if it were thought up first and
foremost to meet their relaxation or their desires? Why, when we design a
space, do we first try to make a useful place pleasant before making a
pleasant place useful? Are human’s primary necessities above all the
constraints of the existence of humanity? Should we deserve the simple fact
of blossoming, or is not the primary objective to reach happiness and
therefore to seek the activities corresponding to his/her blossoming? Why
should human beings be forced to choose an activity that generates an
income? Of course, work is not always contradictory to the pleasure of
individuals, but it seems that it must remain a choice. And the simple fact of
paying for it makes it compulsory and not free of choice.
There is this conditioning of existence and therefore of spatial expression

by work. Or more precisely by the indispensable salary induced by it. But
birth itself also conditions existence. In this case I am interested in the
limitation of space induced by the place of birth or on racial characteristics,
or on administrative formalities such as the nationality. Places can be
literally forbidden to us, because we were born in a certain country. That is
to say, in many cases it is institutionally justified to prevent you from
existing just because you were not born here. Or worse, it is possible to be
marginalized for the sole reason that you were born in an “undesirable”
country.
Space, which is therefore by definition universal, is a victim of

privatization or appropriation. A place of blood or birth, and political
decisions for which most individuals have no responsibility, condition our
space of existence. Once again, access to a territory is allowed for absurd
specific reasons. If we have no reason to go somewhere, we have no right to
go there. And people judge other people without really knowing our
substantial existence and they do not care about that. People decide whether
or not to let you enter a space or a territory because you have a special
administrative existence (nationality). Additionally, most people judge other
people solely based on economic criteria.
Borders therefore seem to condition existence, to deny the existence

of someone in a particular place, for reasons that are beyond the
responsibility of the individual. We can allow entry for a tourist stay, which
implies the beginning and end of the stay and produces income for the
country. Or, being granted the status of refugee or climate refugee also,
someone is authorized to escape from a danger or a regime that is deemed
to be dangerous. But the simple fact of wanting to go to a place just for
pleasure, or envy, is not a valid argument. So once again it seems that space
is delimited not in the interest of human fulfillment, but due to other
principles (economic, political and/or moral). At the end, borders
significantly influence space and human relationships.
Borders and work are very current everyday issues in our society.
They appear to be decisive in the organization of our lives, both on a small
and large scale. The climate is another global factor. It certainly has
consequences in the longer term, but we are nevertheless beginning to see
worrying signs of it. Repeated natural disasters, extreme weather events or
the disruption of the seasons do not leave us indifferent. All of us, as citizens
of the world, are afraid, and try to do what we can to remedy them. But once
again, the decision centers have greater power than the will of the citizenry,
and seem to prevail. It is as if we are not really actors in this world, but we
are watching it fall to pieces. Yet there is no doubt that there is no lack of
goodwill. But between the big multinationals and the “influenced”
governments, everyone blames each other and we are incapable of acting, as
a result of the tragedy.
It also seems that we have learned to tame the climatic and temporal
conditions and that we have lost the rhythm of time. Today, we are able to
live almost the same way whether it is 3 a.m. or noon, whether it is sunny or
snowy. Today we have lost the rhythm of the seasons and the days. We
forgot that we too are adapted to our environment. And that rather than
always controlling it, it would sometimes be wiser and more economical to
learn to live with it. That it can bring us a lot, and that we will not be able to
control all the excesses. It would then be time to take care of our planet and
learn to live with it again, rather than repairing all our excesses with air
conditioning or heated patios. It is time to think about our everyday space,
inside and outside, in relation to the climate and not against it. Climate
change, like all our attempts to respond to it rather than prevent it, affects
our living space in a physical way, and not just physically. Once again, the
current direction seems to run counter to our human interests, prosperity,
good living conditions, and sometimes even survival.
If we return to the research for a space that corresponds to the fulfillment

of our society, if it is possible to achieve it, then perhaps it is a space that
would above all sketch an ingenious territory that allows people to live for
what they want to live for and not for what they are forced to want, or what
is imposed on them at all. It would therefore be a space without frontiers,
where work in the formal shape of employment would only have the role of
responding to our needs, where days would regain their primary meaning.
As far as work is concerned, it seems to me that there are two

possibilities. Wages would have no place and therefore the dependence of
someone’s life on a specific task would not exist. In order for individuals to
be able to live without a salary, there would have to create an exchange
society where money is not the exchange medium, or each individual would
have to be entitled to an unconditional income, an equal sum for all,
distributed without conditions.
If the existence of money is questioned, then the legitimacy of private

property can be questioned also. We can cite the example of Ciudad Abierta,
a community of poets, artists and architects in Valparaíso2 who have settled
on a piece of land (bought at the beginning of the project by members of
the community), and where no land and no building belongs to anyone. Each
2 https://www.bmiaa.com/la-ciudad-abierta-de-amereida-chile-utopia-in-progress-at-civa/.
member can occupy a house by family or by affinity, knowing that this

occupation will be temporary (usually a few years).
The inhabitants modify the houses as much as they want. And from time
to time, the occupants exchange the dwellings according to each person’s
needs. Each person only pays for the charges related to the occupation of the
house, and the work they plan to do. There is no rent. This principle seems to
work rather well in this community, but it must be recognized that it is set up
in a small-scale community (at most a hundred members) of people who
have made the choice of this life. But the idea is interesting, and why could
not we think about this functioning on a larger scale? The second idea
regarding a kind of universal income (or unconditional income of existence)
is not new and it has already been endeavored many times. One of the first
experiments, in the town of Dauphin in Canada3, was conducted over four
years in the 1970s. Although the results have not been properly exploited,
it would seem, according to Rutger Bregman4 – a Dutch economist – that
the effects are real in terms of poverty reduction, lower crime rates and
education.
And if we still doubt that we can survive without a society of workers, we

must not forget that work is above all the way to meet basic needs. In this
respect, human beings are dependent on work, but in view of the technical
means available today, work, in the sense of a task indispensable to a human,
can be organized in a much more concise way. Hannah Arendt defends in
her book The Human Conditions, the interests of human beings to
emancipate themselves from work. According to Arendt, it is a society of
laborers that is about to be liberated from the fetters of labor, and this society
does no longer know of those other higher and more meaningful activities
for the sake of which this freedom would deserve to be won (Arendt, 1958).
If we were interested in space, it would seem that advocating for an

unlimited space is more in line with the expectations of the human species
than our fragmented world. The course of history shows that human
migrations are not unilateral and tend to balance each other, reverse each
other, and start again and again until the end of history. Each population has
the opportunity to be enriched through the contact with the other. The cities
3 https://www.marketplace.org/2016/12/20/dauphin/.
4 Rutger Bregman, author of Utopia for realists, and how we can get there, in which he
analyzes, among other things, several basic income experiments, seeks to demonstrate how
basic income could reduce poverty.
of Andalusia, at the crossroads of Arab and Western civilizations, are of

great cultural wealth. The city of Buenos Aires, as intense and lively as it is,
is the result of a mixture of civilizations: cosmopolitanism characterizes it,
offering a very special character.
As for the relationship with the environment, returning to the use of less
processed materials would be an opportunity to regain contact with the
territory. From a thermodynamic point of view, houses made of adobe could
restore real inertia to buildings and create comfort through natural insulation.
The achievements of Lehm Ton Erde agency5, initiated by the Austrian
Martin Rauch, prove that it is possible to master the use of such a material,
just as the architects Herzog et De Meuron6 did during the construction of
the Ricola factory in Laufen, Switzerland7. Passive technologies could also
be used to take advantage of the natural elements. This project is related to
geothermal energy; however, several renewable energies could be thought
on a larger scale. One possibility to get back to the rhythm of the days would
be to limit or even eliminate street lighting. It is true that this poses problems
of insecurity. But alternatives to our current operation could be thought of.
The presence of plants and plantations would also be a way of restoring

the notion of the seasons, and of giving to the city’s territory a breath of
fresh air while providing food resources. The advantages of green and
productive zones within the urban fabric should be enough to convince
anyone, yet the financial interest is still ahead of us today. Creating a real
living space around cultivated areas would make it possible to pass on
knowledge, to make the most of pleasant areas, while producing a necessary
good. As AAA4 architects8 did in their self-managed “agrocity” project by
reintegrating fields in the middle of the housing estates in a Parisian suburb9.
This dreamed place would surely be qualified as a “climatic heterotopia”, a
place in opposition to all the others socially and climatically, but in the
center of all, a place where society could express for itself what it wants,
in opposition to a society that suffers what is imposed on it. The space
would then be born from the desires of each one, and from these desires
utilities and functions will be born. But heterotopia exists only because it
is different from the rest, because it is opposed to real spaces, to the spaces
5 https://www.lehmtonerde.at/en/.
6 https://www.herzogdemeuron.com/index.html.
7 https://www.archdaily.com/634724/ricola-krauterzentrum-herzog-and-de-meuron.
8 http://www.urbantactics.org/.
9 http://www.urbantactics.org/projets/agrocite/.
of everyday life. Michel Foucault described heterotopia as a space that

becomes itself a space of leisure, a space of exception. Or if it is “full-time”
invested in continuity, it becomes a space of the quotient; it becomes part of
the normal, of the real. Is it really possible to make a climatic heterotopia a
living space? Doesn’t the very idea of making it a living space condemn it to
become an ordinary space? How to ingeniously keep the original character
of pleasure?
In the proposal for “another” space developed above, it would be

necessary, for this mechanism to really work, that these principles, these
new “rules”, be universalized and applied everywhere. How can we open
borders while remaining closed? How can money be abolished by living in
the center of a financial market? But then the idea becomes unreal, a utopia.
Since we cannot impose a space on everyone, is “climatic heterotopia” by
definition a limited place? By its very nature, it is closed in on itself
(Figure 9.1). So, we could use “climatic heterotopia” as a mirror of society,
as a separate place that serves to realize our life, our daily life, and the
inconsistencies of our functioning. It can be a specific place that gives
society the reason for its existence, shows its nooks and crannies, reveals its
shadows and highlights its light. An “unreal” place, where it is impossible to
live, but which serves to become aware of one’s own existence, and of the
existence of the world as it is. It would therefore have a function for the
places around it. But for this it should be accessible to everyone but
definitive for no one. We cannot buy a house there, but can live there. We
cannot have a specific job as a gardener for the land, but can participate in
the gardening tasks. Like the mirror for a space, heterotopia would be the
mirror of society, the reflection of itself but with one dimension less. In the
same text, Foucault gives us his interpretation of the mirror. According to
Foucault, the mirror is, after all, a utopia, since it is a placeless place
(Foucault, 1967). But it is also a heterotopia insofar as the mirror does exist
in reality (Foucault, 1967). Inexorably, I imagine my “climatic heterotopia”,
this space “apart”, as the mirror of our world (Figure 9.1). A parenthesis in
the midst of this permanent din that seems to belong to everything else;
however, my “climatic heterotopia” differs from dominant spatial narratives
by the rules which seem to inherently be so profound. If the mirror defies the
rules of space, “climatic heterotopia” would change these rules and the
atmospheres of society, through the proposals made in these texts, and
through others to come afterwards still, innovative and new, allowing human
beings to be placed at the center of attention. These spatial instances would
take place only occasionally, but could be accessible to all, without anyone
101
Story for an Illusory Hope Against an Absurd Life
Figure 9.1. Climatic heterotopia as a world closed in on

itself. © collage: Bérénice Vallance
settling in.
Then we would be able to realize all the pseudo-liberties of our lives. We

could realize that it is possible to do otherwise, to become real actors of our
lives. So if this spatial and territorial mirror works, we would realize,
looking at ourselves from our present world, that another future is possible.
And if we manage to become aware of it, we will regain hope, and show that
we can give meaning to this complex universe of the city. Then perhaps the
laws of this climatic heterotopia could overturn the laws of reality. Perhaps
we would rediscover the power of community, of living together. And
maybe we could then radically transform the urban fabric creating a
permanent dialogue with nature. Our contemporary societies would be able
to regain the upper hand, while the beauty of an original humanized nature
would reverse the process. And then the climatic heterotopia would become
reality, and our reality would become an illusion10.
10 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: Bérénice Vallance puts in the forefront what is named by
Maria Kli (2018) “mechanical reproduction of the unconscious”. She considers that the
whole of society is spatially and socially instrumented within a framework of mimesis and
intrinsic traditions. Thus she tries to create a spatial instance that aims to gradually liberate
the user of her “climatic heterotopia” from the slavery of mimesis and the unconscious action
that is spatially imposed by the dominant urban, social and spatial narratives. Furthermore,
to assist the inherent human revolutionary potential of creativity, she tries to spatially create
heterochronic territories in order to liberate the user from internalized unconscious passivity.
Thereupon she gradually enhances the instinctive creativity proposing novel models of life.
This radical mindset is very interesting and in my opinion could be the major perspective of
the whole analysis that is presented through this essay since she redefines, through tangible
programmatic and notional elements, the political dimension of an architectural conceptual
praxis.
10
The Fluidic Climatic Heterotopia –

Fractures, Flows, Chaos, Composition
10.1. The infinite fracture – anything is but continuous
Through this essay, I will try to briefly lend to the reader the vision of the
“climatic heterotopia” the way I formalize it: permanent, interconnecting,
flowing through everything, ubiquitous. I will first talk about fluxes. In
doing so, it will scheme out a pattern to get a practical vision of a climatic
heterotopia for now and on.
The French philosopher Michel Foucault put a word on the general idea
of heterotopia. If we analyze its Greek syntactic roots, heterotopia defines
something peculiar (hetero) and well located (topos). In a nutshell, a
heterotopia is literally “the other place”. It is a “topos” where we can
identify an inherent significant difference. But difference about
what? Differences within itself? Identifiable offsets compared to the world
around?
Apparently, it is about differences regarding the surrounding world – its

outside limits – and difference within its nature. Literally speaking, it is
being different to reality itself. By the words of Foucault, the heterotopia
defines something else. Heterotopia is the “projection of a utopia straight
into reality”. Although a heterotopia is not a utopia. A heterotopia is even
the equivalent of a utopia for the strength of the ideas it carries, but it gets
a realistic application through the real world: heterotopia exists.
Chapter written by Vincent PAPAZIAN.

To occur, like pretty much for everything, it has to be perceptible.

Whenever someone assesses there is heterotopia somewhere, or onto
something, the heterotopia somehow exists. People can be heterotopic, too.
An event is a heterotopia. Objects can also be heterotopic. To be reckoned as
such, a heterotopia has to be a counter-space or a counter-time. In the end, it
is about opposition from a bigger outer space to a smaller singularity –
contained in this bigger space – that is directly identified as different.
The way I understand this notion guides me to think that a heterotopia is

built on the basis of contrasts. Theoretically, with or without borderlines, this
is a matter of location and dislocation. I chose this specific dislocation word
on purpose. Actually, after all, a heterotopia, in English, could have been
named after dislocation: “dis” indicates dissociation – hetero; and location is
about the same as “topos”.
Benoît Goetz, in his work “Dislocation: Architecture and Philosophy”,

furthers this notion. He starts his chapter on defining dislocation with these
really interesting words (Goetz 2001, p. 26):
The first dislocation is the fall from Paradise. [...] Unique and
perfect place, common and shared. [...] In Paradise there were
apparently no proper places (nor clothes). A paradisiac place is
not only a place where you never lack anything – it is also
where every displacement, following this logic, would be
useless – because it is a space where absolutely every location
is strictly equal to any other.
As depicted, Paradise is either an endless Heterotopia or is the very

contrary of it. Benoît Goetz completes his phrase (Goetz 2001, p. 26):
The eviction from Paradise throws us into the dislocation – that

is to say a fractured space, where there is not only the Good
Place: where there is always more than One place, and always
an “outside” from any place. The eviction from Paradise was
for mankind an immersion into a fractured space. [...] The
dislocation isn’t what happens into the space, nor to the space.
Space is dislocation. Space is the disconnection of places and,
concurrently, their original common existence that never
ceases.
The Fluidic Climatic Heterotopia – Fractures, Flows, Chaos, Composition 105
As Goetz hints, we might have been misled into thinking spatiality bigger
than it might really be1. Since no place is like each other, everything is a
fracture. Anything can be heterotopic in relation to its surroundings. Was it
wrong to think there were plain sectors covering defined, homogeneous
areas? This “total-fracture” vision encompasses everything and makes it a
sort of a mosaic. But at what scale?
Yi-Fu Tuan says in Space and Place – The Perspective of Experience that
we do not only perceive geometric shapes in the nature; we do not create
abstract spaces only in our minds (Tuan 2006). Existing within a spatial
arrangement we try to incarnate our feelings, our images and thoughts into a
real matter (Tuan 2006). The result is a sculptural and architectural space,
and, to a bigger scale, the conception of the city as a continuous urban fabric.
The result is also sometimes heterotopic, given the fact that it is strong
enough to be seen as such.
Likewise, let us consider synesthesia in the equation. Synesthesia is a

perceptual psycho-mental inherent capacity in which stimulation of one
sensory or cognitive pathway leads to involuntary experiences in a second
sensory or cognitive pathway. In other words, synesthesia is about
accidentally mixing our senses of perception. Here, synesthesia can support
us to grasp some representation patterns and to understand the mosaic
of real world – the fractured reality – in a better way. In our case, I will
simultaneously consider Yi-Fu Tuan’s ideas overlapping with the idea of
synesthesia. Perhaps our physical sensors limit our perception. Maybe we
see specific borders and offsets because these limits are at the right scale
interval regarding our abilities and proper dimensions. There is no doubt that
some heterotopias are better perceptible than others because there is a match
with our sensors; but there could be more to it.
1 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: In this passage Vincent Papazian inserts the hypothesis of
an imaginary scalar dimension of a spatial arrangement, but in a different manner than it is
often used. For him the scale is a very important retroactive issue during the conceptual
phase that may enhance the understanding of the problem’s dimensions during the conceptual
moment. He proposed that in order to conceive ingenious spatial arrangements, the architect
should conceive a space bigger that in reality. This imaginary spatial dilatation is necessary
according to him in order to be able, as perceivers, to understand the real spatial and
climatic challenges while creating interaction with a complex environing system. This idea is
quite interesting since it tarries with the scalar dimension of spatial phenomena, while the
notion of imaginary spatial dilatation is coupled to the sociocultural dimension of the process
regarding space creation.
For instance, a patchwork of urbanities results in a city. Cities can be seen

as collages. Many city maps look like mosaics. To a human-sight scale, we
are able to differentiate a forest from a park, a camping site from a festival,
resilient areas from squats. This happens because these similar places
summon separate emotions and thoughts. They refer to education,
experience, raw feelings. Susan Langer, a French philosopher, says on this
subject in her book Feeling and Form that essentially the world of physics
is a mirror of the real world, interpreted by mathematical abstractions, while
the world of sensations is interpreted throughout our body on the basis of
continuous abstractions (Langer 1953).
The definitions of Foucault on what makes something a heterotopia rely

way more on the sensations. There is also a sketch of a pattern, but it is
emotional. The fragmentation is also approachable for heterotopias. Even
though we deal with absolutely abstract entities, there are sills for
everything. As a last synesthetic addition to my reflection, let us fathom that
if everything is fractured – since nothing is the same whenever you move
through space – then heterotopias can also be fractured. There is always a
connection from one point to its closest neighbor. Following this infinite
fracture vision, there cannot be any neat break. If there is an infinite amount
of dislocations, then they are infinitesimally small.
This conceptual perception of the notion of heterotopia leads us to the

integration process idea: an infinite amount of infinitesimal steps induce a
smooth, continuous curve, which is named fluidity. And in the end, the
mosaic becomes an ensemble of fluxes tied altogether.
10.2. The world seen as fluxes: interconnected “climatic

heterotopias”
Hannah Arendt says that the proper past of an event could never explain
the existence of this event since it is finally this event that enlightens its past
throughout its existence (Arendt 1958). Hannah Arendt means in this quote
that there is always an explanation to anything; an event, an object, a
“climatic heterotopia”. And the arrival of this something inside the reality is
so connected to its origins while its causality is its identity.
If we take good note of this quote, “climatic heterotopias” can be linked

to their environment of “birth” so that the ontological gap with their internal
universe – which makes them identifiable as heterotopias – has a starting and

an end point. There is no absolute dislocation: there are threads from the
surrounding world to the inner “climatic heterotopia”.
It means, as a result, that with sufficient analysis, we can see and interpret
current lines throughout a climatic heterotopia: currents within time, current
lines in space. And maybe the tension in the fluxes is the key parameter to
identify whether there is a heterotopia or not.
For example, as we may recognize observing pictures of human flows, a

simple obscuration speed change reveals that a dock can look like a river.
People flow as they move. On the urban scale, streets can be viewed as
rivers. Entire and discreet objects represent continuity through space and
time evoking fluidity itself. Fluidic climatic heterotopias could be seen as
singularities hatching into these currents.
These heterotopias stand out into the currents they get to be generated by,
accordingly to Arendt’s quote, but they remain different and they meet
Foucault’s criteria. However, the “total fracture” vision triggers a mindset
making me reconsider everything. Now, if I look deep enough, I can see ties
linking almost everything. The lines via reality are ubiquitous and diverse.
Their complexity creates reality as what it is, through multitude, as well as
this complexity creates chaos.
10.3. Praising the overload: climatic heterotopia of movement

and chaos
The perception of the overload of all the current lines creates complexity
and do not deprive reality from any of its aspects. In pure aesthetics,
many impressionist painters used a chaotic overlay of color touches to
compose a big picture with complexity and sensibility. The choice not
to reject information makes their pattern deeper and, strikingly, more
realistic (Figure 10.1).
The flows overload leads to an enhanced sensitive perception. In a

Proustian approach, the drawing below reminds me of the time when I drew
it in my mother’s house (Figure 10.1). Random elements, such as the sound
speaker and the USB wires, remind me of what was laying on the table. The
color strokes up left feature the fridge’s light reflections. The jacket on the
chair was one of my sister’s.
Figure 10.1. Characters & objects when I drew them. © Vincent Papazian. For a
color version of this figure, seewww.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis/climatic.zip
We could say that these objects do not have any purpose in the drawing’s
layout. But the superposition of the elements result in a complex
representation of the environment in which I was drawing. This environment
was heterotopic for diverse reasons. I was daydreaming about a floating
character, while reality was interfering through these mental pictures with
practical objects. The floating lady had nothing to do with the conversation I
was having with my mother at the time I was drawing it. Despite this, I see ties
from this abstraction with reality. The place and the time were convenient for
introspection; I had leeway for such activities; I was letting myself go
mentally; I was in retreat. There is always an explanation – a flow track.
Eventually, these two small pages encompass a whole mood I can remind of
when I see it back. The multitude of current lines from the universe to my
mind is the same as the ones flowing through space and time2.
2 Music does the same: https://tinyurl.com/vwcm5w8.

The acceptation of a varied panel of sounds in a song works in the same

manner as for the overload of information when analyzing. It comes to
saturation, crossed melodies, climaxes. Complexity and multitude immerse
the listener into a sentient chaos, and triggers unexpected feelings, as subtle
as when dealing with reality. But within chaos, some ideas emerge more
than others3. Our perception lies on our ability to select points of attention in
the total disorder and to put names on it. In a totally fractured and
fragmentized world, with a universe made of an infinite succession of
dislocations, we are able to identify different ensembles – and to point out
that some of them are heterotopic.
10.4. Composition
I would say in the end that the chaos conducts us to reconsider

everything, since nothing is selected nor rejected. The absence of judgment
lets us handle as many fluid currents as we can see – and we get an overview
on a universe of flows being as heterotopic as continuous. The analogy
given by the think tank Bruno Giorgini and Chris Younès in Lines of
Universe – Metamorphosis of urban lifes reports pretty much the same as
I do (Giorgini and Younès 2017). They depict a geometric model for the
universe’s currents in neat lines. Yet I think their flow analogy is limited.
Comparing scientific phenomena and rigorous schemes to abstract and moral
considerations is a risky business, and it cannot be flawlessly accurate. The
total fracture means total interconnectivity, inducing all outflow tracks that
may consist of an unlatching chaos. They do not mention chaos.
Chaos is an important parameter to extract from this thinking process. It

is as much the result as it is the cause for climatic heterotopias to arise. The
fluidity, by which I mean the interconnectivity between every entity and
atmosphere that is perceptible, can be ubiquitous; but this paradigm causes
total disorder, since it enables too much information to be considered, and
wipes out singularities and ensembles (absolute continuity).
3 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: This idea has many elements in common with Iannis
Xenakis’ way of composing music and space. Considering that the world of ideas, the world
of sounds, the world of feelings, etc. is chaotic, we may claim that the conceiver has to
subjectively identify the ingrained ontological elements that may interfere after manipulation
by the conceiver in order to shape this disorder and transform it into a disordered succession.
From what I understand after exploring this fluidic concept, we must

remember that nothing is to be rejected when looking for connections
between a “climatic heterotopia” and its surrounding universe. I believe that
to help a “climatic heterotopia” blossom somewhere, it is worthwhile to let
the information flow overload happen. Heterotopias are utopias put in
reality. None can enforce a dream nor inflict an ideal. This acceptance
mindset – letting things happen if they do – ensures a flowing approach into
a fractured world. This is a sort of deciding not to decide. Instead of bringing
in an intention for a project, which can be seen as a crack in the reality mesh,
it could be about letting it sew itself. I realize now that “climatic
heterotopias” are somehow counter-architectures.
Utopias are absolute and abstract, like Paradise, therefore opposed to

reality. Reality, however, as shredded as can be, is the assembly of an
infinity of places patchworked altogether. Architecture belongs to what is
architecturable and architectured: a world where there are sills, in-and-outs,
gaps and edges. Architecture and utopia are two poles; and between them
stands the heterotopia. “Climatic heterotopia” is the other place, climate and
atmosphere: the counter-space, the counter-time, the counter-atmosphere,
the counter-climate and the counter-utopia. Hence it cannot be any
architectural response to reality. “Climatic heterotopia” has to be an idea, an
action. My vision of a “climatic heterotopia” would be a place, an event,
and a movement (Figure 10.2). Any of these, but accomplished with
self-determination. Anyhow, it would be flowing and evolving at its own
rhythm, the way it has to. In a world going faster and faster, I think the
tensions between spaces can only increase.
The stress in the current lines is mounting – inequalities rise, resources

come to lack, climate toughens and so on. And I do not believe that the good
solution is to determine functional spaces to resolve it. Instead of dislocating
even more an already dislocated world, letting things reconnect themselves
with spontaneous flows might be the best thing to do. I do not have any
practical project to accompany this idea, especially because I am not
thinking of a physical medium to represent my fluidic climatic heterotopia. It
is more about a fair composition – playing the best out of what was given.
As for visual arts, having too much information to process leaves no choice
but to look for the best layout.
111
The Fluidic Climatic Heterotopia – Fractures, Flows, Chaos, Composition
Figure 10.2. Tarrying with the flow. © collage: Vincent Papazian

My composition would be about considering the individuals as the center

of the process – since they are at the center of their lives. Their “climatic
heterotopia” would be the story of their lives, with continuity and movement
in a world where fractures are to increase. As Foucault said, we are
heterotopic subjects; and since we dream, since we are moving, since we feel
space, we are the center and the key to the continuity – we are the flow4 and
we are the singularities deflecting the currents of reality (Foucault 1967). A
fluidic climatic heterotopia is nothing but humanity itself.
4 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: The idea of transposing the problem of space creation to a
flow problem is a very interesting idea that is coupled in the past to Adrian Bejan’s (2015)
constructal law of thermodynamics (Mavromatidis 2018). Moreover, and in a more general
manner, Adrian Bejan notes in a paper titled “Constructal Law: Optimization as Design
Evolution” recently published in the Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (Bejan 2015, page 061003-2): “What flows through a design that evolves is not
nearly as special in physics as how the flow system generates its configuration in time. The
‘how’ is the physics principle – the constructal law. The ‘what’ are the mechanisms, and they
are as diverse as the flow systems themselves. The ‘what’ are many, and the ‘how’ is one.
Having ‘impact’ on the environment is synonymous with having flowing design and evolution.
To flow means to get the surroundings out of the way. There is no part of nature that does not
resist the flows and movements that attempt to get through it. Movement means penetration,
and the name of this phenomenon differs depending on the direction from which the
phenomenon is observed.” Thus, I believe that the main impact of the present essay remains
on the idea of metamorphosing the problem of space creation to a flow problem where a
variety of currents are put in a context of perpetual overlapping.
11
Transmission
Heterotopia is a concept theorized by Michel Foucault during a

conference at the “Cercle d’études architecturales” given in 1967.
Heterotopia designates the differentiation of spaces, often closed or
enclosed, characterized by a discontinuity with what surrounds them. The
term is forged not only on the Greek roots expressing difference or otherness
(ἕτερος) and locus (τόπος) but also on the word utopia. If utopia offers an
ideal “without a real place”, there are utopias that have a precise and real
place, that have a time that can be fixed, that could be characterized as
“counter-spaces”. Children know these counter-spaces very well: the
treehouse, the attic, etc. But these counter-spaces are not children’s
inventions. Adult society has organized its own counter-spaces, its own
utopias: gardens, cemeteries, asylums, brothels, etc. Heterotopia generates
differences in behavior, deviations from the norm or the fabrication of new
norms, access to new freedoms or compliance with new rules or constraints.
The transition from speaking aloud to whispering (library, museum), or
shouting (discotheque) can mark the entry into heterotopia. Foucault
established six main principles that define heterotopias (Foucault 1967).
First of all, there is not a society that does not constitute its heterotopias.
These heterotopias always take extremely varied forms. We could even
classify societies according to the heterotopias they prefer, or which they
constitute.
The second principle explains that any society can resorb and eradicate a
heterotopia that it had been previously constituted or organize a heterotopia
Chapter written by Mélodie PEZET.

that did not yet exist. For example, the countries of Europe have tried to get
rid of brothels. The cemetery, which today is an obvious heterotopia, has not
always played this role. Indeed, until the 18th Century, the cemetery was in
the heart of the city and no solemn value was attached to it. Curiously
enough, as our civilization became more atheist, skeletons were
individualized and each one was given a coffin. All these remains were taken
out of the city, to the limit.
Thirdly, heterotopia generally has the rule of juxtaposing in a real place

several spaces that normally should be incompatible and many times have a
very important symbolic dimension, such as the theater, for example, or the
cinema. The oldest example would be the garden: a millenary creation that
certainly had a magical meaning in the Orient. The traditional Persian garden
is a rectangle that is divided into four parts representing the four elements of
the world. The garden comes from the depths of antiquity, where it
illustrated a place for utopia.
The fourth principle explains that heterotopias are most often linked to
singular divisions of time. They are related to heterochronies. The cemetery
is the place of a time that no longer elapses. Some heterotopias are
heterotopias of time when time is accumulated to infinity: museums and
libraries, for example. It is the idea of accumulating everything, of
constituting the general archive of a culture, which will be locked up in a
place all times, all eras. This heterotopia is peculiar to our culture. However,
there are chronic heterotopias that are linked to time in the way of
celebration: theater, fairs, etc. More recently in the history of our
civilization, holiday villages appeared also in a heterotopic manner. These
are the heterotopias of an eon, although the point here is not to accumulate
time, but on the contrary to erase it.
Heterotopias always have an opening and closing system that isolates

them from the surrounding space: in general, they are not entered as in a
mill. You enter because you are forced to or when you are subjected to rites
and purification. This rituality could be half religious or half hygienic, as in
the hammams of the Muslims. Some purification looks hygienic, such as the
Scandinavian sauna, but brings with them a whole bunch of religious or
naturalistic values. There are others that, on the contrary, are not closed but
which bring with them openness: anyone can enter but once you are there
you realize that it is an illusion and that you have not entered anywhere.
Heterotopia is an open place, but it has the property of keeping you out.
Transmission 115
Finally, heterotopias are the contestation of all other spaces. They can
express these contestations in different ways: by creating an illusion that
denounces all other reality as hallucinations, or by actually creating another
real space that is as perfect, as meticulous, as arranged as possible, to give
the impression that the other spaces are disordered, badly arranged and
messy. This is how colonies work.
It is thus with this knowledge of heterotopia that I was able to imagine a

concept that could be inscribed in our current societal system. Today, Europe
is facing one of the most important refugee crises in its contemporary
history. Tremendous flows of refugees come mainly from Africa, the Middle
East or South Asia. Refugees from the Syrian Civil War are amplifying
the phenomenon with a peak of almost one million people arriving in the
Schengen area. They arrive via the Mediterranean Sea and their main first
stops are Spain, Italy and Greece1. This migration crisis is the source of
many divisions and diplomatic tensions between the different countries of
Europe. Indeed, countries do have neither enough suitable infrastructure nor
ingenious territorialities to receive refugees with dignity establishing spatial
and social inclusive processes. Besides, today’s cities are built on a
willingness to invest in order to generate financial profit rather than on social
and caring values. However, these migrants are men, women and children,
educated and often qualified, who are fleeing intense violence and misery in
their countries of origin. The street is not welcoming, the street is not a
home, and these homeless refugees should not be held responsible for what
they have fled. This is why I think it is our duty as designers of spaces to
imagine new ways of welcoming, of living, of adapting in the face of a
problem of such magnitude.
Added to this first crisis there is also a second crisis that we are beginning
to face: the ecological crisis. Climate change will bring various changes in
the territories that will obviously force people to flee and to migrate to more
clement lands. Drought, shortages of drinking water and therefore of food,
and rising water levels will surely be the main causes.
To the aforementioned crises it is obviously added the need to anticipate

the global generalized social crisis. Thus, through our project we aim to
welcome the country’s homeless people who will be able to find refuge in
this climatic heterotopia.
1 According to IOM UN Migration.

We must therefore not only deal with a contemporary reality but also
with a new crisis aspiring. It is, therefore, a question here of thinking about
designing “other” spaces, different from what we have been able to design
and build up until now: adapted and evolving spaces and I would even say
“anthropocentric” applied to a spatial arrangement. Here we will attempt to
reinvent the concept of the heterotopia by making climate the major design
parameter.
Far be it from me to imagine a place of welcome that puts people in need

on the sidelines, which is why I wanted to reflect on the problem of tourism
as a method of integration and inclusion. So I did not intend to create a
closed place here, where someone has to belong to a particular group to
enter. This place is meant to be open to all, and everyone should feel
welcomed there. The project must be able to come to life wherever the
reception of migrants or homeless people is necessary. In this day and age,
tourism spreads everywhere. Every country receives a greater or lesser
amount of tourists. Many countries face mass migration crises, or economic
crises while maintaining a thriving tourist industry. If a “climatic
heterotopia” would be established in a non-tourist region, the project could
thus arouse the curiosity of people wishing to discover a different place, out
of time, out of space.
As far as the site is concerned, the project could be located on an

abandoned built site, such as a former factory, a former airport, an erstwhile
military base or a hospital, for example. Indeed, these abandoned spaces are
often spontaneously invested in by people in need and then become
heterotopias different from their original function. Abandoned places give
off something that inevitably places them out of time, out of space. These
abandoned spaces belong to no one and therefore to everyone if we see
things differently. That is why it is easier to appropriate this type of spaces.
Moreover, reinvesting in a neglected place is part of a logic (or process) of
reuse to make savings to the economy, to avoid having to build massively
new infrastructures capable of accommodating a certain number of people.
The venue will preferably be located in the city within the dense urban
fabric, in order to facilitate inclusion.
As a result of all these reflections, first of all, I wanted to study the

journey of migrants. As mentioned earlier, most of them live across the
Mediterranean and arrive by boat on the European coasts. The main
Transmission 117
destinations are Germany2, with the largest number of registered asylum

seekers, or even France and the United Kingdom. Many of the
Mediterranean countries are therefore only a first step, a stopping point
inside a long migratory process. It is from this conclusion that I wanted to
imagine a place that is not necessarily a place of settlement but above all a
place of passage. So I imagine a space in the city that would allow these
exiles, of different territories and cultures, to express themselves and leave
their mark on the local spatial arrangement.
The primary objective is to create a peaceful and quiet stopover, where

we can take stock of ourselves, our journey, our life. Giving back firmness to
people who have been torn apart, so that they can rebuild themselves better
and start afresh. A memorial is defined in the dictionary as “a memorial
erected in memory of an event and/or in honor of one or more deceased
persons”3. I see this place not as a memorial in the literal sense of the word,
but rather as a place of remembrance, in the broadest sense: the memory of
deserted land, a take-home culture, a past, experience, people and
encounters.
Because, to go into exile is to leave behind a part of our history, and

therefore part of our identity. This place could, therefore, allow the different
populations to make a stopover after a long, exhausting and traumatic
journey. A place where we write, where we tell stories, where we draw,
where we paint. A place where we tell our stories in an alternative manner,
mobilizing our know-how, our craftsmanship. The language barrier is not
seen here as a problem. Art is universal. Art is international.
I would like to create a “climatic heterotopia” of indefinitely accumulated

time. Indeed, museums and libraries have become heterotopias in which time
never stops building up and topping its own summit. Thus, as the years go
by, the place will become richer, stronger and more intense. Let us imagine
now a scenario. New nomadic populations may continuously arrive and find
within the “climatic heterotopia” a part of their home, a relative, perhaps
who has passed through here. They then feel inclusion and support and can
take the opportunity to re-find the courage before setting off again. This
nascent “climatic heterotopia” will then begin to intrigue locals and tourists
alike. This is how the different “populations” will meet each other. Europe is
2 According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).

3 According to the French Dictionary Larousse.
still largely divided into two on the issue of migration. Negative verbal
formulations become the dominant social narrative: “They come to steal our
work,” say some; “we can't take in all the misery in the world,” say others.
To anticipate to these harmful proposals my “climatic heterotopia” is based
on transmission and dialogue. The spatial answer is formulated as follows:
“Instead of blindly reproducing stereotypes, why don't you come and
see, let the migrants tell you their story?” No need for words and verbal
prejudgments.
Since the first purpose of my project is about welcoming the population,

it is very important to efficiently take charge of the underprivileged
population who has just arrived on site: from impecunious people to others
simply looking for a job and a place to live. The site will, therefore, have to
meet the need for emergency accommodation and first aid. Then, to be able
to develop this “memorial” project, plastic arts, writing and painting
workshops will also be necessary to offer to the host populations the
opportunity to express themselves artistically. Finally, to be able to involve
tourists in this, the site will host inclusive tourism allowing inquisitive
people to discover this particular heterotopia, being able to settle on the site,
and even if they wish, to participate in artistic or farm activities.
Furthermore, I would also like to accompany the transition of the incoming
population. It is important to ensure social inclusion. The site can be a place
where people heal and then leave for another place to live and grow.
Everyone is free to project himself/herself in another future in another space
if they wanted to. Our territory can be just a transition between two lives
(Figure 11.1). My “climatic heterotopia” is fluid, free, diverse.
The place needs to be an autonomous and attractive area, a place to let

people from everywhere coexist with each other to reach a territory to call
home. My proposal is about making an experiment in tomorrow’s society.
My “climatic heterotopia” aims to become a true heaven of peace where we
can wander around the site, inside and outside. Inside the “climatic
heterotopia”, we can see different works with artistic dimensions. People
pray, contemplate, create, and meditate. Outside, this lavish atmosphere is
quite different. The fields as far as the eye can see allow the inhabitants of
the “climatic heterotopia” to satisfy their need for food, and in case of a
surplus, to make sales to obtain funds. All this lush culture is put in the heart
of the city.
119
Transmission
Figure 11.1. Transmission and transition between two lives.

© collage: Mélodie Pezet
The incoming nomadic populations, with the help of the locals, could
make all this possible. All these cultures must be cherished and nurtured to
be developed in the best possible way. The memory trail thus offers an
alternation between built and outdoor spaces. Visitors can hence make
restful stops between the exhibition spaces, which can be disturbing,
overwhelming and destabilizing. The new migrants therefore benefit from
what their predecessors planted. You do not plant for yourself, you plant for
your neighbor. This urban farming is, above all, a first source of employment
for people in need. Land cultivation is a good way of social reinsertion.
Disoriented people can express themselves through art, to externalize
pent-up emotions. People begin to integrate themselves into society and to
socially reconstruct themselves.
Our site exhilarates itself thanks to the people who work in it. Everything
is abundant, and the population develops cultural activities. The migrants
work for the city (not as employees but by building their own territory); they
find their place and the locals value their work. This “climatic heterotopia” is
intended to become a space of inclusion. There, people are given the chance
of retrieving a life balance as they can exchange and interact with others,
having simple and complex moments through shared culture.
The heterotopia I imagine is a place of memory where each individual

leaves a personal signature. It is a place rich in memories, in history, in
souls. This “climatic heterotopia” has a precise and assertive identity and the
catch radius of the site is worldwide4.
4 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: Although this essay is characterized by artlessness, I

believe that we can observe primitive ideas of structuralism that are explicitly presented by
Levi-Strauss, or by Wittgenstein and Habermas (Whitebook 1999). I could imagine that the
attempt of Mélodie Pezet is to swallow, through the spatial qualities of her “climatic
heterotopia”, the individual into the transindividual and the subjective into the intersubjective
(as it is defined by Whitebook 1999). In my opinion, this could happen throughout an original
kind of memorial that will be built up upon the narrations of the incoming populations that
will leave spatial traces. So inclusion, according to her, could happen through a territorial
and spatial mechanism that will support, emphasize and promote the moments of privatisitic
interindividuality. In my opinion, this proposal should merely focus on creating a feeling of
sensorial privatization, with the aim of developing a program that seems to be undisguised;
albeit the interaction that could be established throughout these moments of privatization may
happen due to the interaction of the individual with the multisensory traces of the nomadic
population. From this point of view, this proposal could promote a very interesting spatial
and territorial argument.
12
Introspection
We live in a world where everything is fast, desynchronized, multiplied

and impersonal. Human nature and the desire to find a psychosomatic
equilibrium disappear behind the desire to possess and to have a valuable
positive image. Due to this chasing of appearance, a lot of people lost
themselves, present depression, burnout and don’t understand why their
body finally rejects this kind of living. But considering all the different
ontological crises (political, economic, sociologic and ecological), we can
distinguish now the emergence of well-being and self-care. We have to learn
how to reinvent manifestations of life, which were obvious in the past. For
the high classes, it is easier to have access to different resources in regard to
what is commonly called well-being and self-care. But social and spatial
inequalities enhance contemporary segregation and exclusion.
In my “climatic heterotopia”, I aim to develop a locus where the mental

reconstruction and the reflection about our way of living will become the
central themes. I aim to conceive a space where everybody could discover
the inherent qualities of human existence and, consequently, why and how to
become unique, and no more “someone in the mass”.
First, I will explain how a heterotopia is formalized in my imagination. A

heterotopia is a term to describe certain cultural, institutional and discursive
spaces that are in some such way “other”, according to Michel Foucault
(Foucault 1967). As Walter Russel Mead has written in his book Power,
Terror, Peace, utopia is a “place where everything is good, dystopia is a
Chapter written by Aurore PEILLET.

place where everything is bad, heterotopia is where things are different –

that is, a collection whose members have few or no intelligible connections
with one another” (Russel Mead 2004). Perhaps, we could also use the term
counter-space. Foucault uses this term to describe spaces that have more
layers of meanings and relationships to other places that immediately attract
the gaze and fascinate the mind. It is a third space, which offers us a reading
grid to understand some emerging movements, which escape to the
conventional modalities and dominate narratives of our world.
In general, a heterotopia is a physical representation or approximation of

a utopia, like the city of Brasilia, or a parallel space that contains undesirable
bodies to make a real utopian space possible, like a prison or an asylum. I
see these spaces as places where we believe in the social intelligence and its
ability to innovate, to accept the diversity present on Earth supporting with
spatial arguments inclusion. These spaces are platforms to enable the
emergence of an upward movement. A heterotopia is a free space, which is
not defined by its borders and by what limits it, but by its capacity to
develop within its internal space a self-sustaining and self-directed process. I
believe that the most interesting aspect of a “climatic heterotopia” is that it
could potentially allow space evolution towards a reflective exercise about
ourselves, through the mediation of a real space, which is also imaginative.
In a “climatic heterotopia”, we imagine the climate like a design parameter
of space, which comes from the beginning of the conceptual act. It allows us
to develop alternative spatial arguments by creating a local architecture with
local characteristics and not a merely impersonal global architecture, which
reproduces dominant programmatic stereotypes. My goal therefore is to
design a multisensorial architectural territory that proposes tangible social
spaces.
As I explained at the beginning, I would like to spatially discover the

self-perception, in particular through introspection. The introspection
according to psychoanalysts is the examination or observation of one’s own
mental and emotional process. For me, introspection is composed of a big
part of mental questioning. It is not just another cerebral activity. A
heterotopia is composed of six big principles: the universality (it can be
established in all cultures but in diverse forms), the evolution in time (it can
mutate), the juxtaposition of incompatible spaces, the timelessness (it
encapsulates spatio-temporal discontinuities or intensities), an open–closed
system and the notion of counter-space (it has a specific operation in relation
Introspection 123
to other spaces). These principles fit very well to my subject of introspection

because, like I said before, everybody feels lost today with all the changes
and our contemporary way of living. To discover ourselves, we need spaces
that promote meditation as well as spaces to share with others around an
activity or a discussion. The timelessness helps to put our life in pause and
take the time to think about our existence (Figure 12.1). The open–closed
system is a way to create a calm and quiet site and help to project us in a
conducive place for introspection. And the counter-space, with its varieties
and differences with the real world, allows us to interrogate things that we
think acquired and normal.
I think it is impossible to design a climatically utopic space because it is

not tangible. I think it could be better to imagine a climatically heterotopic
space with a lot of questioning to allow no planned actions. The challenge is
more about the need to create space where people can project themselves,
because these spaces will give them the desire to create things.
This type of place or locus is already developed in different places in

France, at the initiative of collectives. We can mention, for example,
“l’Hôtel Pasteur” in Rennes1, “La Belle de Mai” in Marseille2 or “Les
Grands Voisins” in Paris3. These places that obtain a spatial existence within
wastelands are explicitly analyzed in the book “Lieux infinis” (published in
relation to the 2018 Venice Biennale on the initiative of the collectivity
Encore Heureux). These are proposals that introduce architectural and spatial
solutions for various current issues.
The book sheds light on the processes, commitments and modes of

governance that are intertwined with them, as well as on the philosophical
and political issues that cross them. The approach presented in this book
helps to better understand the complexity of these spatial elements and the
importance of the architect’s humility and consciousness. I believe that we
must stop considering that the architect is solely responsible for the
development of a high quality space, because a project can only be
successful through a close collaboration between users and the architect.
1 http://www.hotelpasteur.fr/.
2 http://www.lafriche.org/en/.
3 https://lesgrandsvoisins.org/.
Figure 12.1. Introspection. © collage: Aurore Peillet

124
Introspection 125
The first thing that I want to develop in my “climatic heterotopia” is the

possibility to choose. It could be a space where nobody can judge you for
what you do, or what you choose, and this will remove a big mental charge.
You could choose to live in you proper room, or share a cluster with
other people, you could also decide if you want to live in nature or in a more
urban space. If you want to, you can live outside the heterotopia in the
boarders or inside. It will be possible to modulate the dwellings, to make
them evolve.
Therefore, I imagine that we could also create a meditation retreat similar

to a monastery, where people live in a community but in silence, which is
the most basic way for us to imagine introspection without all our
contemporary facilities. It could also be a place where someone may
discover manual activities with people who teach and assist in exchange of
something else, creating a different model of production and learning. I think
it could be interesting to also design spatiality to host self-expression while
spatially accommodating negative feelings such as anger (like a kind of
destroy room).
I also think that nature needs to be put in the forefront of the scene within
my “climatic heterotopia”. I think that lot of people lost themselves because
we are disconnected from nature and cut off from reality. We need to revive
with nature, and that could start with the presence of agriculture. Agriculture
could also become a medium of mediation.
This kind of manual activities allows us to remember that we can give

birth to newborn subjects and be creative. It is really gratifying and good for
the self-pride. Taking care of a plant could reflect a process of introspection.
I aim within my “climatic heterotopia” to reconnect the incoming
population, through seasons, climate and weather. The vegetation in my
climatic heterotopia will be inspired by local landscapes and will be adapted
to the local climate. I also want to create a place where imported vegetation
will be exposed, to discover a panel of the existing nature. I think it could be
on the model of a revisited greenhouse. This place aims to exasperate the
human symbolic dimension, allowing imagination, which is a positive
element for the personal development.
I also imagine that buildings could be modular according to the seasons,

with a lot of visual links with nature. I believe that it could be interesting to
enhance inspiration from Japanese houses, and further explore the
aforementioned link. The circulation within my “climatic heterotopia” will
be in majority by walk because it is important to keep the temporal
perception of distances. Since the whole territory is big, I also imagine bikes
with cart to carry things. I aim to preserve my “climatic heterotopia” from
noise pollution.
I imagine my “climatic heterotopia” with a lot of different atmospheres,

to satisfy the different possible tendencies. There will be a lot of cultural
spaces, to enhance introspection. These cultural spaces will welcome
workshops to discover and teach novel original activities. It will be possible
to take courses on theater or painting, break dance or sculpture. I see this
multidisciplinary dimension of a space like a way to spatially and
programmatically enhance inclusion.
I do not imagine this like a neutral territory without expression. I imagine

a souk, a space where we can see all the stories, all the incoming narratives:
through colors, happiness, kindness. All common areas are conceived to be
self-managed: to give importance to incoming populations and highlight that
everybody needs to take small responsibilities to create a place where life
flows easily. I aim to explore again the everyday functioning of isolated
tribes, since the sense of living together persists in these communities and
this way of living is considered the main substantial dimension that we have
to reinvent within my “climatic heterotopia”. This importance helps each
person to feel useful, gaining self-esteem.
It is not easy to imagine a “climatic heterotopia” where those who quit its
territory have previously found an inside peace that holistically reestablished
their human dimension in harmony. I think that our world just needs
affection, altruism, benevolence, forbearance, unselfishness, sharing and
exchange, and I believe that through the conception of positive spaces we
can manage to enhance this sensible dimension of everyday life. I really
think that positive spaces are created on the basis of a synergistic open
dialogue with the potential users of the space and not only by an architect
Introspection 127
and/or a political entity. That is why my intentions and programmatic visions

are mainly influenced by a variety of spaces created by people for people,
because no one can know better than ourselves what we want and what we
need to create an internal territory that helps us to introspect within a finite
spatial arrangement4.
4 Note by Lazaros Mavromatidis: In my opinion, through this essay, Aurore Peillet indirectly
and unconsciously deals with the architect’s inherent psychological aspect of interpretation.
She develops her ideas with the aim to gradually reverse the dominant narrative that is
perpetuated through architectural education. This dominant narrative of architectural
pedagogical activities enhances the uniqueness of the author while considering that it is this
uniqueness that is the guarantor of originality and mobilizes the necessary mechanisms to
produce a peculiar work. In my eyes, it is very interesting the way that Aurore Peillet follows
to inverse this dominant model claiming that the space should be conceived in a synergistic
manner gathering both the uniqueness of the creator (architect), as well as the uniqueness of
spatial local characteristics, and last but not least the uniqueness of the users. Throughout
her essay, she aims to abolish the phantoms of romanticism, heritage of architecture’s solely
artistic dimension in the past that privileged “the artist as a sublime, protean creator”
(Rundell 1998: page 91). Her theoretical intention is concretely spatialized through the
notion of “climatic heterotopia”. Thus, she uses the notion that has been imposed by me as
the theoretical assignment of my architectural design studio, to liberate her and identify her
inherent professional ontology while proposing a novel role for the architect. For her, the
architect is not a superstar that has the right to make a spatial propaganda being covered by
his/her “genius” capacities. For her, the architect is a part of a society and has the duty to
pose the adequate spatial questions, guaranteeing at the same time an open-ended social
dialogue between all the actors that are concerned by space creation; nevertheless, the
institutional vision puts them in the background as passive decorative elements. In other
terms, Aurore Peillet uses the “climatic heterotopia” notion to promote an argument of
inclusion, putting into the picture the “voices, concerns and perspectives of those who do not
hold positions of power, who are pushed to the margins on the basis of gender, ethnicity/race,
social class, sexuality, age and other axes of power and exclusion” (Micha and Vaiou 2019,
p. 1).
13
Sew Up the Urban Fabric:

The Architectural Project
The world is currently facing many crises and the most important are
probably the ecological, refugee and social ones. This last decade has been
the warmest since such recordings have existed1. And this fact comes along
with an increasing number of ecological catastrophes and social crises all
around the world. Since the impact of climate change is also getting stronger
than ever, the biggest fallouts are yet to come, including climate migrations
as one of the great deals.
Additionally, the multifaceted global crises (social, refugee, financial,

sanitary) lead our world through an all-time particular emergent context
while we observe an increase of the “less fortunate” populations that suffer
from a very new kind of migration issue that is spatially shaped as a form of
contemporary imposed nomadism. Indeed, a lot of populations are already
running away from their countries because of war and climate destruction.
The French newspaper Le Monde reported that we might witness the
displacement of more than 22 million people because of climate collapse
very soon2.
Chapter written by Claire AUBRY, Estelle AURAY, Carole BEAUFUMÉ, Milan ENGSTRÖM,
Jonas KAMMERER, Fleur LAGARRIGUE, Vincent PAPAZIAN, Aurore PEILLET, Mélodie PEZET,
Bérénice VALLANCE and Lazaros MAVROMATIDIS.
1 Source: Gary Dargon (2019), Réchauffement climatique: comment la réalité a pris de
vitesse la science, published in www.lemonde.fr on October 23, 2019.
2 Source: Pascal Cantin (2018), Il y a davantage de réfugiés climatiques que de réfugiés liés
aux conflits dans le monde, published in www.lemonde.fr on March 27, 2018.

In this general framework, our project raises a complex challenge

directly related to the conceptualization of space and place through
architectural and urban design with the contriving of inherent political,
environmental and sociocultural stances. Many researchers propose to
think of space and place relationally in order to identify and propose a wider
set of reconceptualizations (Massey 2004; Storper 1997; Scot et al. 2001;
Sassen 1991; McCann 2002). However, as Doreen Massey (2004) claims,
this is a very general posture. The real challenge that we aim to erect
throughout our architectural project mainly involves the spatial generation of
a new contingency between identity and responsibility (socially, spatially,
environmentally, politically) and the potential novel formulated geographies
of both within a newly defined territory that we aim to regenerate.
The climate change and its impacts are desertifying lands and
entire territories, forcing people to desperately move. With great risk,
contemporary nomadic populations often have to cross borders with barely
any belongings and under very hard conditions, while, during this indirectly
“imposed” journey, many of them die crossing the sea, trying to reach
Europe and other Western lands. These new incoming populations are
“hosted” into territories that are dominated by the already pre-existing
constituted identities and so inclusion and integration (both spatially and
socially) become processes that have to be politically and architecturally
reconceptualized in order to avoid generalized social destabilization and
spatial and social conflicts. How we will be able to refigure the nature of
identity? In other terms, how we could reconceptualize spatial identities
throughout architectural design in order to give them a mutable evolving
dimension in relation to the spatial arguments that we will develop within
our project?
There is a widespread acceptance that identities are “relational”

(Massey 2004). We now may consider that the human being is not an
autonomous manifestation of life, a kind of animal that simply exists and so
in the public space just expresses its subjective vision of the world that
constitutes an identity of its own. According to Massey (2004), what we
commonly call identity significantly extends our beings, while our identities
are constituted in a relational manner through our social and spatial
engagements. Thus, our architectural proposal particularly focuses on the
generation of novel practices of interaction that may enhance the genesis
Sew Up the Urban Fabric: The Architectural Project 131
and the formulation of evolving changing identities in direct dialogue

with our spatial arrangement. According to Massey (2004, p. 1), “identities
are forged in and through relations (which include non-relations, absences
and hiatuses).”
Therefore, our particular aim is to programmatically and architecturally

unify the relational nature of space with the relational construction of
the identity of the place that we will propose. Considering the post-structural
viewpoint that examines space as a complex system of practices, fluxes,
trajectories and interrelations, we will try to produce a spatial argument
where space interacts locally and globally at all levels in a horizontal
manner, forging relationally all kinds of possible spatial identities such
as places, regions, nations, and the local and the global. In other terms,
we will try to propose, through re-evaluations of the formation of spatial
and social identities, a spatial argument that may denounce
“the hegemonic notion of individuals as isolated atomistic entities which
took on (or were assigned) their essential character prior to social
interaction” (Massey 2004, p. 2).
Thus, our architectural vision will not consider prefabricated dominant

narratives that are based on foundational essentialisms that produce spatial
arrangements adapted to all kinds of pre-given identities based on
assumptions of authenticity. As Massey (2004) proposes, we will try to
propose a spatial expostulation that challenges the identities themselves,
creating a network of relations through which those identities may evolve in
a continuous, dynamic way.
The assessment we give seems complex and challenging; nevertheless,

it is actually a work hypothesis that we aim to seriously consider with
dignity in order to regenerate the architectural design of the future. Being
based on the world-shaking crises, we just mentioned that the tutor of the
architectural design studio chose to use an abandoned airport as our case
study. An abandoned airport may become a symbol and an awe-inspiring
representation of an urban scar while incorporating a way of architectural
spatialization that illustrates a past vision of the journey.
In our case, to simulate a realistic case study, we worked on the old

Athens airport that is located along the coast and remains a very strategic
territory with strong inherent spatial qualities. However, the way that this
urban entity is put within the urban tissue actively participates in the division
of the Alimos and Glyfada districts and the seaside. Our work will focus on
reconnecting this abandoned territory to the urban fabric while creating a
novel material and discursive “identity” for this territory through the spatial
process that shapes its constitution. Throughout our project, we aim to
establish a clear connection between the conceptualization of identity and
the changing demands on space and climate in relation to the complex
various multifaceted contemporary crises. In other terms, we aim to reinvent
an ingenious connection between thinking relationally architectural and
spatial design and the affective dimension of architectural consciousness
and responsibility. Rethinking a socially sensible sustainable architecture is
an emotionally charged issue, since we deal with the reversal of dominant
narratives and models of space creation.
In addition to the aforementioned theoretical concerns, our studied

site presents very interesting territorial issues, since it spatially leaves out
a residual entity, the Argyroupoli district, stuck between the airport and
Poseidonos Boulevard that links the Piraeus port to the south suburbs of
Athens (until the cape Sounion). This site is arranged longitudinally along a
north–south axis, with two main poles, which are the previous domestic and
international terminals being linked with large landing tracks that we would
develop later on. It is a very large but undeveloped territory that possesses a
tremendous untapped spatial potential:
– It has indeed proximity with the seafront while the center of the city is
not far.
– It is well-served by tramway and efficient roads.
– It’s a very uncommon non-place with an atypical history.
Thus, to emotionally approach this multifaceted complex architectural

and spatial problem, one of the first steps of our work was to create a collage
translating into image our way of depicting the “climatic heterotopia” notion.
Then, each one of us proposed a concept. According to our tutor’s
instructions, we had to use one word that, according to each one of us,
would semantically optimally illustrate the “climatic heterotopia” notion.
At the end, we all gathered our collages and concepts and the fermentation
of converged and/or opposite visions led us to a solid common concept.
The social aspect of our project is very important. We have been really
cautious of the impact of the migratory and social crisis on our territory and
we focused on how to provide inclusion throughout programmatic and
spatial innovation that targets to create a novel evolving identity for this
place. We provided infrastructures, which can host and protect lots of
population really quickly. We conceived a place that could also be a
territory, where people in need can find protection and care. Thus, our main
goal is to create a site where everyone could work and live while developing
an alternative vision of social public and private space, developing a
personal inclusive evolving identity through interaction.
Creating links between districts is also a fundamental aspect of our

project. Our working track is to stitch the urban scar made by the
airport. The scar was caused by the interruption of the city, and thus
we started drawing current streams incorporating an approach that deals
with the problem considering it to be a flow problem. After studying
the network flow of the city, we noted that diverse flows are cut. Therefore,
the idea was to extend the path of each potential distinct flow. Then, we
built our project distinguishing three different temporatie. The city takes
time to emerge, to “recover”. Thus, we adopt a three-phase strategy as
follows (Figure 13.1):
– First phase: we start the reinvestment of the site. We keep one take-off
track as a contrasting orthogonal axis to the urban fluxes, reuniting the city
to the sea. We launch our refugee hosting programs and we start up urban
agriculture in the territory.
– Second phase: the fluxes cross the site and generate flows of density
and of topography.
– Third phase: according to our strategy, the densities and the narrowing
of the city fringes generate urbanities and topography climaxes all across
the plot.
In a more rigorous approach, the site and the flux shapes are what
define our upcoming interventions. The outside border of the site will
later define the flow lines that we can see here. They ensure coherence
with the surrounding urban fabric. The lines weave the scarred territory and
will determine urban density and topography.
Figure 13.1. The three-phase strategy adopted in the framework of our architectural
project. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström,
Jonas Kammerer, Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet, Mélodie
Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color version of this figure, see
Once the urban flow is sewn up, we need to find the stability between
urban fabric and large and empty green spaces, guided by a green line along
the former landing stride. The urban fabric comes around the landing track to
get away from it in the next move. This “dance” weaves existing and new
urban fabric to reduce the fracture.
An urban density resulting from the flow is accompanied with a dynamic

and fluid topography defining our green spaces qualitatively. Considering
a rather arid climate, the main purpose of our topography is to allow
agriculture by draining the rainwaters into large basins intended to store
the waterfalls. By doing so, we salute and promote a traditional
Mediterranean agriculture, the so-called restanques that generate different

climates for the plants (as discovered by the Incas in South America) as well
as for the human being who can walk through the culture or better, get
involved in this open farming land.
Another goal of our intervention is to create a macro-urban planning

to the scale of our site being relevant regarding our programmatic
purposes: housing people in need and reactivating the territory. The urban
meddling onto our site is densified at some places, while getting
more diffused elsewhere. All in coherence with the streams defined
just before. It led us to generate compact areas with high buildings
and new districts for comfortable housings, all according to the two main
ideas of:
– repairing the city’s scar (Figures 13.2–13.4) and
– giving real social, spatial and urban value to this place in order to create
a new evolving identity (Figure 13.4).
To allow this place to exist as an autonomous and attractive area and

to make people from all around the world live with each other, interact,
creating an evolving identity and at the end reach a place to call home,
we worked with the aim of proposing a spatial experience of the society
of tomorrow.
First of all, let’s present now the main axes of the project that
we quickly set up in order to provide immediate needs for arriving
people. Then, we will develop the ideas, which will grow up in the
next temporal steps (Figures 13.5–13.7). Since the first purpose of
our project is about welcoming the population, it is very important for
us to efficiently take charge of the needy population who has
just arrived on site: from harmed people to others simply looking for
a job and/or a place to live. We have chosen the existing deserted
national airport terminal to develop a “care center”. However, this place
is not conceived to be just a hospital, but it is also a welcoming point
and a job center to help incoming populations find a first place for
personal appropriation.
(a)
(b)
Figure 13.2. The first sketch adopts a fluidic graphic interpretation in order to
rediscover the hidden internal paths of the territory and sew up the urban fabric,
repairing the city’s scar: (a) horizontal and vertical potential; (b) transparence and
reconnection with the seaside. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé,
Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer, Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore
Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color version of this figure, see
(a)
(b)
Figure 13.3. Creating spatial potential being based on the network flow
potential of the territory: (a) purification and (b) multiplication of connections
and intersections. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström,
Jonas Kammerer, Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet,
Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color version of this figure, see
(a)
(b)
Figure 13.4. Map of the study area while superimposing our fundamental
programmatic decisions regarding (a) allocated density of human flows within the
territory; (b) allocation of the urban agricultural program (green areas) in relation to
the surface’s topography and the potential built zones (red areas). © Claire Aubry,
Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer, Fleur
Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance.
For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis/climatic.zip
Our choices are due to the fact that these existing infrastructures allow a
mass welcoming and can include the establishment of healthcare services.
Through the implementation of a geography of care that is based on
interaction, we aim to locally develop a political vision for this territory that
is directly associated with the reshaping of spatial identities in an emotional

way, fraught with and liable to touch on deep feelings and desires. This
intention aims to reverse dominant nationalist and atomist identities that
may be developed within this new territory.
On the other hand, we selected this path because this place is a strong
symbol of an international territory in a semiological manner. An
international territory belongs to everyone and no one at the same time
having inherent both local and global characteristics. This is a neutral ground
where new spatial identities may be born and evolve. This place was already
used as a squat for many years after the airport was left abandoned. Hence,
this welcome area has to be very flexible for receiving waves of migrants,
refugees and homeless people with variable intensities. The site evolves at
two different speeds: the quick way, with the notion of emergency
reorienting and the slower way with a more permanent aspect of human
rebuilding (Figures 13.5–13.7). Therefore, our project targets to marginalize
“localist or nationalist claims to place based on eternal essential, and in
consequence exclusive, characteristics of belonging” (Massey 2004, p. 3).
From this point of view, our “climatic heterotopia” has to be effective and
sustainable even though there are no or few new incoming populations. The
spatial argument that we develop here must architecturally reformulate an
indebtedness of the specific and the distinctive while refusing the
“philanthropic”, the nostalgic and the parochial. That’s why the
infrastructures have to be flexible with the potential to continuously
evolve. Later, we can extend what we commonly and institutionally name as
“welcome area” in order to increase the number of people taken in care. We
would also like to establish restaurant(s) and education services in order to
help new arrivals to become autonomous, and to adopt a new life’s rhythm,
while finding easily comfort and nourishment in the first place. Throughout
this programmatic part of our project, we aim to push further this
investigation over the spatial creation of identity and to enquire how they
may be connected up with the question of environmental responsibility.
These spaces and building structures draw and surround a common ground
that becomes a central meeting place: the Agora. With its position, this place
will also federate the abandoned Olympic sport facilities that we reinvest.
The Agora becomes, in the first step, a core. This core gathers through
continuous interaction healthcare, sport, culture and education. There, people
are given the chance of retrieving a life balance as they can exchange and
interact with the others, having simple and complex moments through sports
or culture share.
Figure 13.5. Master plan of the study area: step 1 consists of organizing the site in
order to immediately receive and host the first incoming populations: phase no. 1
– beginning of the project. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan
Engström, Jonas Kammerer, Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet,
Figure 13.6. Master plan of the study area: step 2 consists of introducing a new
phase of physical reconnections to tie with the existing urban tissue and to develop
the “climatic heterotopia” as a microcosm: phase no. 2 – completed 10 years after
the beginning of the project. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan
Figure 13.7. Master plan of the study area: step 3 consists of creating an assertive
identity for the site, proposing a dense district to obtain a final reconciliation
between the city and its former airport. The urban tissue is sewn up: phase no. 3
– completed 20 years after the beginning of the project. © Claire Aubry, Estelle
Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer, Fleur Lagarrigue,
Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color
The airport terminal is therefore the first front door of our site. Incoming
people can practice different sports (Figures 13.8 and 13.9), have access
to culture (Figure 13.10) and have the means to express themselves through
music, for instance (Figure 13.11), all in order to externalize pent-up
emotions. According to our projected scenario, people would begin to
integrate themselves in society and to socially reconstruct themselves.
The goal of this first step is to bond people as well as to tie the former
airport to the city of Athens. The buried roadway makes it possible to
reconnect the national terminal to the coast, making it easier to cross. The
Agora has a privileged access to the seafront, which is now reactivated. To
reconnect the site, we focus on the fluxes:
– We extend the tramway line inside the plot adding stops.
– A new parallel road to the tram creates the junction between the
districts.
– The juxtaposed residential district (Argyroupoli) has now better
connection to the sea, and this link has to be anchored as soon as possible in
the mental map of the inhabitants.
The networks of the city slowly stitch the site: new entrances are drawn,
we can cross it and it now appears as a future potentially strong territory. In
order to create a real green axis, we settle a plant nursery in the other
existing terminal. It will help the establishment and the care of the terrace
fields. We also create a varied and dynamic topography in order to break the
monotony of the flat site and to delimitate the perimeter of extension of the
city on the site. Topography also allows the implementation of the first plots
of urban farming. This urban farming is above all a first source of
employment for people in need. The land cultivation is an interesting way of
social reinsertion. This longitudinal green axis has to be transversely
permeable. We draw new links in order to sew up the seaside to the Glyfada
district through nature.
Another way for people to work, interact and sew up an evolving identity
is the festival activity. We would like to develop this festival in the center
of our site. To do so, we need people to expose and present their cultures,
their works or whatever, and also a place to host visitors. This is the reason
why we keep a place that can occasionally become camping for visitors
and a place of spontaneous housing the rest of the year, located in the very
end of our green axis. This is a spot where the city and the linear park
are coexisting. As a result, this first step is a time of transition – as

smooth and as accompanied as can be, for the care of arrivants and for
reinvestment of the site.
Figure 13.8. Collage of ambiance: skate area. © collage: Estelle Auray,

Jonas Kammerer, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color
Figure 13.9. Collage of ambiance: sport activities. © collage: Claire Aubry,

Carole Beaufumé, Fleur Lagarrigue and Aurore Peillet. For a color
Figure 13.10. Collage of ambiance: cultural activities. © collage: Estelle Auray,

Figure 13.11. Collage of ambiance: the festoch (music festival). © collage: Estelle
Auray, Jonas Kammerer, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color
After the time of transition, we begin a new phase of physical

reconnections. In this timeline, the goal is to tie with the existing and to
develop a novel microcosm. This is where the real heterotopia comes in. The
first embryos of the city meet our project. The drawing of the urban tissue
gradually surrounds the park (Figure 13.12) and the farming terraces. New
districts grow up between the existing urban scheme and vast green areas
(Figures 13.13–13.16). We create a district at the very end of the take-off
track near the golf, which is the symbol of “living in a park”. Therefore, we
based our urban shape on the ecodistrict example. Cars are not allowed in
this district. This is the reason why we put car parks at the entrances. Our
place is mainly composed of dedicated pedestrian paths.
We also densify dwellings in the interstices of the existing district near

the seaside. We revive an alternative kind of tourism thanks to the beach
proximity – an extended festivalgoers place at its best. In order to reactivate
the de-ambulation on the site, we insert “folies” on strategic places. These
“folies” are architectural or artistic singularities that are “to be seen” and
to lure people. These kinds of structures are implemented on main
circulation knots – that is, strategic spots. For instance, the most important
one is a belvedere in the very center of the festival area. On top of it,
the visitor is given a 360° view of the city, the mountains nearby and the sea
(Figure 13.21). But the “folies” are also intended to be more multisensory:
there could be meditating or reading pavilions, where introspection,
memory and contemplation find their place. In our “climatic heterotopia”,
we also have the possibility to have a break and to step back from real
life for a short time.
In the macro-scale, the culture grows and flourishes with the festival
(Figure 13.11). This event is a way for the site to shine at an international
level and welcome people from all horizons that interact in order to create a
new evolving identity: populations in need, locals and passers-by. But it is
also offering a panel of jobs to people who might need one: jobs for
organizing, communicating, preparing the shows, fitting and building
adapted infrastructures, bringing in and selling food, exhibiting the
craftsmen works. The festival is also a counter-space in a counter-time, cut
from reality, where we can experience the notion of dreams. It is a way to be
lost – on purpose – in an illusion in which the limits between dreams
and reality are blurred. This event is a way to escape and to stray from
a reality that has been too hard, unfair and painful. During the festival,
we offer a new kind of therapy for disoriented and traumatized people. It is a
kind of utopia which cures people through acceptance and self-liberation.
Eventually, this programmatic decision aims at assisting to go forward in
life. This event is also a way to attract new populations and to have a
growing reputation in the city and the country.
Figure 13.12. Collage of ambiance: the park. © collage: Claire Aubry,

Figure 13.13. Collage of ambiance: nature and urban agriculture. © collage: Claire
Aubry, Carole Beaufumé, Fleur Lagarrigue and Aurore Peillet. For a color
Figure 13.14. Collage of ambiance: the seafront. © collage: Estelle Auray,

Figure 13.15. Collage of ambiance: the market. © collage: Claire Aubry,

Figure 13.16. Collage of ambiance: the university and the learning center. © collage:
Claire Aubry, Carole Beaufumé, Fleur Lagarrigue and Aurore Peillet. For a color
To stay in a way of social and cultural development and to entice

reinsertion, we have decided to build a University Campus in the existing
tissue (Figure 13.16). This University Campus is linked to the city center by
a tramway line and a subway line. The campus is also surrounded by
numerous shops and festive places to make it attractive and alive. The city is
slowly reconciled with the site.
On our territory, plants, identities and humans will grow and mature
together. The hiker has the choice between varied paths with different
vegetation, landscapes, gardens and farming fields. Products are sold in the
nursery or on the Agora’s marketplace. The varied and dynamic topography
gives the green axis value and identity as it draws the territory. The drop
creates interesting viewpoints and visual boundaries for privacy. The green
axis is a sensitive area where people are bonding with nature. Our site
reinvents itself thanks to the people who work in it. Everything is conceived
to be abundant, and population develops cultural activities with the aim to
give birth to a new evolving identity. The incoming populations work for the
city (not as employees but by building their own city and links with the
place), find their place while the locals value their work and participate in a
natural process of inclusion and integration. Our “climatic heterotopia”
naturally becomes a space of inclusion. The culture spreads on our territory
physically and symbolically.
Figure 13.17. Urban thematic map of our proposal: allocation of our programmatic
decisions within the renewed territory. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole
Beaufumé, Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer, Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian,
Aurore Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color version of this
figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis/climatic.zip
Our “climatic heterotopia” is a playground of new social links

(Figure 13.17). The airport is no longer a plague in the city. It represents
urban and social cohesion, targeting to become a space of interaction and
inclusion that will host a new spatial identity. This ultimate time corresponds
to a far future, which is a final reconciliation between the city and its former
airport. The urban tissue is sewn up, and the city is now conversely
incorporated into the site. Buildings meet green areas punctuated by “folies”.
New districts draw and surround the green axes, creating pinches and
dilatations in order to break the monotony of the long and straight take-off
runway. The height of our urbanization is the pinch between the tramway
and the new road linking the sea to the juxtaposed residential districts
(Argyroupoli, Glyfada, Hellenikon). This new district is made of buildings
of the seafront that merge with buildings of the other way of the greenline,
which is narrowed in this point. This district is voluntarily very dense,
buildings are high and create a cityscape to enhance the contrast with
the implemented contained and savage nature.
Figure 13.18. Urban thematic map of our proposal: green spaces, agriculture and
distribution of movements. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan
We create a cross-functional program, mixing housing, offices, shops and

restaurants. Our proposal aims to become a symbol of the new small city that
is humanly scaled. Agriculture is probably the most diffused program all
across the site. It encompasses all the territory. Districts are interconnected
and the site is now attractive, being seen as a positive place to live: seaside,
nature, sport, culture, education thrive together in order to bring well-being
to the incoming population (Figure 13.19). Our project is also an
autonomous and sustainable place. Eventually, we come to an economy
based on short circuit and (relatively) auto-sufficient thanks to the
exploitation of our farming activities. Our “climatic heterotopia” has a
precise and assertive identity and the catch radius of our site is both local
and global. We have noted that the existing waterfront is made of bars,
nightclubs and restaurants. However, the district comprises just a few
convenience stores. Therefore, we decided that the urban areas of our project
are going to be activated by inserting cross-functional programs. Our main
programs are a care center, markets, restaurants, a high school, housing,

agriculture and art infrastructure such as theater, music and dance academy
(Figure 13.17).
(a)
(b)
(c)
Figure 13.19. Longitudinal sections of the territory of our proposal illustrating
the programmatic allocation: (a) the Agora and the public space; (b) density of the
built areas; (c) urban agriculture and free time activities. © Claire Aubry, Estelle
Figure 13.20. Atmosphere of the Agora public space. © Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray,
Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer, Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent
Papazian, Aurore Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance. For a color version
of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis/climatic.zip
Figure 13.21. Atmosphere of the urban agricultural open space with the belvedere.
© Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer,
Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice
Vallance. For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis
/climatic.zip
Figure 13.22. Atmosphere of the urban agriculture territories within the site. © Claire
Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer, Fleur
Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice Vallance.
For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis/climatic.zip
Figure 13.23. Longitudinal section of the territory of our proposal illustrating the main
itinerary and the hypsometric variance of the landscape. © Claire Aubry, Estelle
To outline our project: even though it seems bold to propose such a

contrasted program, our “climatic heterotopia” is a metaphorical replica of
the actual confrontations: the face-off between the airport and the city
(Figures 13.20 and 13.21); the regeneration of urban agriculture as a practice
of everyday life (Figure 13.22); the deadlock of the refugees with Europe;
the utopic festivities versus the tragic story of the climatic migration and
refugee crisis. One of the main aspects of our thinking is the relationship
between humankind and nature, as well as the relationship between an
individual and himself/herself.
We would like to accompany the transition of incomings along the track

(Figures 13.23 and 13.24). We target to ensure their social inclusion
inwards: create a spatial arrangement that puts in the forefront of the scene
the internal multiplicities, the decenterings, the fragmentations and the
fermentation of identity (spatial, social and environmental). It is in this
context that we consider the whole territory as an addition of contrasted
places that aim to provide hybrid meeting places and spatial entities.
Our site can be a place where people heal and then leave to another place to
live and grow.
We may admit that any of our inherited formulations and hypotheses

of architectural questions and proposals obtain the particular status of
“imaginative geographies”. Everyone is free to project himself/herself
in another future, in another space. Our proposed place may be just a
transition between two lives. Our “climatic heterotopia” is fluid, free,
diverse. We want this place to be autonomous and attractive, a place to
let people from everywhere coexist with each other, reach a place
to call home, build a common interactively evolving spatial, environmental
and social identity through “resubjectivation”. Finally, our “climatic
heterotopia” is an experiment of tomorrow’s society that may be built
on the continuous negotiation regarding the mutual constitution of the local
and the global.
Figure 13.24. Central concept and logo of the project “Sew Up the Urban Fabric”.
© Claire Aubry, Estelle Auray, Carole Beaufumé, Milan Engström, Jonas Kammerer,
Fleur Lagarrigue, Vincent Papazian, Aurore Peillet, Mélodie Pezet and Bérénice
Vallance. For a color version of this figure, see www.iste.co.uk/mavromatidis
/climatic.zip
14
The Auto-poetic Spirit of a

Creative Learning Society Within a
Multifaceted Context of Crises
Erasmus said, “The firmness of the imagination creates the

circumstance1”. In this sense, the present pedagogical praxis mainly deals
with the creation of an auto-poetic creative learning event by bringing into
reality an open-ended penetrating tutorship and architectural design studio
management, having as its main aim to transform the atelier into an auto-
poetic learning society. Throughout this pedagogical posture, I formulate a
position where the students of architecture are considered to be subjects that
possess a singular dimension. This intrinsic singularity of the learners is
assumed to be the sole prerequisite for the definition of the architectural
design studio as a collective autonomy with enhanced social conditions
within dominant institutionalized pedagogical structures.
The output of the pedagogical praxis that is partially presented in the

present book is the creation of an open-ended architectural analytical process
that concludes in the definition of a well-defined innovative and original
architectural concept and program. Nevertheless, to achieve this target, my
main intention as a tutor was to offer to my students a degree of psychic and
creative autonomy. Maria Kli (2018), analyzing Castoriadis’ philosophy,
stipulates that the psychic autonomy may obtain a deep political ontology “if
analyzed in a twofold way: as personal autonomy from the control applied
by the unconscious mechanisms, and as autonomy from the imposed social

1 Fortis imaginato temperat camus.

norm and dominion” (p. 127). Thus, from this point of view, my pedagogical
posture obtains a profound political dimension considering that it proposes a
novel learning environment within a strict institutional framework,
negotiating the methodological aspects and the operating conditions. As we
can observe in this book that gathers the intellectual outputs of my
pedagogical praxis, in the framework of the “Climatic Heterotopias”
architectural design studio, I aim to provide all the conditions that promote
uncontrolled personal autonomy, encouraging the dialogue with the
subjective unconscious spatial and conceptual intuition while trying to
gradually deactivate the imposed social norms and dominions that govern
and influence autonomy.
Thus, within this architectural design studio, I promote autonomy, to

pedagogically enhance the development of a critical thinking that gradually
should raise and intensify the students’ capability of deconstructing – and
going beyond – the established social, spatial, urban, architectural and
sustainable framework which “shapes the conditions of heteronomous bios, a
predetermined and contained form of life” (Kli 2018, p. 127).
Furthermore, the main theme that I developed within this architectural

design studio deals with spatial and social inclusion and sustainability. Our
spatial and conceptual research focuses on the development of a spatial
policy of “propinquity2”: I aim to reveal through a concrete exercise of space
creation the necessity of “negotiating across and among difference the
implacable spatial fact of shared territory” (Massey 2004, p. 8). To do this,
I put in the epicenter of the exercise the refugee and the social crises in order
to place in the forefront of the scene marginalized populations that
experience major spatial and social inequalities. The major hypothesis that
I make is based on Massey’s arguments (Massey 2004), considering that
place (localities, regions, nations, genders, religions, agriculture) has to be
the result of continuous, fluid, implicit spatial “negotiation” due to the
endless regular and/or irregular intersection of diverse, contrasting,
discordant permanent or ephemeral trajectories. The term of “negotiation” is
used here in its widest sense.
In order to avoid a problematical “community” formulation due to pre-

existing mental constructions3, I proposed an empty space, a non-place, and
2 As it is defined by Amin (cited in Massey 2004).

3 This issue is explicitly analyzed by Amin (2002) and Amin et al. (2003).
The Auto-poetic Spirit of a Creative Learning Society 159
an urban vacuum as the place of the study. Indeed, the main aim is to
develop a spatial arrangement where society will assume an identity
discursively, “within the self-conception of the city, which is precisely
around mixity rather than coherence derived from common roots” (Massey
2004, p. 9). It is in these terms, concerning the internal construction of the
identity of place and the spatial inclusion, that our architectural concepts and
projects have evolved.
Conclusively, though the incitements of this book are simple, videlicet to

articulate the argument that architectural creativity can be enhanced by a
pedagogical praxis and is born, within the architectural design studio, of a
collective architectural and spatial imagination, “which can best harness
oppositions, be they intellectual, political, theological, social” (Murphy
2012), conceptual, spatial and anthropological. My pedagogical praxis aims,
albeit, to be original, sophisticated and penetrating. Moreover, the book’s
enlightenments and its diversity of converging and contending examples are
an exquisite treatise themselves upon the repeatedly liminal edges that
prevail between ideas, concepts and responsible attitudes towards creative
architectural thinking and assessment.
Finally, this book is not intended to establish specific guidelines

or a passe partout method but rather aims to alleviate or amend our
often-controverted dominant ideas and narratives about what makes an
architectural student creative and how the cities of the future would/should
evolve in order to provide inclusion and sustainability. In other terms, the
present book aims to illustrate how a “climatic heterotopia” could be
conceived in order to provide urban spatial arrangements and arguments that
balance between reality and utopia within an evolving framework of
sustainability and social integration-inclusion.
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List of Authors
Claire AUBRY Lazaros MAVROMATIDIS

INSA Strasbourg INSA Strasbourg
School of Architecture School of Architecture
France ICube UMR 7357
Engineering Science, Computer
Estelle AURAY Science and Imaging Laboratory
INSA Strasbourg France
School of Architecture
France Vincent PAPAZIAN
INSA Strasbourg
Carole BEAUFUMÉ School of Architecture
France Aurore PEILLET
INSA Strasbourg
Milan ENGSTRÖM School of Architecture
France Mélodie PEZET
INSA Strasbourg
Jonas KAMMERER School of Architecture
France Bérénice VALLANCE
INSA Strasbourg
Fleur LAGARRIGUE School of Architecture
France

Index
A, B, C city, 26, 51, 58, 66, 71, 76, 79, 89,

91, 92, 99, 102, 105, 106, 114,
absolute continuity, 109
116–118, 120, 122, 132, 133, 135,
action, 3, 8, 42, 43, 45–47, 53–55,
136, 142, 143, 146, 147, 149–151,
102, 110, 123
155, 159
adult society, 61, 84, 113
climate, 5–7, 10, 11, 19, 20, 23,
Agora, 72, 139, 143, 149, 152, 153
25–29, 32, 33, 37, 39, 43, 46, 51,
agriculture
55, 58, 66, 69, 70, 74, 76–79, 83,
fallow, 85
85, 89, 96, 97, 110, 116, 122, 125,
urban, 9–11, 133, 147, 152,
129, 130, 132, 134
154, 155
cognitive, 105
allegory, 94
collaboration, 123
anthroposphere, 23, 43, 70, 116, 159
collective imaginary, the, 64, 66
architectural design studio, 1, 3, 5, 6,
comfort zone, 69
8–12, 22, 51, 127, 131, 157–159
community, 10, 11, 19–21, 46,
atmosphere, 12, 14, 19, 20, 24, 27,
53, 59, 67, 89, 92, 97, 98, 102,
58, 66, 69, 76, 77, 79, 84, 85, 109,
125, 158
110, 118
complex system, 13, 36–38, 91, 131
auto-poetic, 79, 157
complexity, 1, 4, 6–8, 12, 13, 21–26,
autonomy, 4, 22, 88, 157, 158
28, 29, 36–39, 42, 51, 59, 60,
personal, 157
90–92, 102, 105, 107, 108, 120,
psychic, 157
123, 130–132, 140
beat, 20, 59, 84, 85
composition, 31, 55, 56, 88, 110, 112
biodiversity, 44
consciousness, 1, 43, 123, 132
body, 13, 19, 37, 52–56, 58–60, 74,
constructal law, 33, 37, 38, 112
77, 84, 85, 106, 121
counter-architectures, 110
chaos, 85, 107, 109
counter-climates, 29, 31, 33, 36
chronic heterotopia, 19, 75, 114

counter-place, 55, 56 G, H, I
counter-space, 21, 36, 58, 75, 79, 84,
104, 110, 113, 122, 146 gendered, 13, 19, 20, 24, 26, 41,
counter-time, 104, 110, 146 52, 92
crisis, 1, 3–8, 10, 12, 13, 23, 42, 43, globalization, 7, 41
46, 48, 49, 70, 71, 76, 85, 88, 90, glocal, 7, 8, 11, 13, 18, 21, 33, 38, 70
115, 116, 121, 129, 131, 132, 158 greenline, 150
ecological, 70, 115 healthcare, 48, 138, 139
refugee, 51, 59, 62, 71, 88, 96, 115, heterochrony, 6, 14, 19, 20, 24,
129, 133, 155, 158 31, 38, 43, 58, 62–64, 67, 72,
socio-environmental, 70 79, 94, 102
cross-functional programs, 151 heterotopological approach, 33
cultural infrastructure, 72 hierarchy, 1, 48, 52
holistic conception, 2
homeless, 10, 58, 59, 62, 70, 71, 85,
D, E, F
115, 116, 139
de-politicization, 3 housing, 9, 21, 44, 45, 50, 71, 72, 99,
design parameter, 6, 116, 122 135, 143, 151
deviant places, 75 human
dislocation, 104, 107 flows, 107, 138
disorder, 109 nature, 92
dreamland, 27, 31 rebuilding, 139
dynamic spaces, 77 idealist imperatives, 65
dystopia, 75, 121 illusion, 78, 102, 114, 115, 146
ecodistrict, 146 imaginary realm, the, 4, 8, 26, 27,
economy, 13, 44, 48, 50, 71, 116, 151 29, 37, 54, 56, 58, 65, 66, 74,
enclosing environment, 23, 25 84, 105
erosion, 44, 46 imaginary spatial dilatation, 105
evolving identity, 133, 135, 143, imagination, 1, 4, 56, 63, 64, 83, 94,
146, 149 121, 125, 157, 159
exiles, 117 inclusion, 2, 8–11, 13, 21, 38, 51, 52,
expression, 54, 59, 85, 92, 93, 95, 54, 58, 60, 62, 64, 89, 116–118,
125, 126 120, 122, 126, 127, 130, 133, 149,
externalize, 53, 54, 59, 120, 143 150, 155, 158, 159
fantasized places, 64 income, 94–96, 98
festival, 71, 72, 86–90, 94, 106, 143, universal basic, 20, 97, 98
145, 146 indeterminate ontology, 74
financial profit, 9, 93, 115 inequalities, 92, 110, 121, 158
flow, 19, 25, 28, 31, 37, 38, 47, 62, infinity, 110, 114
71, 107–112, 133, 134, 137 ingenious territorialities, 89, 115
forest, 56, 65–67, 106 inhabited space, 92
innovation, 41, 133
Index 171
interconnectivity, 8, 24, 39, 106, phantasmatic existence, 74

109, 151 physical organization, 91
introspection, 3, 21, 22, 108, 122, political ontology, 157
125, 126, 146 positive spaces, 54, 126
introspective pedagogy, 3 praxis
introversion, 85 pedagogical, 2–7, 10, 22, 157, 159
isolated atomistic entities, 131 projectual, 3
primitive societies, 61
J, L, M purification, 77, 114, 137
journey, 14, 21, 70, 116, 117,
R, S, T
130, 131
landscapes, 50, 54, 58, 125, 149 radical imaginary, the, 4, 5, 22
localized utopias, 75 reinvestment, 133, 144
locus, 113, 121, 123 responsibility, 42, 43, 96, 130,
mediation, 122, 125 132, 139
meditation, 21, 77, 78, 123, 125 rhythm, 20, 54, 55, 84–90, 97, 99,
memorial, 21, 117, 118, 120 110, 139
memory, 117, 120, 146 scale problem, 45, 89
metaphorical replica, 155 seasons, 55, 56, 96, 97, 99, 125, 126
mise en abyme, 65 self-care, 121
mobility, 44, 62, 63 self-conception, 159
multisensorial, 7, 19, 122 self-generated climate, 19, 77
music, 13, 54, 55, 59, 71, 72, 77, sense of place, 8, 25, 31, 38, 56
85–87, 89, 90, 109, 143, 145, 152 senses, 52, 56, 58, 69, 105
sensible sustainable development, 42
N, O, P sensory, 105
settlement, 25, 41, 117
nationality, 95, 96
sexual virility, 62
naturalism, 74, 84
shared territory, 158
negotiation, 42, 155, 158
societal system, 115
networks, 8, 48, 143
soul, 19, 52–54, 59, 60, 70, 85
nomadism, 10, 14, 41–43, 52, 62, 129
spatial
ontological question, 1, 29
arrangement, 2, 6, 7, 13, 21, 27, 28,
open conceptual conditions, 79
38, 41, 52, 56, 58, 61, 62, 67,
open–closed system, 122
71, 84, 105, 116, 117, 127, 131,
otherness, 113
155, 159
overconnected, 85
expostulation, 131
oversocial, 85
inclusion, 52, 159
patchworked, 110
narrative, 3, 8, 12, 13, 53, 56, 67,
pause, 14, 62, 63, 67, 123
100, 102
performance, 24–26, 31
potential, 9, 13, 132, 137
phantasmagoric (dimension), 2, 14,
65, 67
spatiality, 18, 19, 25, 27–29, 31, 33, topos, 20, 24, 29, 31, 33, 69, 75, 84,
37, 38, 48, 55, 76, 88, 105, 125 103, 104
inherent theatrical, 64 transition, 6, 9, 13, 42–46, 64, 77, 79,
multisensory, 29 87, 113, 118, 119, 144, 146, 155
structure, 12, 21, 36, 52, 77, 91 translocalities, 8
superficial politics, 93
sustainability, 10, 20, 43, 158, 159 U, W
synesthesia, 105
territoriality, 10, 13, 14, 20, 52, 84 unconventional, 71
territory, 8, 13, 14, 19–21, 41, 43–46, urban
48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 65, 67, 72, 88, fabric, 10, 18, 20, 33, 70–72, 99,
91, 92, 95–97, 99, 118, 120, 122, 102, 105, 116, 132–134, 136
126, 130, 132, 133, 135–139, 143, scar, 131, 133
149–152, 154, 155 void, 79
of cohabitation, 92 utopia, 20, 31, 51, 75, 83–85, 88–91,
theater, 62, 63, 65, 67, 72, 78, 114, 97, 100, 103, 110, 113, 114, 121,
126, 152 122, 147, 159
theme park, 64, 65, 87, 88 well-being, 121, 151
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Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/ by Egyptian National Sti. Network (Enstinet), Wiley Online Library on [05/12/2022].

Sew Up the Urban Fabric

ISTE Ltd John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

© ISTE Ltd 2020

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020938678

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

Chapter 1. Climatic Heterotopias Architectural

Chapter 2. Of Other Climates: Glocal Climatic

Chapter 3. Redefine the Contemporary

Chapter 4. Redefine the Body as the Physical Constitution of

Chapter 5. The Pause or Dreaming in the Woods . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 6. A Territory of One’s Own . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69

Chapter 7. The Hegelian Dimension of Climate

Chapter 8. Rhythm as the Tool to Create

Chapter 9. Story for an Illusory Hope Against

Chapter 10. The Fluidic Climatic Heterotopia – Fractures,

Chapter 11. Transmission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113

Chapter 12. Introspection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

Chapter 13. Sew Up the Urban Fabric:

Chapter 14. The Auto-poetic Spirit of a Creative Learning Society

List of Authors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

The “climatic heterotopias” architectural design studio is part of my

What exactly does it mean to adopt “alternative” positions in

Thus, the main idea of my intention (as an academic as well as a citizen),

Being based on Feyerabend’s epistemology (1993), I wanted to create an

Thus, even though I accompanied the pedagogical praxis with my

studio aims to introduce in the architectural teaching the tortuous techniques

I smoothly intervened in their texts, and I certainly didn’t want to

Alternatively, since I personally find every text very rich in terms of

Conclusively, through my pedagogical praxis, I attempt to promote an

conviction in the realization of a scientifically and artistically thought-out

1.1. Reinventing the political dimension of space throughout

How do we reverse the dominant narratives throughout pedagogy

Thus, this book aims to reintroduce the fundamental ontological question

Chapter written by Lazaros MAVROMATIDIS.

Climatic Heterotopias as Spaces of Inclusion: Sew Up the Urban Fabric,

my pedagogical praxis, the students/learners. Therefore, the aim of this

Thus, the most significant intervention into dominant architectural and

Or what significant contributions can, nevertheless, be made by

architectural design studio. The aim of this pedagogy is to understand how

In order to reinvent this ethical dimension of architecture – and in general

1.2. Reinventing an introspective pedagogy to enhance the

Secondly, this book tries to initiate introspection on what is it that brings

the objective of this book is to show that a good architectural pedagogical

Furthermore, the presented pedagogical praxis aims at developing, within

1.3. Tarrying with the Castoriadian “radical imaginary”

This pedagogical approach reformulates one of the major arguments of

This radical imaginary is completely and definitively replaced by the

vocabularies, while the radical imaginary is an intrinsic psychological

1.4. Creation of an alternative pedagogical praxis: development

Diversely, the pedagogy that is presented in this book aims to stimulate

To do so, I decided to introduce a novel concept and develop a concrete

As we will see in the following chapter, the notion of heterotopia opens

Nevertheless, as we will see throughout this book, heterotopia may obtain

In evolutionary sciences, heterotopia is a concept used to illustrate

Synchronously, in philosophy, heterotopia is a concept unfolded by

We live in a time of transition where the concepts of “climate change”

Thus, the main objective of this book is to introduce a pedagogical

1.5. Reinventing the “glocal” dimension of space through

Nevertheless, past research, and especially the works of Doreen Massey

Thus, space is not a simplistic neutral construction that can be solely

According to Peter Smith, cities become translocalities being crossed by

In other terms, the question is how do we reinvent an ingenious glocal