Vision by Kaleidoscope & Tommila

Infinite Loop

Waste is no more. Objects belong to organic systems that shape our living surroundings and its materials in endless circulation. Bacteria and other organisms with the ability to transform provide a framework for the everyday environment.

The Infinite Loop
– Approaching the home of 2100

Imagine a home in the year 2100. What kind of expression will it have? How much of what you see is recognisable for us today, how much has transformed into objects and expressions currently unknown to us? Will we witness a new aesthetic, a manifestation of a different age evolving from the span between social sustainability and ecological limits? And how much in the sphere of the everyday will be like it always has been, dictated by the basic needs of human beings for centuries?

These are some of the questions we set out to discuss within the collective project EXPO2100 and our framework, The Infinite Loop. In our project, we have explored primarily two domains affecting future design and their combined existence, within the realm of the home: firstly, approaches to a regenerative architecture and design, which integrates with natural systems and coexists with them and secondly, the notion of resource scarcity and how this can affect our homes and the functioning everyday within them.

Regenerative architecture and design

Facing the massive challenges of our century of global warming, biodiversity loss and mass extinction, the direction of regenerative architecture and design can offer us new possibilities, a much needed new hope. According to architect Jacob Littman, regenerative architecture is “the practice of engaging the natural world as the medium for, and generator of the architecture. It responds to and utilises the living and natural systems that exist on a site that become the “building blocks” of the architecture.”1

This perspective takes us beyond the notion of sustainability as a goal for future architectural praxis, into an unknown realm of coexistence and co-creation with the natural systems.

The Infinite Loop discusses how an integrated design approach could manifest itself in the home in a time of resource scarcity. One of our starting points is that in the year 2100, the concept of waste no longer exists. Extracting the Earth’s virgin resources for new production is no longer possible, and industries have shifted their focus to the untapped potential of the raw materials known today as waste. Instead, almost every object you use in your daily life will be modified in one way or another. Digitalisation, biomaterials or a living entity can all form a “second layer” onto existing objects from today, repairing them for prolonged use, enhancing them for more efficient or new types of use, or adorning them for beauty. We imagine the future home as a circular system, an ecology of things, where objects are a part of living systems.

A vision of a home in 2100, The Infinite Loop. Kaleidoscope & Tommila Architects, 2022.

Technical-ecological symbiosis

EXPO2100 is a vision project, an investigation and a practical exercise challenging us to look forward in time and imagine the home in the year 2100. The work can be seen as a sequel to Neighbourhood2100 (Lähiö2100), a vision project which the same collective delivered to the City of Helsinki in 2016. Neighbourhood2100 was a future-optimistic project. With basis in interviews with future scientists we created visions for a technical-ecological symbiosis, where humans had elegantly adapted to climate change, and our surroundings had come alive, as a kind of an improved ecological system aided by technical solutions.

Six years have passed and the backdrop for EXPO2100 has changed dramatically. The UN’s Framework Convention on Climate Change recently released reports showing that with current policies and practices, the world is on course for between 2.1 or 2.9 degrees of warming by 2100.2

Neighbourhood2100, Kaleidoscope. Illustration: Vegard Aarseth

Global surface temperature changes in °C relative to 1850–1900, IPCC report 2021.
These changes were obtained by combining CMIP6 model simulations with observational constraints based on past simulated warming, as well as an updated assessment of equilibrium climate sensitivity (Box SPM.1). Changes relative to 1850–1900 bzased on 20-year averaging periods are calculated by adding 0.85°C (the observed global surface temperature increase from 1850–1900 to 1995–2014) to simulated changes relative to 1995–2014. Very likely ranges are shown for SSP1-2.6 and SSP3-7.0 (WGI Figure SPM.8). Assessments were carried out at the global scale for (b), (c), (d) and (e).

If we are to manage to reach the 1.5 degree global warming target set in Paris in 2015, we need to discuss carbon budgets. We can “only” release another 400 megatonnes of carbon, before we reach the point of no return for this target. At the rate at which we burn carbon today, we will have used up this room for action by 2030. If we manage a good deal better; to release only 300 megatonnes of CO2 by 2050, the chances of safeguarding a planet with a living environment will increase by 83%.

What lies ahead of us when we know that 85% of the world’s carbon budget will have been used by 2030, in just seven years time from now? From our point of view, the most interesting answers lie in exploring the pathways to regenerative design and the possibilities of biomaterials and circular principles.

The home as a microclimate

During his talk about “How Architecture and Landscape Can Deal with the Climate” in the Europan Forum 2022 at Clermont-Ferrand, architect Philippe Rahm stated that humans are animals of 37 degrees. It follows that the reason why we build is climatic, sheltering our fragile bodies from the conditions of nature. This basic human need is the birthplace of home in a physical sense: the place where we firstly set to shelter ourselves becomes a home through dwelling, building our everyday lives, our communities, our culture.

To build a house is always also to create a microclimate, in close connection to the need to create livable conditions for the 37 degree animal. Microclimate is a local set of atmospheric conditions that differ from those in the surrounding areas. It is the climate or the sum of climate factors such as light, temperature, humidity and wind that prevail in the immediate vicinity of an organism, and which directly affect the organism. Microclimate has a direct impact on and can be an important factor in the organism’s habitat.3

La Villa Rotonda, plan drawing

La Villa Rotonda, section
Palladio: I quattro libri dell’Architettura, 1570 / Wikimedia Commons

In his talk, Philippe Rahm takes a look at Palladio’s Villa Rotonda, saying: “It is interesting to study architectural history based on microclimate. Villa Rotonda has a strictly organised plan, a combination of a circle and a square. The corners of the square are organised so that all rooms receive sunlight during the day, and the rooms have different functions in the summer and the winter. In the summer, the northern part is cool and good to be in. In the winter, it is best to be in the south: here the sun comes in and warms things up. In the morning there is sun in the east, in the afternoon there is sun in the west.” The microclimate continues internally, demonstrated in the concept for ventilation: “The Rotonda is crowned with a dome which creates convection; warm air rises and cold air is drawn in through the basement.” 4

The Infinite Loop assumes that the home in 2100 has a microclimate which supports a variety of living systems. Most of the buildings of the future have already been built, but the way we furnish (ourselves) in them will change.

The 40% industry and the need for self-supporting qualities

The construction industry is a so-called 40% industry5, standing for approximately 40% of the global energy- and process-related CO2 emissions. This means that we who build homes and their surroundings have the responsibility to contribute to reducing these emissions. We must learn to work with nature and not against it.

The example of Villa Rotonda can teach us valuable lessons about the importance of materials. The thermal properties of materials can help to create an adaptable microclimate. The materials of Villa Rotonda have inherent, passive properties. The structural outer walls built from stone and masonry have an inertia, and in interaction with the properties of the ground they are standing on, a living environment is formed where the whole house breathes and gives life to people.

The water system of the metropolitan area of Venice.
Red: Natural and artificial water systems.
Source of data: Carta Tecnica Regione Veneto (2007)

Graph elaborated by P. Viganò, L. Fabian and C. Cavalieri.

Extreme Cities and Bad Places, Paola Viganò, 2012.

The home as a node of ecosystems

The Italian architect Paola Viganò has designed large territorial projects with a starting point in water as a life-giving force, working with water as a subject. Her mappings6, which she presented in the Europan Forum 2022 at Clermont-Ferrand, show that water surrounds us, forming systems which have been shaped by people over generations, and which make it possible for us to live. Her map over the water system in the Veneto region shows how water’s paths and reservoirs outline the whole area. The map represents a human-processed natural cycle, a value we have inherited over generations – a megastructure we humans are connected to. To improve our homes, mankind has shaped the outlines of entire ecosystems. Paola Viganò refers to water as a subject, meaning that the water has its own rights.

Holistic thinking and the architects’ responsibility

We who are architects and designers today must be architects in a new way. We must not draw things – we need rather to shape processes with and for subjects, people and cycles. Rahm through Palladio and Paola Vigano show us examples of how this can take shape on the scale of the home, and on the scale of the landscape. 

In the search of the home in the year 2100, what does the type of thinking Rahm and Vigano demonstrate, imply? The examples from Rahm and Vigano show that our surroundings are something we take over. Not just physically, but also in terms of the knowledge that has been used to process the surroundings into the shape they have today.

To build a home in the year 2100 will still mean building a microclimate for us humans who are 37 degree animals. But the climate we must protect ourselves from and open ourselves to will be tougher for many. Collectively, EXPO2100 explores how this can be played out in a variety of scenarios.

Ida læser et brev, 1899
Painting by Vilhelm Hammershøi
Wikimedia Commons

The painting illustrates two of the four basic tasks of the home: eating and socialising with others.

A functioning home through centuries

The home of today needs to accommodate the same needs as it did when Palladio designed Villa Rotonda. In the home we shall rest (sleep), wash ourselves, eat and cook and be with those we love. These are the four basic tasks of the home, freely based on the first grade syllabus at the Bergen School of Architecture. In the home, we surround ourselves with objects that can help us meet these needs. Through time the objects have been adapted, reshaped, tweaked, and mended to better meet our needs, adapting to cultural and societal change.

In our opinion, these premises will remain the same in the year 2100. We claim that our homes should still satisfy the basic needs; the four tasks. But in the perspective of 80 years, one generation forward, we can expect many new trends and new technologies to emerge. How can we define what kind of qualities these new solutions should have, from the point of view of regenerative design? We start from the fact that the materials we use should have properties that we can use to create an indoor climate and a better living environment in the home, and establish an ecology of living homes, referring to Rahm-Palladio. The question remains, how the home in 2100 can support and imitate living systems and contribute to a system bigger than itself. Joining together systemic thinking and new innovation with biomaterials can offer interesting answers.

In our work, we found a resonance with the interiors of the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864 – 1916). Hammershøi often represents the same apartment, his home at Strandgade 30 in Copenhagen, with bare interiors, from different vantage points. The paintings express a frugality which in our current era of seemingly limitless and outrageous abundance speaks to us of the future home. Rather than 19th century romantic domesticity, the stillness of the home on display tells a story of timelessness with palladian impact. Again, we come back to the notion of time, and the four basic acts of the home which are not likely to change within the horizon of 2100.

De Fire Rommene, 1914
Painting by Vilhelm Hammershøi
Wikimedia Commons

Circular economy

As the world’s natural resources are under increased pressure, it is crucial for the climate, nature and the environment that resources are used far more efficiently, reducing the need to extract virgin resources from the ecosystems. We must transform how we manage resources, how we make and use products, and what we do with the materials afterwards.7

The infinite Loop is both a vision and a physical experiment. Our hypothesis is that the objects of the future are likely to already exist. If they do not, they will be made from self growing materials belonging to a short carbon cycle. The objects will in many cases also gain a second layer, an addition to their original function for serving a human need – they will be smarter, in the sense that they are part of a larger living system.

Approaching an integrated vision for objects in the home

Directly below Kaleidoscope’s office in Bergen is the recycling station of BIR, the local waste management company. It costs money to leave things here, but you can pick them up for free. In May 2022, we start a journey into the physical realm/world of discarded objects of the home. During the period of May to August 2022, we visit the station regularly and collect typical objects from the home, for one reason or another not valued enough by their previous owners anymore.

Our working theory is that the objects considered obsolete still possess qualities and values relevant to the future home. These could for example be the carbon already bound in the objects, or the resources already extracted from nature to make the object, the material itself, in addition to more obvious functional qualities that would simply be actualised by taking the object in use by new owners.

A selection from the 40 obsolete objects

A basis for future predictions

The objects became a display for reflecting the theme of resource scarcity in the future, a basis for future predictions. By collecting these items and mapping their properties, we build a knowledge on how they could be transformed into new objects or given a new layer in the future. 

We create a criteria for the selection of objects: to be chosen, the object needs to take a point of departure in the four chores of the home, it should be made of mono materials rather than composites, be multifunctional over monofunctional and bio-based over synthetic. Through these criteria, we finally select objects with a quality that “speaks” to us. Is it a beautiful shape? Do we like it? Is it helpful? 

In the end, our selection consists of 40 individual objects, which we then categorise according to the four basic tasks of the home. We also analyse the objects in a manner inherent to museum collections: our gathered data describes the physical measures of the objects, their estimated year of production and their function. We describe the physical properties of the objects: their shape, condition, materials and colour. We also describe their production techniques, the components, joinery and fittings as well as decoration or patterns. Finally, we define whether the objects are a product of serial production or unique pieces and whether they are hand or machine made. Out of the 40 objects, we select a handful to work further on. These objects we also 3D-scan to be able to use and analyse them independently of the physical location we are at.

When we look more closely at them, several of the objects we have found tell us interesting things about the stability of the basic needs. For example, object number 1, a hand-made ceramic teapot, and object number 24, a clay bowl, teach us about the role of pottery in the development of the human race. Pottery, invented by people living in Japan, China and Korea during the last Ice Age about 14,000 years ago, allowed people to boil foods such as nuts and shellfish to make them edible,8 which gave rise to a nutritional revolution. Pottery and other vessels for cooking and eating are still found today largely in the same format as millenia ago. Or object number 40, the knife. The knife is a very old concept, one of the earliest tools of humans, and has not changed significantly in a very long time. But we also studied the history of a vacuum cleaner, through the analysis and investigation of object number 36, a broom. The robot vacuum cleaner, functioning without human participation, is the last link in a development that started with a bundle of twigs, the broom. These reflections tell us something about how needs and tastes change, but also that some concepts are here to stay.

The short evolution of the cleaning devices.

New materials

Simultaneously with the gathering and analysis of the existing objects, we work with experimentation on new bio-based materials. This testing of materials forms the basis for the interaction between the old and the new in our search for the regenerative design approach.

The material work consists of two main paths: one for working with circular materials, turning residual raw materials into new combinations. The basis for these tests are residual materials such as egg shells, wool, sawdust and cellulose sludge from industries. The second path is to work with self-growing materials such as mycelium and scoby. A mycelium is a network of fungal threads, and can be microscopic in size or develop into large structures.9 Our mycelium is fed on residual sawdust, and in the end the growth is stalled and the mycelium dried before use. Scoby is a material made through fermentation from mixing tea with microorganisms such as bacteria and yeast. Scoby is used in brewing kombucha, a popular drink likely originating from China, now spread on a global scale. When dried, scoby has a resemblance to leather. It can be eaten or like in our case, used as a biomaterial for building purposes. Our scoby is grown in an abandoned bath tub, creating large sheets of the material.

The Chair

Enter object number 6, the Big Ugly Chair. We are intrigued by this ugly chair which obviously also has some qualities. The chair is made of one material, oak, except for the birch-made plugs and some glued joints, as well as five metal screws. The material is heavy and solid, a valued material for furniture production. The material also stores carbon. The chair is constructed in a very firm manner.


The ugly Chair also has some obvious flaws. It is simply oversized. It is disproportionate, short-legged, and very wide. The seat is too low to sit comfortably, indicating that there may have been a cushion on the seat. There is a large space between the splats in the back, which makes it quite uncomfortable to lean back. It is no wonder that someone discarded this weird being!

We imagine the chair holds a potential to change for the better. It is the perfect test subject for our work, enabling us to work with several of the hypotheses and themes we engage in: the future value of existing objects and materials, the potential of already absorbed carbon which is stored in existing objects, the new aesthetics of the combination of new and old materials, the topic of enhancement. And reflecting on the Chair, we come up with an impossible project: a quest to create Two chairs of the One, a will to prove that a form of consumption and desire for new objects can still exist even in the scenario of extreme scarcity.

Details of the Chair

We analyse and map the properties of the Chair.

Dimensions: W 67 cm, H 96 cm, D 75 cm
Weight: 9,30 kg
Carbon storage: 4,65 kg, short carbon cycle 10
Year: 1989
Function: Category: Resting, for sitting
Condition: Good
Material: Oak, plugs in birch, monomaterial
Colour: Dark brown
Joinery: Plugged wooden joinery, strengthened with glue, 5 screws
Fittings: Wooden fittings
Production technique: Wood work
Serial production / Unique: Serial production
Machine made / Hand made: A combination of the two

The object number 6:
The Big Ugly Chair

A large, wooden chair with disproportionally high back and low feet.
Bannister style chair back with curved top rail and three curved back splats.
Rectangular flat seat, no cushion. Curved arms and handholds.
Turned baluster arm supports, front and back feet and side stretchers.
Rustic farmhouse style.

Taking action

We move on to process the chair, taking it apart. It is relatively easy to do. We knock loose the different joints of the chair, dismantling it. In most cases the joints release easily except for two which break inside the joint. We remove the varnish and soak all the parts to loosen the rest of the joints which didn’t come apart before. We scrape away excess glue and take care to clean everything. Finally, we saw all parts in two, cutting everything longitudinally in half, with the exception of the seat plate. For the sawing of the thinnest pieces we first attach them on pieces of plywood to avoid breaking and to enable precision. The One chair will become the Two!

A visual game of change

The really challenging phase is the reassembling of the chairs, using the same joints. There is no manual for this creation of two half-chairs. How do we decide on the logic of assembly, what part belongs where? The hypothesis is that we are able to produce two usable chairs from the one. 

We settle for using the longitudinal cutting line as our guideline: one chair will have the curves of the woodwork inside towards the body of a person sitting in the chair, the other chair will have the curves facing outside, away from the body. One chair will be slightly lower than the other because of how the legs were split. One chair gets all the backrest splats, now doubled in numbers, and we assemble them closer together so that the backrest works better. One chair will have the seat plate, the other chair is left hollow without seat or backrest. In the assembly process, we do limited cutting to fit the pieces back together in a new formation. We sand everything to give the chairs an improved aesthetic quality. For easier future reuse, we peg and glue the reassembled joints with natural and circular genuine hide glue which is soluble in water when heated. 

Chair parts disassembled

Chair parts cut in half

The chairs will be almost the same, but still different, and how you perceive this depends intriguingly on where you stand when looking at the chairs. One chair looks almost like it did before when you look at it straight from the front: all the curvy parts point inwards. The other chair looks almost like it did before, when you look at it from the back or the side: all the curvy parts point outside. Turning your gaze, you will then see the cut surfaces emerging, the chairs revealing their true, complex identity.

We find that the logic of the chairs is analogous with a potato crop: it is like we have a seed potato, which when planted correctly, produces a crop, more potatoes with more or less the same properties. Our big ugly Chair is like a mother or a parent, producing an offspring which is in many ways similar. We are at this stage quite close to having converted the One into the Two chairs, with simple means. This is both ecologically and socially sustainable. But; the chairs now need more added materials to be fully functional.

The Additions

Enter bio-based additions. We have grown mycelium and scoby to finalise and turn the chairs, now named The Parent and The Offspring, to fully functional objects.

The mycelium has been grown into the form and dimensions of the existing seat, creating a pillow-like addition for The Parent. The new seating is reinforced with jute fibres gathered from our earlier collection of objects: the object number 23, a Christmas decorated table runner in hessian fabric, and impregnated with melted beeswax. The edge of the seat is worked around with scoby to hinder the material from crumbling. The scoby has been grown in a tub into a cellulose-based biofilm sheet. We proceed to cut the scoby into strips which we then weave together in a structure reminiscent of sami birch basketry or Alvar Aalto’s linen belt chairs, to form the seat and the backrest.

Chair parts used for the Parent

Chair parts used for the Offspring

The Two chairs are now finished. They have an intriguing aesthetic which invites you to pose questions behind their reasoning and their manufacturing process. We are ready to display them in the collective exhibition EXPO2100 at the Finnish Museum of Architecture.

The carbon budget, the new aesthetics and regenerative solutions

The creation of the Two chairs from the One is an exploration into the question of the carbon budget, the new aesthetics and regenerative solutions. It can be smart to take a critical look at existing objects and their less obvious qualities, and to take care of old wooden furniture. After all, we don’t have to cut down more trees to make more furniture. The action of the Two chairs argues that trees can benefit us better by being left standing in the forests to bind carbon from the atmosphere, forests being one of the two major carbon sinks, the ocean being the other. The question is more about what kind of furniture or objects we create, who produces them and what they cost.

What is obvious in the exercise of the Chair, is that it is time consuming to produce such pieces of furniture. Within the capitalist framework, time consuming equals costly. This is currently true of any circular-based building project, as the hunting down and documentation of circular materials and building components is based on human resources. Equally time consuming is the increased complexity of design work required to fit existing building parts together rather than creating something new in the tradition of functionalistic purpose-based architecture. How fast the change towards holistic and circular design processes can happen, remains to be seen, but there are certainly issues to be tackled to make it economically feasible within our current systems.

The finished chairs.
To the left, the Parent with the mycelium seat.

To the right, the Offspring with the scoby seat and backrest.

Even though our exercise has been dominantly analogue and hand craft-based in character, we think that the role of technology will increase in significance at homes. Unseen layers of functions and properties will be added to the future objects, and there will be a way to retrofit new intelligence to existing physical objects.

Perhaps we therefore can start to see an emerging change in the reality of the home in the future horizon: the return of production, in a new symbiosis with self-generating bio-based materials and high technology solutions.

What happened to the aliens?

At the beginning of working with The Infinite Loop, we discussed films such as Dune (2021), Blade Runner (1982 and 2017) and Interstellar (2014) as references for the visual manifestation of the future world. The vibe of the future vision we were looking to create was fueled by the aesthetics and atmospheres of extraterrestrial environments, space technology and science fiction combined with post-disaster analogousness present in these movies.

After digesting the topic of EXPO2100 – home and city in the future – and contemplating the framework, the timespan of a generation, and the carbon budget following the Paris agreement of 2015, we decided to look backwards before going further. The evolution from a broom to a vacuum cleaner forecasts that 2100 would look like nothing we know of today. The evolution of a knife, or a pot on the other hand, indicates that there will be little change. The home is a space designed to accommodate basic human needs. Nevertheless, the home is also part of a more extensive system where the way we, as a society, produce has had a significant impact on its outlines.

Circular economy and regenerative design principles are the keys to a future in humanity’s safe space between acceptable social welfare and the ecological ceiling. As we write these concluding words, the COP27 in Egypt has reached a lukewarm agreement, and the target is still to limit global warming to 1.5°C degrees above pre-industrial levels, but it is somewhat unclear how we will get there.

The Infinite Loop is a vision and experiment to shed light on a possible future in a generation to come. In our version of the future we have tackled the crucial challenge of social inclusion and well-being within the limits of ecology through an envisioned increasingly productive and living home environment.

Let us not be alienated. Let rather our creative capabilities, and desire for beauty, lead to new findings, such as — the One chair becoming the Two.

© Kaleidoscope Nordic AS & Tommila Architects Ltd, 2022

Authors:
Tone Megrunn Berge
Linda Figuereido
Tiina Teräs
Miia-Liina Tommila

 

Sources and notes

1 Jacob Littman: Regenerative Architecture: A Pathway Beyond Sustainability,
University of Massachusetts Amherst, 2009

2 Nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement.
Synthesis report by the secretariat, 26. October 2022

3 Mikroklima in the Store norske leksikon at snl.no.
18. november 2022 from https://snl.no/mikroklima

4 Freely cited by Tone Megrunn Berge on the talk given in October 2022.

5 Global Status Report for Buildings and Construction 2019.

IEA and UN Environment Programme

6 Paola Viganò: Extreme Cities and Bad Places, Department of Urbanism, University IUAV of Venice. doi:10.1007/s13753-012-0002-6

7 Ellen MacArthur Foundation. Definition of Circular Economy:
https://ellenmacarthurfoundation.org/topics/circular-economy-introduction/overview

8 Neil McGregor: A History of the World in 100 Objects / The Jomon Pot, Allen Lane 2010

9 https://www.britannica.com/science/fungus/Annotated-classification

10 https://www.nmbu.no/aktuelt/node/42963

Kaleidoscope & Tommila

Kaleidoscope is a Nordic architecture office based in Bergen and Helsinki with a special emphasis on circular systems, transformation processes and future forms of living. Tommila Architects, based in Helsinki, have since 1984 been at the forefront of Nordic innovation by combining the practices of traditional architectural design with urban design. Today, the two companies partner up to be a driving force for change in the Nordics, sharing an investigative, curious and empathetic approach to architecture. Kaleidoscope is also one of the co-founders behind the Bioregion Institute, which works interdisciplinary for the transition to a fossil-free society through the processing of bio-organic residual raw materials into new products and materials.

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