AVATAR ConferenceFuture Cities 6: The Marvellous

Chthonic Deluge Ground: The Advent of Telluric Architecture River Thames, Battersea Reach, London Ground begins with the provisional premise that our environments are composed of a multiplicity of grounds, but are generally unforeseen since they arise with the emergence of the species that forms them. Ground and species are one. Through an understanding that objects cannot be fully explained in terms of their material constituents and the energy within them, objects seem to be something over and above the material components that make them up, but at the same time this can be expressed only through the organization of matter and energy. We can also distinguish that different participants have different umvelten, even though they share the same environment. This paradox enables architecture practices to go beyond shaping geometry, to shaping the internal structure of material. Two abandoned jetties, in the River Thames in London, are used as the context for this investigation. This enquiry considers the jetties as a harbinger for a more meaningful ecology we can somehow tune into through our manual, digital and biological technologies.