Heidi Merrild defends her PhD thesis, Reversible Tectonics.
The research grows out of an embeddedness, not only in the actual place of life and living beings but also in the mindset of an explorer, and is based in the hope of finding insights and possible ways of dealing with the new climate regime. The research involves an exploration within the soil and plants: an exploration of plants and their anchorage (roots) in the soil and connections with the fluid nature (climate and atmosphere) that unfolds material life cycles and networks. This has led to investigations ranging from planting seeds in the soil to cultivating mosaic fields, observing the weaving of ruined landscapes for diversity, and harvesting wood in the forest.
A similar approach – with a discovery mindset – is applied to premodern architecture, and tectonics are explored through their situatedness: a material relatedness with the Terrestrial. The research involves an empirical exploration of pre–modern tectonics and its materials, from the outer skin to the inner tectonic core and surface, or reversed. From the smallest detail within the material form, engendering, and craftsmanship, I have been seeking an understanding of how architecture and its tectonic nature is connected with the Terrestrial.
The research uncovers the knowledge embedded in pre-modern tectonics, its anchoring in the ground through natural forces such as gravity and density, as well as an inherent understanding of a uniqueness in materials and their point of origin. It is an investigation that reveals a resonance between objects and their point of origin, demonstrating a possible immersion in the fluid nature as an embeddedness in the world. The study presents a detailed analysis of connections with Reversible Tectonics in the past. This is demonstrated through woven wooden logs as a composition and through the connections of materials, based on life cycles and layers, that allow for decay as well as an inherent potential for transformation and change within the tectonic system. This constitutes a way of thinking and a perspective that appears to have been lost in our Western modern thinking and globalisation.
More about the project.
The defense will take place in Didakteket, with an exhibition in the adjacent library.
Program
13:00 Welcome / Claus Peder Pedersen, Head of PhD School
13:10 Lecture / Heidi Sørensen Merrild, PhD Fellow, MA in Energy and Green Architecture, Aarhus School of Architecture
13:55 Examination / Matthias Graf von Ballestrem, Professor, Technische Universität Dortmund
14:25 Break
14:35 Examination / Henrik Oxvig, Associate Professor, Royal Danish Academy
15:05 Examination / Elizabeth Donovan, Associate Professor – chair, Aarhus School of Architecture
15:35 Contributions from the auditorium
15:50 Closing / Claus Peder Pedersen, Head of PhD School – afterwards, drinks and snacks
Participation in person or via Zoom.
Gallerivandringer