What is the role of architecture in the age of climate change? How can architecture, together with the citizenry, respond to the climate crisis? Organized by the Gwangju Biennale Foundation and the Gwangju Metropolitan City, the 5th Gwangju Folly seeks the way in the circular economy. Under the banner of Re:Folly, four Gwangju Follies have been completed, all realized in a creative and experimental cycle of design, material development, construction, and public activities. Around the world, various organizations, companies, governments, researchers, and designers are striving toward a circular future. In the construction and materials industry, research has focused on reducing reliance on cement and plastics. However, most efforts remain limited to the laboratory or to the exhibition gallery. What makes Re:Folly special is that its exploration of resources and circularity has gone beyond research to the realization of everyday spaces within the city. By monitoring the performance of new materials and construction methods in built architecture, Re:Folly is a groundbreaking initiative that demonstrates how circular architecture can be both practical and beautiful.
The past two centuries have been dominated by a linear economic and social system. Mass production with no regard for energy, waste, or the environment goes straight to consumption and then to mass disposal. Regardless of the adverse effects on the environment, our life world has been organized by the profit logic of capitalism. As a result, ecosystems are being destroyed at a global scale. While our mountains and rivers are being destroyed, local agricultural and fishery by-products are discarded as waste and then imported from thousands of kilometers. This destructive pathway of production, consumption, and disposal has become entrenched in a vast industrial system, leading to a civilizational crisis often called the “metabolic rift.” Re:Folly calls for a fundamental transformation of our industrial system, a transition to a circular system. In realizing livable buildings through circularity, Re:Folly engaged in research, experimentation, exploration; in other words, a process of trial and error. In the age of climate change, the way we make things, the way we talk about things must change. As much as the transition away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy, we need to find new ways to build our homes.
Material Circulation, Architecture of Process
In the spirit of circularity, Re:Folly engaged architects with diverse backgrounds. Four teams were selected: Assemble from the UK, BC from Belgium, Atelier LUMA from Southern France as an integral team; Ito Toyo from Japan; and two architects from South Korea, BARE and Soltozibin, led by Cho Namho. The material direction of their projects – industrialized wood, seaweed-based bio-plastic, lacquer, shell lime bricks etc. – all challenged the basic assumptions of our modern material systems. In a country that relies on imports for virtually all of its structural wood, why are we unable to use cypress trees in the region? Why are seaweed stalks, despite their excellent material qualities, thrown away into the sea during harvest? Why do bricks made from oyster shell waste, a major environmental problem around the world, cost ten times more than cement bricks? By asking these questions, Re:Folly generates discourse; what I would call material narratives. They are stories that encompass the object as well as the way people and things are connected in a process. With Re:Folly, process is as important as the outcome. It is why we have been so committed to documentation. Re:Folly has recorded not only the successes but more importantly the trials and errors, the controversies and debates. On the arduous journey of circularity, Re:Folly raises questions to which its projects function as experimental answers.
Collaboration is always at the heart of process. Though Ito Toyo is the eminent architect of Urushi Shell, the project involved intense collaboration between Ito’s office, urushi experts led by Toki Kenji of Miyagi University, structural consultant Kanada Mitsuhiro of Tokyo University of the Arts, students from both universities. Assemble, BC, and Atelier LUMA are themselves multidisciplinary organizations. The research and development involved in Eco Hanok would not have been possible without the collaboration of Yoon Jungwon, architectural production curator and professor at the University of Seoul and Professor Kim Hyeong Ki of Chosun University, the dedicated local support of Stuga House, Urban Society, landscape designers VNH and ANPARK, and the urban curator Kang Dong Young. Furthermore, in the difficult process of trial and error, the generosity and expertise of an array of manufacturers, builders, and craftsmen made the Eco hanok possible. The implementation of Breathing Folly involved the Soltozibin Architects as well as Supia Construction and environmental consultant Dr. Lee Byeongho. BARE working with experts in algae bioplastics, and other startups in the field in making Air Folly a groundbreaking project. Re:Folly moves beyond the idea of the architect as auteur, placing process and collaboration at the forefront of its philosophy and methodology.
Urban Nujeong: Folly Community
In the Western vocabulary, folly means an “act of stupidity.” In Western architecture, it refers to an ornamental structure in a garden. In the contemporary context, a folly is a small pavilion that most often seeks to affirm the autonomy of architecture. Korea’s pavilion tradition, centered on the nujeong (樓亭), is similar to but quite distinct from the Western folly. Like the West, nujeong is a small structure in the garden, part of a beautiful scenery. However, while the Western folly is an object to be viewed, nujeong was a semi-public space where a small community of friends and neighbors could gather for enjoyment, art, and serious debate. Gwangju Folly is a nujeong for the city. In continuing its tradition, Re:Folly’s goal is not the display of objects but providing for the community. The Re:Folly projects are small but special, a space of participation. Architecture, like all forms of life, lives not in seclusion. The energy of a building doesn’t go away. It changes into other forms and persists in the world. Likewise for the human activity that architecture houses. The Re:Folly projects host public programs around climate change and the environment but they can always accommodate other activities. The new projects connect with the existing follies around the Asia Culture Center to create the Gwangju Folly Promenade. As small activity hubs, they become the connective tissue of the city. “No man is an Island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the Continent, a part of the main.” These are the words of the English writer John Donne selected for the opening of For Whom the Bell Tolls. The bell that conveys the emergence and receding of life rings for all of us. Just as all living things and objects are interconnected, no building is an island. In the time of climate change, Re:Folly affirms that we are a community woven as a web of food, shelter, and clothing.
Pai Hyungmin
Artistic Director of 5th Gwangju Folly
