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12 | 2023
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On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

Stamatina Kousidi

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Date of publication: March 1, 2023
Number of pages: 101-119
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On Greenhouses and the
Making of Atmospheres

Stamatina Kousidi

Abstract AfÏliation:
Politecnico
Broadly associated with the effects of climate change,
di Milano,
the “greenhouse” term designates a building type Dipartimento di
that gains ground in contemporary design practices Architettura e Studi
Urbani
and demands architectural, technical, theoretical and
aesthetic attention. This article explores the evolution Contacts:
of the greenhouse from a place of plant propagation stamatina [dot]
kousidi [at] polimi
to nature preservation to a vehicle of experimenta-
[dot] it
tion into new ways of inhabiting the city. It focuses on
how the incorporation of greenery into buildings, by Received:
16 September 2022
means of large span glazed envelopes and regulated
interiors, has brought forth new forms of together- Accepted:
ness between human and non-human organisms. In 24 April 2023
so doing, it investigates a new understanding of the
DOI:
nature-culture oppositional relationship, in which 10.17454/ARDETH12.07
the condition of a living together intersects with novel
ARDETH #12
definitions of beauty, calling for a reinterpretation of
agency in architecture.

101
 Introduction
The original proposal of Anne Lacaton and Jean-
Philippe Vassal for the Documenta 12 (2007) pavilions
revolved around the model of the transparent, light-
weight, naturally ventilated greenhouse; a structure
defined by the architects “neither as a simple formal
object nor as a systematic element,” but as “the min-
imum, most elegant system,” able “to transform the
exterior climate to make it livable” (Lacaton, Vassal,
2006). Despite the fact that the realized pavilions were
ultimately modified, they were conceived as elements
that formed “part of a larger system that included [the
rest of the exhibition premises] and the park” (Oswalt,
Vassal 2019), unifying inside the outside, architec-
ture and landscape realms alike. Valued for issues of
material efficiency, comfort, artistic expression and
The incorporation technological progress, the greenhouse has served as
a powerful reference for housing design in Lacaton &
of nature in Vassal’s work, ranging from their early experimental
built objects low-cost dwelling prototype (1992) to the more recent
Cité manifeste units in Mulhouse (2005). Standing,
has spawned more broadly, as a building model apt to be reappro-
visionary design priated, it highlights the architects’ belief that “the
projects across the architectural potential of technology lies not in its
origins or original definition but in its potential to
twentieth be reprogrammed and combined with other things”
century by means (Ruby, Ruby, 2006: 18).
Departing from the displacement of the greenhouse
of large span, into dwelling in the work of Lacaton & Vassal, this
glazed, vegetated article explores key functions and meanings attribut-
ed to the novelty of such building type in architectural
environments. thinking and practice as well as its evolving character
and contemporary relevance for the design project.
First, it retraces the evolution of the greenhouse
from a place of nature propagation to a catalyst of
interdisciplinary experimentation into new types of
public urban spaces. Second, it examines the ways in
which the incorporation of nature in built objects has
spawned visionary design projects across the twenti-
eth century by means of large span, glazed, vegetated
environments. Finally, it discusses the intersection of
the greenhouse concept with theoretical discourses of
architectural atmospheres and how this may promote
new conceptualizations of and for the architectural
project. In light of the pressing demands for environ-
mental sustainability, it focuses a consistent attention

102 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

on practices and theories which have promoted new
forms of relationship between nature and artifice,
inhabitants and building, human and non-human
organisms, in connection to the design of the built
environment. The incorporation
of nature in
Indoor landscapes: Between nature preservation and
human habitat
built objects
Greenhouses promoted the creation of picturesque has spawned
landscapes, rendering exotic, non-native, plants, flow-
ers, and biomes available to broader audiences and
visionary design
geographic contexts. Proliferating in the nineteenth projects across the
century as plant nurseries, through examples such twentieth
as the Great Conservatory at Syon Park (1828) and
the Palm House at Kew Gardens (1848), they fulfilled century by means
the fervent desire for new vegetal species cultivation, of large span,
primarily for collection purposes, allowing for the
development of innovative methods for their import,
glazed, vegetated
categorization and study (Hix, 1996; Stein, Virts, 2017). environments.
Further to the cultivation of non-native rare plant
species in the moderate temperatures of Northern Eu-
rope, they symbolized a multifaceted exchange of cus-
toms and cultural ideas. Similarly to the “landscaped
gardens, [domestic conservatories] were transformed
from objects of scientific interest and inquiry into cul-
tural artifacts with considerable aesthetic and symbol-
ic value” (Sparke, 2021: 29), giving rise to the creation
of picturesque indoor landscape compositions. As
they gradually evolved into places for accommodating
human activities, “the word ‘conservatory’, in contrast
to ‘glasshouse’, ‘hothouse’ and ‘greenhouse’, came
to denote a space that not only was associated with
plants but also supported social interaction” (Sparke,
2021: 30). Greenhouses, by means of uninterrupted
surfaces of glass and vegetated interior spaces, hence
emerged as a new type of public urban space, assum-
ing a collective, shared dimension.
Large span, glazed, regulated structures addressed
concerns about the provision of healthy environments
in the emerging industrial cities, triggering a different
understanding of architecture’s relation to the natural
environment. Greenery was included in an all-glass
structure whose design, construction and mainte-
nance oscillated between horticulture, architecture,
and engineering, highlighting the emergence of a nov-
el design field that considered issues of environmen-

Stamatina Kousidi 103

Fig. 1 - The Great Ex- tal management. The 1851 proposal of Joseph Paxton
hibition in the Crystal
Palace, Hyde Park,
for an urban sanatorium, as part of a larger collection
London: the transept of winter park projects, is a suggestive example. In
looking north. Steel
this body of work, which included the influential
engraving by
W. Lacey after J.E. Crystal Palace in Hyde Park (Fig. 1), Paxton addressed
Mayall, 1851. 677034i plants as “an integral part of the environmental
© Wellcome Collec-
tion. Public Domain system,” conceiving the interior space as “a type of
Mark. self-contained biosphere, in which plants and ani-
mals, including human beings, mutually participate
in the sustenance of an internal carbon dioxide and
oxygen cycle” (Schoenefeldt, 2008: 285) and underline
the intersections between ecology and the built envi-
ronment. The “study of temperature, humidity, solar
radiation and air movement and their effect on the
health of plants” defined new conceptualisations of
architectural space as the habitat of different biologi-
cal species (Schoenefeldt, 2008: 283).

This mutual exchange between humans and plants is

highlighted, as cultural historian Eva Horn has pointed out,
in the context of eighteenth and early-nineteenth century
theories on “climates” defined as “that which flows around

104 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

organisms, engulfs and transports the bodies of living
beings, be they plants, animals, or human beings, in an […]
ever-changing medium (Horn, 2018: 13). The raised ecolog-
ical awareness thereby laid the basis for an architectural
research stance that recognized equally the effect of a given
environment on man as well as the environmental functions
associated with this environment.

The technological progress in materials and building

techniques in those days led to the creation of “vege-
tated assemblages such as living walls and greenhous-
es,” anticipating contemporary design phenomena
that “are starting to occupy the greenhouse spaces
with program,” in which “humans have become The design and
embedded within the assemblage” (Zaera-Polo, An- realization process
derson, 2022: 326). As architectural historian Dustin
Valen has observed, in England, “despite some archi-
of glasshouses
tects’ resistance to technical and material innovations, revealed the
horticulture and medicine played a crucial role by need for a
mediating between architecture and environmental
practices as engineers looked to these scientific fields
transdisciplinary
to elaborate a theory of warming and ventilating – approach
imbricating architecture with efforts to reconstruct to design.
foreign climates” across the country (Valen, 2016:
420). The design and realization process of glasshous-
es revealed the need for a transdisciplinary approach
to design. The dialectic relationship between building
and the natural world would continue to be a growing
concern for architects, designers, and urban planners
alike with the aim to influence new definitions of liv-
ing space and forms of cohabitation between people
and plants.

From Bauhaus to the Greenhouse

The greenhouse model grew pertinent to early twen-
tieth-century experimentations which cast a special
attention on the non-physical aspects of space con-
nected to comfort, hygiene and concepts of health. In
his 1929 book Befreites Wohnen. Licht, Luft, Öffnung
[Liberated Dwelling. Light, Air, Opening], Sigfried Gie-
dion asserts that “it took almost 100 years for archi-
tects to have the courage to demand light for humans
[and] build liberated walls dematerialized in glass”
(Giedion, Geiser, ed. 2019 [1929]: 62). He discusses the
greenhouses at the Jardin de Plantes in Paris (Rou-
hault Fils, 1833) as antecedents of Modern Movement

Stamatina Kousidi 105

Fig. 2 -Luigi Figini
and Gino Pollini, The
greenhouse of “casa
elettrica” [La serra
della “casa elettrica”],
Villa Reale di Monza,
IV Triennale di
Monza, 1930. Photo:
Girolamo Bombelli.
TRN_IV_12_0665. ©
Triennale Milano –
Archivi.

106 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

architecture, keenly interested in technical progress,
in recognition of the fact that indoor climate, air qual-
ity and thermal comfort needed to have a significant
bearing on the design of living spaces.

Several modern architecture projects explicitly engaged

hybrids between natural and artificial materials, plants and
glazed surfaces, at the architectural interior. In Luigi Figini
and Gino Pollini’s Casa Elettrica installation for the IV Trien-
nale di Monza (1930) (Fig. 2), in Mies van der Rohe’s Tugend-
hat house in Brno (1929–30) and in his Glasraum installation
in Stuttgart, designed in collaboration with Lilly Reich (1927)
(Zeinstra, 2015), as well as in the Stanza di soggiorno per
una villa by Franco Albini (1940), the indoor patio or winter
garden forms an integral part of the interior, marking the
evolution of the greenhouse from a place of constructing
aesthetic experiences to incubator of new approaches to the
design of the built environment.

This evolution was further exemplified in experimen-

tal projects such as the Case Study House #4, or Green-
belt House (1945), designed by Ralph Rapson, which
envisioned the incorporation of a large glass-roofed
vegetated area as an open, flexible, and programmat-
ically non-defined domestic space. Highlighting its
analogy with the agricultural greenhouse, the archi-
These assemblages
tect noted that the internal glazed garden was “funda- between natural
mental to bring nature within the house – not in small and built materials
pretty planting areas, but in a large scale that will do
justice to nature” (McCoy, 1977: 23). These assemblag- drew fresh
es between natural and built materials drew fresh attention to
attention to the potential of incorporating greenery
for the improvement of indoor thermal climate and the potential of
air quality, pointing to architectural means of envi- incorporating
ronmental control (Barber, 2021).
The phenomenon which saw the hybridization of res-
greenery
idential and green spaces continued to manifest itself for the
in the second half of the twentieth century through
further explorations into bioclimatic design. On a
improvement of
smaller scale, residential projects such as Frei Otto’s indoor thermal
House and Atelier in Warmbronn (with Rob Krier, climate and air
1967-69) and Thomas Herzog’s House in Regensburg
(1977) comprised large scale glass prisms which quality.
encouraged the growth of tropical and subtropical
plants: the dense vegetation which spread through
the living rooms in both projects entertained the vivid
sensation of the inhabitants being outdoors and had a

Stamatina Kousidi 107

Fig. 3 - Cedric Price, marked impact on the conception of domestic space.
Serre (2), Parc de
Enhanced by the advances in construction, mechan-
La Villette, Paris,
France, 1988-1990. ical, and material technologies in those days, these
Sketch showing projects rehearsed new approaches to the rapport be-
adjustable blinds,
heating and ventila- tween architecture, the body, and greenery, exploring
tion. Ink, graphite, principles that transgressed the boundaries between
white paint and
coloured pencil over natural and anthropized environments. On a larger
electrostatic print on scale, office and university building projects, such
heavy yellow paper,
21.1 × 29.7 cm.
as the Ford Foundation Headquarters in New York
DR2004:0558:003. © (Kevin Roche, John Dinkeloo and Associates, 1967), the
Cedric Price fonds/ School of Architecture of the University of Navarra
Canadian Centre
for Architecture, in Pamplona (Rafael Echaide, Carlos Sobrini, Eugenio
Montréal. Aguinaga, 1974-1978) and Cedric Price’s non-realized
project for a greenhouse at Parc de la Villette in Paris
(1986-1987) (Fig. 4), featuring a system of adjustable
blinds which aimed to control indoor heating and
ventilation (Fig. 3), similarly incorporated ample,
glass-roofed vegetated atria, serving as sites for archi-
tectural design experimentation.

108 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

 Fig. 4 - Cedric Price,
Serre (2), Parc de La
Villette, Paris, France,
1988-1990. Sketch of
interior and crossed
out sketch of interior
[detail]. Coloured
pencil, ink, and white
paint over electro-
static print on heavy
yellow paper 29.7
× 21.1 cm (sheet).
DR2004:0558:002. ©
Cedric Price fonds/
Canadian Centre
for Architecture,
Montréal.

Another stream of late twentieth century architectural

speculation suggested, however, an alternative read-
Architecture drew
ing of the greenhouse. It promoted a rigid distinction upon greenery and
between indoor and outdoor climates, conceiving
the former as the replica of another, ideal, constant
natural
climate. Architecture drew upon greenery and natural processes in the
processes in the search for models that would provide
search for models
insights into a symbiotic relation with the surround-
ing environment, human and non-human organisms. that would provide
The evolution of a typological model could therefore insights into
be traced in the emergence of the glazed, sealed, and
regulated dome. Drawing upon “previous concepts of a symbiotic
nature’s preservation and conservation as separated relation with the
from the urban milieu [it] gave rise to a novel natu-
ralism of artificial ecology, where the functions of op-
surrounding
erations of nature were copied as precise analogues, environment,
in manmade systems” (Kallipoliti, 2010: 19). This
understanding of designed ecologies pointed to an ar-
human and non-
chitecture of enclosed vegetated environments, in the human organisms.
Stamatina Kousidi 109
 spirit of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome Montréal
Biosphere (1967), influencing visionary yet unsuc-
cessful projects such as Mark Nelson’s Biosphere 2 in
Arizona (1987), which emerged as disconnected from
an experiential perspective about human well-being.
From the mid-1970s onwards, as concerns over the
climate, air, and environmental quality began to
grow stronger, “research increasingly focused on
human influences on global warming” (Hill, 2012:
In the context 217), deploying terms such as the greenhouse effect:
of architecture, the phenomenon that describes the process by which
the agricultural greenhouse gas molecules and clouds, in a similar
way to the glass greenhouse envelope, absorb and
greenhouse re-emit the radiation from the sun, hence causing the
model became Earth’s surface temperature to increase. In the context
of architecture, the agricultural greenhouse model be-
particularly came particularly relevant with a growing climate cri-
relevant with a sis, nurturing the fantasy of the air-tight envelope and
the regulated interior. In her seminal book Thermal
growing climate Delight in Architecture, Lisa Heschong describes a fu-
crisis, nurturing ture-oriented scenario in which regulated spaces per-
the fantasy of the petually succeed one another across different scales
and contexts: “the building will need no windows or
air-tight envelope doors or individual heating plants,” she anticipates, as
and the regulated “the entire landscape will be maintained at the same
comfortable temperature” (Heschong, 1979: 20). As
interior. design practices would gradually distance themselves
from passive means of climate control, in favor of
mechanical air-conditioning systems, architecture’s
physical properties would come to the fore, following
the conceptualization of the built space as a “space of
air” (Stalder, 2010: 95) informed by the overlapping
flows of tangible and intangible elements.

Design and/of the biosphere

The incorporation of greenery in building has as-
sumed numerous different meanings over the last
decades, testifying to the fact that “green additions
have taken on various forms that continue to extend
perceptions of the term” (Dean, 2011: 67). The binary
opposition between the natural and the artificial
is increasingly called into question, conceiving of
plants, flowers, and biomes as central elements of
new design scenaria for inhabiting the city. From
winter gardens to indoor green atria, from new
construction to transformation projects, and from

110 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

 Fig. 5 - Olafur Elias-
son and Günther
Vogt, The mediated
motion, 2001. Water,
wood, compressed
soil, fog machine,
metal, plastic sheet,
duckweed (Lem-
na minor), and
shiitake mushrooms
(Lentinula edodes).
Installation view:
Kunsthaus Bregenz,
Austria, 2001. Photo:
Markus Tretter. The
artist; neugerriem-
schneider, Berlin;
Tanya Bonakdar
Gallery, New York /
Los Angeles © 2001
Olafur Eliasson.

Stamatina Kousidi 111

Fig. 6 - Lacaton & hybrid-use to urban farming buildings, recent design
Vassal Architectes
Karlsaue pavilion
practices point to the fact that “green does not stop
for Documenta 12, at a building’s surface: it also penetrates the interi-
Kassel, 2006. Exterior
or, to give the impression of living everywhere with
view. Photo: © Frank
Schulenburg – Wiki- nature” (Zardini, Borasi, 2012: 19).
media Commons. The contemporary adaptation of the greenhouse mod-
el to include spaces fit for human activities is growing-
ly rooted in visions for social reform, in exploration
of the ability of greenery to influence health-inducing,
restorative spaces, promoting psychological, mental,
and physical well-being. The broad-ranging fascina-
tion with greenery as a healer and as a remedy in con-
temporary societies becomes particularly relevant to
the biophilia hypothesis (Wilson, 1984), as introduced
by Edward O. Wilson, to the theme of “love of life and
the living world,” as its derivation from Greek would
propose. The building structure emerges as a hybrid
of architectural and landscape features targeted at
enhancing the thermal comfort and air quality of
the interior, whilst improving the spatial experience.
Placing emphasis on architecture’s interior, such a

112 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

hypothesis underlines the need to consider along with
the tangible, the intangible, perceptual, and physio-
Rather than
logical aspects of space, which engage with issues of a mediated
health and human well-being. relationship
By distinguishing an inner space from its environ-
mental surroundings and rendering it inhabitable,
between
greenhouses make explicit the design of air, the con- architecture and
trol of temperature, condensation, and humidity. The
nature, such a
human body is understood, in this context, as a living
organism rather than as a measurement and scale ref- condition entails a
erence, calling for a re-evaluation of the body-space holistic approach to
relationship. As a result, the body emerges as an in-
herent design factor that “signifies and measures the
design.
air: space, or better the environment, is built around
it,” giving rise to a field in which “space, technology,
and society converge to design worlds altered by the
climates they inhabit and by the innovations avail-
able” (Marini, 2017: 50). The vegetated, continuous
and regulated interior spaces give rise to a condition
of cohabitation in which the energies of the human
body and the built artifact “converge to define a style
based on unity that participates in an overall design”
(ibid.). Rather than a mediated relationship between
architecture and nature, such a condition entails a
holistic approach to design, conceiving of human and
non-human organisms as parts of an interdependent
system.
This approach brings to the fore the competing logics
inherent in the design for sustainability with regard
to addressing the issue of health at both the individ- Approaching
ual and the planetary scale. It therefore invites us “environmental
to reflect upon an architectural stance which does
not merely aspire “to mitigate a building’s impact on
design as
natural systems” but seeks instead “at least rhetor- atmospheric,”
ically, to become a part of those systems” (Barber, Sloterdijk
Putalik, 2018: 236). It puts forward an important point
for speculation as to whether natural elements and “updates the
resources can serve not merely as performative-func- concept of the
tional components of building but as catalysts to con-
ceive of new relationships between architecture and
environment into
the biosphere. It invites us to examine the potential that of
of nature as a conceptual tool to shift contemporary a sensorium, a
design discourses towards the definition of more
inclusive environments in respect of human and
sphere that is
non-human organisms. shared”.
Stamatina Kousidi 113
 Towards new forms of togetherness
The increasing The concept of the glasshouse resonates with con-
union of art temporary theories of atmospheres which promote
and nature in the understanding of the “environment as a shared
climate” with reference to the entangled relationship
the “continuous between humans, plants, and the environment. It
sensorium” holds, for instance, a central role in philosopher Peter
Sloterdijk’s discourse on spheres, according to the
of regulated hypothesis that “it was the exercise of granting plants
climates may hospitality that first created the conditions under
enable a different which it became possible to formulate a concept of
environment” (Sloterdijk 2005: 945). Approaching
understanding “environmental design as atmospheric,” Sloterdijk
of nature in the “updates the concept of the environment into that of
a sensorium, a sphere that is shared” (Blackman, Har-
context of bord, 2010: 313), suggesting a new form of together-
design, one which ness that underlines the interconnected state of being
in the biosphere. Such a state reveals, in particular,
surpasses the Sloterdijk’s “concern with examples of intimacy and
dichotomy between interiority,” varying from “primitive interhuman and
“naturalization” interspecies notions of intimacy” such as biophilic
connections to “increasingly large-scale and complex
and modifications of interiority” such as the control of
“symbolization.” indoor climate (Lee, Wakefield-Rann, 2018: 159).
Sloterdijk focuses a critical attention on the “climati-
zation of the inhabited space” which entails “envis-
aging the anthropogenic climate in all its thematic
intrusiveness” following different degrees of environ-
mental appropriation (Sloterdijk, 2016: 461) that ring
all the more familiar today as societies are confronted
with the fragility of nature. For him, the greenhouse
concept has nurtured a representation of nature
as “non-external, as a housemate in the republic of
beings,” in opposition to the theories that regarded
the former “an outside force” (ibid.: 458-459). The
increasing union of art and nature in the “continu-
ous sensorium” of regulated climates may enable a
different understanding of nature in the context of
design, one which surpasses the dichotomy between
“naturalization” and “symbolization” (Latour, 2006:
107) and points to new relations between human and
non-human organisms.
To understand the interrelation between human
bodies, natural objects, and environments, it means
placing it in the growing explorations into the theme
of atmosphere as an additional notion of the aesthetic

114 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

discourse. For Gernot Böhme, “the new resulting aes-
thetics [from the standpoint of ecology] is concerned
with the relation between environmental qualities
and human states” (Böhme, 1993: 114), with percep-
tion, affect, and mutual participation. Atmospheres,
defined as the intermediate space which renders this
relation possible, constitute the backdrop for this aes-
thetic experience, defined through “presence of per-
sons, objects and environments” (Böhme, 1993: 126).
They represent “the common reality of the perceiver
and the perceived [to the extent that] in sensing the
atmosphere s/he is bodily present in a certain way”
(Böhme, 1993: 121). They align with a definition of
“beauty not [as] a predicate, but [as] the characteristic
of a co-presence; a shared reality of subject and ob-
ject” (Böhme, 1995: 105). In this context, architectural
atmospheres suggest an aesthetic experience which
goes beyond visual perception in order to engage all
aspects of the sensorial spectrum: they are interpreted
not merely as projections but as a realm which touch-
es us “as real, as part of our environment” (Mora-
vánszky, 2010: 61). To grapple with
The notion of inhabiting spheres of different environ-
mental qualities, in a state of co-presence, coevolu-
the issue of ecology
tion, co-breathing between human and non-human in architectural
organisms, suggests the construction of “an environ-
design, what is of
ment of relationality and interrelational movements”
(Bruno, 2022: 286) and implies new ecology defini- importance is
tions. It testifies to the argument that to grapple with our mediated
the issue of ecology in architectural design, what is of
importance is our mediated relationship to natural
relationship to
objects rather than their understanding as perfor- natural
mative apparatuses in support of our increasingly objects rather
regulated environments (Kousidi, Daglio, 2023). Con-
temporary design practices continue to draw upon the
than their
glazed structure for the cultivation, preservation and understanding as
display of tender flowers, plants or biomes, conceiv- performative
ing of built objects as interfaces between the natural
and the man-made environments. The introductory
apparatuses in
affirmation by Lacaton & Vassal is therefore not for- support of our
eign to recent design experimentations which draw increasingly
upon the greenhouse model in search of an improved
relationship between building and program, nature
regulated
and artifice (Wilkinson, 2021). environments.
Stamatina Kousidi 115
 Conclusions
In Olafur Eliasson’s site-specific installation The
mediated motion (2001), developed in collaboration
with landscape architect Günther Vogt, the interior
spaces of Kunsthaus Bregenz were transformed into
environments of accentuated landscape features (Fig.
5). Natural materials, from duckweed to rough wood,
filled the spaces of the porous glass-clad building en-
velope, designed by Peter Zumthor 1997 in allusion to
Initially re- a contemporary interpretation of the greenhouse (Fig.
interpreted 6). The installation put forward and problematized
different degrees of cross-contamination between
as a place for natural and anthropized environments perceived
contemplation through the experience of movement. It aimed at
and retreat from the mediation of “spaces as a garden-like structure”
where each floor and the intermediate spaces be-
the industrialized tween them presented differentiated environments,
city, the greenhouse in which visitors could wander, “areas in which
motion [was] essential” (Eliasson, 2001: 11). Situated
emerges today as a in a building of which the weather forms part, the
fertile symbolic and installation highlighted the need to reimagine the
educational notion dialectical relation between culture and nature, in a
contemporary context that sees many diverse degrees
for architecture. of entanglement of the natural with the built, the
infrastructural and the technological.
The staged environment, defined in this case as
neither internal nor external, as neither artificial nor
pertaining to the biosphere, highlights a definition
of the natural “as the site and locus of impetus and
force, the ground of a malleable materiality, whose
plasticity and openness account for the rich variabil-
ity of cultural life, and the various subversions of
cultural life that continue to enrich it” (Grosz, 2001:
97). As philosopher Elisabeth Grosz has suggested, the
“interaction, arrangement, and regulation of [human
and non-human] bodies” is central to establishing “the
domains of both the architectural and the cultural”
and points to the surpassing and reordering of the
nature-culture dichotomy (Grosz, 2001: 99). Under the
current demands for sustainability, design is called
upon to envision new interrelations between nature
and artifice, following “the proposition that the con-
cepts of nature and architecture are not separable but
interlaced inextricably” (Ursprung, 2007: 13). In this
framework, the concept of the greenhouse underlines
the urgency of safeguarding natural organisms and

116 On Greenhouses and the Making of Atmospheres

environments, enabling us to reimagine architecture
as part and expression of nature, as something that
emerges from within the latter rather than opposing
it. Initially re-interpreted as a place for contempla-
tion and retreat from the industrialized city, the
greenhouse emerges today as a fertile symbolic and
educational notion for architecture. It re-affirms the
need for new means of aesthetic expression mediat-
ed through the design project, where the natural is
linked, on the one hand, with the animation of culture
and its emblems and points, on the other, to a rethink-
ing of the agency of architecture.

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