Today, economic and ecological forces have finally collided and forced humankind to reassess its relationship to each. For architecture, this means facing its nemesis: the weather, with its attendant forces of instability and unpredictability. The role of architecture has always been to demarcate an area away from these forces, in which humankind can regulate its own needs. Now, the worldwide sustainability movement calls for an architecture that does not resist but incorporates or accommodates atmospheric turbulence. Arium examines the curious relationship between weather and architecture, addressing instances where architecture has both brilliantly collaborated with and foolishly failed to anticipate weather patterns such as wind tunnels and heat exposure, and demonstrating that this relationship need not always be antagonistic. Begun as a research project under the direction of architect J rgen Mayer H. from Berlin and urban designer Neeraj Bhatia from Toronto, Arium offers a revelatory in-depth look at this urgent topic through critical examinations by George Baird, Rodolphe el-Khoury, Robert Levit, Mason White, Henry Urbach, Filiz Klassen, Marc Kushner and Dirk Hebel.

Text by: George Baird, Chad Dembski, Robert Levit, Henry Urbach, Mason White
Contributions by: Eric Bury