The Symbiotic Field in Ten Behaviors

This chapter identifies ten behaviors, or operative methods, adopted by contemporary designers confronted with problems of spatial reform in regions of the contemporary continuum. The analysis proceeds through the compared anatomy of a set of case studies, tackling spatial problems in a diversity of scales and contexts. The cases include a majority of implemented projects, but also speculative visions, figurative compositions, and performances to explore the tangible and intangible layers of the contemporary continuum. By arraying operative approaches spanning from metabolist to geophilosophical, the ten behaviors conjure up a ‘symbiotic field’ layering the ecological, societal, psychic, aesthetic, cultural, semiotic, geographic, and mythological: built macro-ecologies of geographic scale; artificial micro-ecologies implanted into the metropolitan platform; ecological installations raising awareness through aesthetic performances; cybernetic scenarios preconizing the control of natural/anthropic metabolism; atmospheric assemblages dealing with the cultural and the transient; experiments of psychic and sensorial manipulation of the landscape; explorations of the transculturation process in a utilitarian modernity versus symbiotic culture dialectic; formation of alternative spaces in the folds of the language; geopolitical plans representing the geography of power; geophilosophical excavations aiming at reimplanting a mythology into the landscape. Furthermore, the chapter analyzes the radical utopias that constitute the recurrent reference for many of today’s visions of the contemporary continuum. The text also argues on how the utopian visions of the 60s and 70s have unawares become today’s quotidian living contexts.