RS4 - Anemoi

Of Men, of Gods, of Earth – since the epic poems of Homer and Hesiod in the eighth century BCE, Grecian Anemoi (winds) have occupied realms of both material and immaterial being. From Plato (fourth century BCE) to Aristotle and Theophrastus (third century BCE), Vitruvius (second century BCE), and Pliny the Elder (first century BCE), entire worlds have been constructed and deconstructed by winds so well-defined that they were drawn into literature, art, and architecture as forces, entities, and spaces. Today, Oi Anemoi are giving form and force to the next frontier of resource extraction— transforming property, livelihoods, and aesthetics in ways that alter relations with terrain, strata, and volume.

In cooperation with the European Green Deal, the European Union (EU) formally adopted the European Climate Law in 2021; which legally binds EU Institutions and Member States to a target of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050. To meet this target, each state must take quick and significant strides towards harnessing its own renewable energy. For Greece, success in this endeavour relies on the nation’s abundance of sun and wind—both of which require vast amounts of terrain and stable relations with heat to produce and maintain energy. Unlike fossil fuels, wind and solar resources are dynamic, evolving, and relational; any pathway towards net zero emissions requires us to co-design with the atmosphere. In its first year, RS4 has worked closely with communities in northern Euboea, to propose alternative ways of thinking and designing architectures and environments as volumetric, evolving climate ecologies.