Christian Pecher
About
Christian Pecher is a transdisciplinary designer from Germany, dedicated to spatial experimentation working on the intersection of ecology, new technologies, interactivity and public engagement.
Originally trained as a creative technologist and interaction designer, he was working in the Advanced Experience Design Studio of Mercedes-Benz in Stuttgart for several years, co-creating futuristic interaction and mobility concepts like the smart Vision EQ fortwo or the Mercedes-Benz Concept EQ.
Statement
Despite his rather digital background, Christian’s interests and projects always draw him into the world of the analogue, to hands-on work with materials, the exploration of nature and space.
His work aims to revive this original connection to the physical, to focus on the experience associated with and yet integrates new technologies and media. Moreover, his projects are very much characterised by a narrative and participatory element, encourage experimentation and principles of Speculative Design.
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The duet of theMEADOW and theGIANTS truly embodies this approach and constitutes two vivid spatial compositions, that speculate new concepts of urban design, public engagement, and cultivation of materials to educate and create awareness about more sustainable, flexible, and mindful approaches to building and living.
These spaces focus on the communal interaction with the growing plant, its yield, workmanship, and the related experience. The audience is able to witness its evolution, and is involved in the development and design through various points of contact.
To achieve this, the usual design and construction process is restructured and only framework conditions are set, in which the interaction between humans, plants and the environment can take place. At the outset only the available space is defined, prepared and the seeds of the respective plants are placed in previously calculated patterns. The site is then left to the public, whereby the visitor wittingly and unwittingly influences its development in form and function over the seasons and years.
Through the individual perception of mainly visual changes, one’s actions, or those of others, are reflected and encourage proactive participation in design and usage.
Following this approach, an accesible urban reed bed in the centre of London (theMEADOW), and a cluster of growing bamboo structures in the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew (theGIANTS), are speculated to communicate the potentials of grass based materials, and the use of crop plants in an urban context.
theMEADOW
TheMEADOW is a public space and urban reed farm in East London, that represents concepts of dynamic spatial design and reflects the interplay of city and nature.
To increase awareness of reed as a sustainable and locally occurring material, the Apex Junction of Old Street is redesigned and a 2565m2 public and accessible reed-bed, a framework and space for recreation, meeting, and knowledge created.
The plants, which are placed only once initially, create a botanically dynamic spatial sculpture that visualises and documents pedestrian traffic and interactions of its visitors over the seasons. An annually recurring process, that is comprehensible and enables the local audience to interfere and shape the space due to imagination, needs and time.
The communal harvested yield of each year is also used to produce modular seat and construction elements, sourcing and expanding its own infrastructure.
Medium: Common Reed (Phragmites australis), Reclaimed Bricks
Size: 2565 m2
function / details
Medium: Common Reed (Phragmites australis), Reclaimed Bricks
Size: 2565 m2
a botanical heat-map
Since the specific development of these places has a very strong speculative element and is highly dependent on its changing external influences and time, computational and parametric design methods are used by the means of Grasshopper3D.
Medium: Grasshopper 3D & Shapediver
Size: https://app.shapediver.com/u/chrehcep
stories / experience
Two fictional stories that give an insight into the overall experience and dynamics of the space
making / research
theGIANTS
TheGIANTS is a proposal for three living and spatial bamboo structures, situated in the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, representing a testing ground for architectural research, education and material interaction.
To promote and research this sustainable, rapidly growing, and in western latitudes still very underestimated construction material, an area in the outskirts of the Garden is utilised to host three Guadua Bamboo colonies.
By means of a dynamic rope system, attached to emerging shoots, the growing culms are shaped into spatial self supporting structures, organically formed by the interactions of its visitors, or according to calculations of professionals.
Left in place or harvested as a whole, every other year sculpture-like pavilions are created that embody the information of its surrounding and time.
Medium: Guadua Bamboo (Guadua Angustifolia), Rope, Metal
Size: 1052 m2
function
Pictures of the physical and digital process.
Medium: Guadua Bamboo (Guadua Angustifolia), Rope, Metal
Size: 1052 m2
a natural 3D-printer
Since the specific development of these places has a very strong speculative element and is highly dependent on its changing external influences and time, computational and parametric design methods are used by the means of Grasshopper3D.
Medium: Grasshopper 3D & Shapediver
Size: https://app.shapediver.com/u/chrehcep
experience
Two fictional stories that give an insight into the overall experience and dynamics of the space
making
Pictures of the physical and digital process.
Medium: Guadua Bamboo (Guadua Angustifolia), Rope, Metal
Size: 1052 m2
that's it
Thank you, and please follow or contact me for further information and updates on the continuing project.