Leaf of Kentia palm in its elastic-static behavior. Photo: Francesca Berni

‘In the beginning, everything was alive. […] Stones could think, and God was everywhere’. Paul Auster, Report from the Interior

Behaviour rather than form: nature as a worldview. Nature as technique, posture, and condition. A perpetual ongoing construction, nature is meant as an ‘artifice’ appearing in the encounter between thought and the world: both in the project and the leaf, a minimal resistant force and a maximum space potential cohabit in a tensional condition. Architecture is a continuous experience of the world.

The leaf moves the focus from the object to our glance. Continuously mingling with the environment, the architectural project acts with the space. It is a necessary condition. The leaf we observe expresses structural and aesthetic behaviour.

Architecture knowledge is a physical experience, non-stop learning from reality. Thinking is expressed by the practice of architecture over time through tangible shapes and environments.

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Francesca Berni is a PhD architect based in Milan. In 2021 she was the Enel Italian Fellow in Architecture and Landscape at the American Academy in Rome. With installations, texts, and drawings, her design research is about the relationship between landscape and architectural projects.

This object is part of the TACK Exhibition “Unausgesprochenes Wissen / Unspoken Knowledge / Le (savoir) non-dit”, in the section “Embodiment and Experience”.