ECOLOGICAL DESIGN OF THE INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDIO RAAAF: THE SPACE OF OFFICE, CITY AND MEMORYAS LANDSCAPES OF AFFORDANCES

In 2006 Dutch architect Ronald Rietveld and his brother Erik Rietveld founded the interdisciplinary studio Rietveld Architecture-Art-Affordances (RAAAF). Working at the intersection of visual arts, philosophy and architecture, the group draws on ecological, environmental approaches in psychology and cognitive science. Particularly important for RAAAF are the ecological theory of perception by the American psychologist J. Gibson and enactivism, proclaimed by researchers F. Varela, E. Thompson andE. Roche as an alternative to classical cognitive science. In this paper we will demonstrate how, in response to environmental impulses in psychology and cognitive science, RAAAF has consistently developed its own ecological and environment-based approach, demonstrating the heuristic potential of enactivism, its predecessors and complementary theories in the field of art and design. The work examines three projects of the RAAAF group (“The End of Sitting”, “Vacant NL”, “Bunker 599”), in which the architects offer an alternative to bodily norms, rehabilitate the “emptiness” and gaps of urban space, and create a dynamic space of memory. The concept of “landscape of affordances” they proposed is important for RAAAF, thanks to which, while focusing on intensifying the connectivity of the body and the environment, the soft regulation of RAAAF through micro-movements paves the way to other scenarios of everyday life.