Breathe Architects - Harbourfront Centre Exhibition (2009)
Big Ideas...Small Footprints


If we can’t afford it, why be anxious to be with less central heating or air
conditioning? We can relax. Remember the stories from our grandparents telling
us how their parents kept their rooms, their food and themselves warm? Their
insight and imagination is inspirational for us today. It helped to create this exhibit.
Their approach was about comfort and beauty at the same time. Tea cozies, foot
stoves, slippers, smoking jackets, etc, were all intended as mediations to achieve
a warmer personal micro-climate. We now understand it as a sophisticated way to
manage limited available energy. The intent of the exhibit is the same, but in an
abstracted way. Recycled materials such as newspapers and textiles are layered
into tapestries to take away the chill from our rooms in winter, and to be dismantled
and rolled up in spring. A further integrated layer of a high-tech material can
reflect our own body heat back to us.
Old news can blanket us from the chill.

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