Bruther, Laurent Stalder

First issue of the critical journal published by Cosa Mentale, in which the words of the architecture practice Bruther and of Laurent Stalder, professor of architecture history at ETH, confront each other around the theme of “hypercomfort.”
Keeping the body in its comfort zone is the secret watchword of our daily environment. As soon as a door is crossed, as soon as an interior is roamed, the environment must be controlled, air conditioned, sanitized. Everything is done to make us feelling like we even breath anymore, even sweat anymore, physical efforts are reduced, our security is guaranteed. Our body has cut off itself from climatic, acoustic, light and security variations, even if these are ultimately restricted in our latitudes. This invisible normalization is not merely an infra-spatial issue. From comfort to conformism, even conformation, there is only one step. This process is already insidiously changing some of our behaviors. Who hasn't surprised themselves to want a sweater when entering a shopping center, even in the middle of August? Sensory reactions return to the very place where we try to numb them.
How will we live together? Do we have to get out of our comfort zone? Should we share it? Maybe widen it? And what does this comfort deny us? Space, resources, ourselves? Hypercomfort, facing us with humour and seriousness to the paradoxes of regulation. By staging in a dramatic and euphoric way the climatic contrasts, the thresholds, the thermal chain reactions (hot, cold, wet, dry) but also the energy debauchery and technical inflation that hide behind our comfort zones, Hypercomfort reminds us of the price we pay for the fragmentation of contemporary spaces.