syntopia 1—soma | body

about this contribution

Syntopia 1—Soma | Body is an exploration of the formation of space by the human body. Using a wearable augmented reality (AR) framework, a filament-based structure is spun by hand, gradually enveloping its maker (Bonavia, Farmer et al. 2023, Avram 2014). Syntopia 1 is part of a collection of architectural prototypes investigating the notion of syntopy, a term coined in biology by Luis René Rivas in 1964. The term is a combination of the Greek words syn* meaning together / with and *topos meaning place (Rivas 1964). To develop Syntopia thus means to create designs sourced from and situated within a specific site—a topos (Matters of Activity). Underlying the project is also a constructive critique of the current-day use of industrial robotics in architecture, which entails a high use of material and energy resources. The project proposes a return to human handcraft through the minimal application of electronic technical devices required for data streaming (Mitterberger 2022, Bonavia, Farmer et al. 2023). This reduction of machines favors a bodily sensing of matter’s own inner activity, thus fostering the interlacing of Body—Matter—Machine (Haraway 1996, Pallasmaa 2009, Ingold 2010).

Throughout the process of creating the installation, the body was present in physical and digital space (Skrzypczak 2021). Traces of the interaction between craftsperson, material, and structure were tracked with an augmented reality (AR) framework, allowing for both observing and informing the actions of the maker (Bonavia, Farmer et al. 2023). The framework envisages a feedback loop between all entities, therefore exploring a co-creation process with machines, considering cyber-physical systems in architecture as inherently embedded systems.

Syntopia 1 has been installed in the Veterinary Anatomy Theater (Tieranatomische Theater, TA T) in Berlin, where horses were dissected for medical purposes. The horses or rather their corpses were transported through a circular elevator to the auditorium—now changed into a light source above the filament-based structure. This shifts the focus onto the source of light, reminiscent of the elevator as a space of bodily movement between realms of knowledge production. The prototype was part of the exhibition DAOULA I sheen, which featured silk-production in West Africa (Tieranatomisches Theater 2022). The cocoon can be seen as a symbol of death and rebirth in a different form that is visually translated as moving into the light. In this context, the structure echoes with the theme of bodily transformation: horses die and are passively transformed into objects of scientific study, silkworms actively transform in their cocoons from one developmental stage to another. Soma (from the Greek, “body”) thus becomes an entity of passive or active transformation (Ovid 2004).

The images pose the question of human agency, presence, and absence of bodies (The Warburg Institute 2025, Bredekamp 2015, Mitchell 2015). This visual essay unfolds in three layers. First, an analogue image captured in the TA T reveals how matter, space, observer, and body converge in the making of the structure. Second, layers exposing movement, material, and spatial syntax from the digital model are laid out, showing the variety and depth of the data gathered. Finally, embedded knowledge circles map tacit and explicit knowledge across disciplines and perspectives involved in Syntopia 1—Soma | Body.
For further information about this research project, see the article “Minimal Machines: Augmented Reality for Filament Construction of Partially Ordered Systems in Architecture.”