Lexicon

Abject
Accretion
Actant
Aeration
Aerobic
Algae-boosted
Animal
Anthropomorphism
Anti-Continuous Construction
Apocalypse
Aquaculture
Aquanaut
Ark
Artificial Intelligence
Autopoiesis
Assemblages
Asymmetry
Atrophy
Attraction
Autarchy
Automata
Automation
Autosymbiosis
Bambassador
Bathyscaphe
Bioconurbation
Biomedia
Bionics
Biosphere
Biotechnique
By-product
Capacity
Actant
Coisolation
Composting
Conservative Surgery
Consumer Envelope
Consumption
Continuous Construction
Conurbation
Correalism
Cultural_Memory
Cybernetics
Cybertecture
Cyborg
Dispositif
Diving Saucer
Dross
Earthship
Ecocatastrophe
Effluvium
Egosphere
End-use
Entanglement
Eutopia
Feedback
Foam
Folk
Gadget
Garbage House
Green Cyborg
Heuristic
Hoard
Holism
Homogenization of Desire
Hostile
Human Affect
Hybridized Folk
Hydroponic
Hyper-Materialism
Information Economy
Inner Space
Interama
Intra-Uterine
Maque
Megalopolis
Min-use
Mobility
Monorail
Multi-Hinge
Non-Design
Oceanaut
Oppositional Consciousness
Organic
Ouroboros
Panarchy
Parasite
Perceived Continuation
Permanence
Place
Prototype
Post-Animal
Reclamation
RI: Data Farms
RI: Garbage and Animals
RI:Shipbreaking
RI: Toxic Sublime
Sampling
Scale
Sensing Structure
Simulacrum
Simulation
Soft Energy
Spaceship Earth
Submersible
Superwindow
Symbiosis
Synthetic Environment
Technocratic
Technological Heredity
Technological Sublime
Telechirics
The Sublime
Thermal Panel
Actant
Thing-Power
Thinking Machines
Tool
Toxic Withdrawal
Turbulence
UV-Transparent Film
Vibrant Matter
Waste
Work

Ouroboros

Ouroboros (n.) The “ouroboros” or “uroboros”, from the Greek “οὐροβόρος ὄφις”, is an ancient symbol depicting a serpent or dragon eating its own tail and faeces.1 The ouroboros often symbolizes self-reflexivity or cyclicality. In 1976, a group of architectural students at the University of Minnesota followed the trend of ecological design by building their own self-sustaining ecological house. They named it “Ouroboros”. Like its contemporaries, Ouroboros project was trying to fit an artificial ecological cycle into a house. Similarly example, Biosphere 2, was another larger scale of Ouroboros project, and with a much more complicated ecology system. However, ouroboros was a direct interpretation of what ecological architecture came to be from 1970s to 1990s: a way of ecologically architectural designing which fed on its own ideas, and gradually separated itself from the rest of the architectural community. Peder Anker said, “Its (ecological design) follower's sense of self-sufficiency resulted in a sect-design for the believers whose recycling of resources and ideas led to a lack of interest in an outside world simply described as ‘industrial’ and thus not worth listening to.”2 Although “ouroboros designs” (designs similar to ouroboros in general) were of significant importance for assimilation of architecture, ecology and cybernetics, the narrow focus on the circulation of energy and efficiency of buildings came at the expense of wider social and cultural values. Perhaps it is the time to break out the intellectual capsule.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ouroboros
2. L Peder Anker, “The Closed World of Ecological Architecture.” The Journal of Architecture, Vol.10, No.5 (2005), 544.