”There is no architecture without action,
Bernard Tschumi, 1996
no architecture without events,
no architecture without program.
By extension, there is no architecture without violence.
Unit 1 set out to question technology and its implication on architectural space and the body. In our COVID19, BLM, and Climate Emergency context, we ask: What is our body’s relationship with machines?
Under the agenda of ANTHROPOMORPHIC MACHINES, the studio will run two parallel design briefs: Swarm Responsive Tensegrity and Seclusion & Comfort. Students are asked to choose one of the briefs to work with during the two-weeks Workshop. Both briefs explore the body or bodies relationship with technology. Swarm Responsive Tensegrity exerts a direct interaction between the body and the machine through computer visioning. Seclusion & Comfort attempts to abstract and isolate the body into a set of physical and virtual relationships that we can describe as ‘comfort’ – can simple design criteria such as ‘comfort’ be quantified?
The design briefs are conducted through a shared design methodology – designing through making and prototyping. Fabrication and prototyping in physical and virtual environments enable the designer and the body to test and experience the effect. Here, our approach is performance-based – performance not just in the functional sense but performance in the very realm of the body and its interaction with space and objects. The process, in turn, informed the design through developing incrementally tacit knowledge. Each brief will be participated by six students.