Group Project Breathing Architecture

To expand the territory of design research and critical engagement within the architecture design studio and curriculum at large, the studio and material presented here is premised on investigating the interrelationships of humans, our environment and data. Within the work, systems thinking and their respective spatial requirements are enhanced in the name of infrastructure — they are acting as instigators of productive systems and form-making.

Our chosen system is an environmental remediation infrastructure that addresses urban air quality and pollution. The explicit challenge was to investigate processes that generate form(s) capable of responsiveness, natural and otherwise, and one(s) that disassociate from type or style in favor of outcomes. Ultimately this procedure would render the need for assessment based criteria beyond the form(s) themselves. In this regard, we posit form(s) that resembles less the pursuit of assemblage, but ones that offer a collective intelligence of parts. The parts produce considerations of form both partial and at times, whole. Fundamental to this effort is the introduction of ecological thought and how it may be introduced into design and environmental thinking.