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Master of Architecture II Spring 2020

GRADUATE DESIGN RESEARCH STUDIO II
Assistant Professor Lydia Kallipoliti (coordinator) with Nora Akawi, Pamela Cabrera, Hayley Eber, Ziad Jamaleddine, Lauren Kogod, Eduardo Rega, Austin Wade Smith, and Ife Vanable

MICROCOSMS AND SCHISMS; how we live together
This studio operated as a collective, collaborative research platform for designing Microcosm and Schisms, a project for the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale to be installed at the Arsenal Pavilion under the theme of “Living together in Cities.” 

The studio approached the COVID-19 crisis as an opportunity to question our habits, protocols and everyday life; in terms of the Biennale exhibition, this means questioning at heart new forms of cultural production and making that are generated by the conditions within which we operate. In many ways, the question that curator Hashim Sarkis posed ‘how we live together’ has never been more poignant and relevant. Our project topic ‘microcosms and schisms’ is situated at the heart of Sarkis’ question.  

The proposed installation presents critical readings of New York interiorities—a constellation of controlled microcosms—and the transgressions and breaches that characterize them: the facade and the politics of the envelope, the public park as a space of manufactured wilderness and urban collectivity, spaces of climatic control and streams of waste, and the city’s sites of sanctuary and transnational solidarity.

Within each microcosm, students worked either in collaboration for a united project per microcosm, or individually with a common spine. In the end, each microcosm group was asked to propose a display platform for Venice. Platform options included a website, a virtual reality space, an online campaign, a series of drawings, a narrative of drawings with an online presence, a game, a manual, a survival kit, any combination of thereof; or something different. 

Deep Segregation
Students: Sally Chen, Nienying Lin | Faculty: Ife Vanable

Parks and Recreation
Students: Giedre Darskute, Jamie Lindsey, Roni Schanin | Faculty: Lauren Kogod, Hayley Eber 

Microclimates
Students: Doosung Shin, Qicheng Wu | Faculty and Critics: Lydia Kallipoliti, Austin Wade Smith,
Pamela Cabrera

Sanctuary Spaces
Students: Yingxiao Chen, Austin McInnis | Faculty and Critics: Nora Akawi, Eduardo Rega,
Ziad Jamaleddine

A project slideshow is available here. 

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