THE COOPER UNION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE AND ART, DESIGN II Fall 2012

Pablo Lorenzo-Eiroa (Head Professor and Coordinator-Associate Professor adj.) Matt Roman (instructor), Katerina Kourkoula (instructor), Will Shapiro (instructor)

 

 

Cultural context
Many contemporary architecture strategies, reacting to the architecture of previous decades, have abandoned —consciously or not—the engagement with spatial structures that organize space in favor of superfluous formal differentiation. It seems that this movement in contemporary architecture is due to a growing fascination with incorporating the latest technologically-driven computer algorithm into the design process, while disregarding any critical ideological position relative to an architectural cultural project.

Postwar post-structuralist theories emerged as a reactionary force against the structuralism of modern ideologies. But since the 1970s, post-structuralism has slowly broken away from the philosophical premise that initiated deconstruction in the first place: to develop a full decomposition of any assumed disciplinary fundamentals. Challenging fundamentals meant first recognizing disciplinary canons. Disciplinary canons, such as the modern free plan, in turn would be displaced by revolutionary attempts that would then institutionalize new canons, affecting the core of the discipline and the evolution of its cultural history. But rather than focusing on syntactical organizational problems while investigating alternative displacements of these fundamentals, post-structuralist tendencies lately have been hiding or attempting to ignore deep conceptual structures in favor of superficial perceptual structures. Thus what is at stake is not to favor underlying relational logics against the perceptual, but to articulate and critique different levels of information. In this regards, the studio critically related structure to bodily affection.

Theoretical Background
Design II studio searched for strategies to redefine post-structuralism as a continuity of structuralism, studying alternative critiques between typology and topology. These strategies were studied first through typological conceptual classification, a question identified with types and typology; and second through topology considered in terms of relative differentiation. These concepts are introduced by understanding topology as a displacement of categorical signification. Topology as relative displacement was then understood as a critique of the predetermination inscribed in the classification of order. But the relative was also re-qualified, giving a new direction to its role, by understanding it not as a means in itself but as a way to overcome predetermination and as a critique of the point of departure, establishing then the beginning of a new order.
 

Design II Students: Lucas Chao, Aimilios Davlantis Lo, Akash Godbole, Aelitta Gore, Pedro Galindo Landeira, Gabriela Gutierrez, Daniel Hall, James Hansen, Connor Holjes, Ian Houser, Shin Young, Jisoo Kim, Sam Koopman, Luke Kreul, Maya Krtic, Kelsey Lee, Hui Jung Liu, Piao Liu, Sofia Machaira, Wilson Muller, Celine Park, Joseph Parrella, Stephanie Restrepo, Jonathan Small, Chi-Hsuan (Vita) Wang

 

Pixel + grid parameters exceeded through topological displacement, developing a nested housing complex for three generations.

 

This house is initiated in Processing (R) interface. Processing becomes the site in which the project originates by motivating the background plot in which the figuration of the project emerges. Rather than developing a project in a determinate interface, the computational background of the interface is motivated to create the project.

 

 

Studio Research Published in Ethics: Paradigms in Computing; Pidgin Magazine Princeton University Student Publication; Systema Journal (upcoming 2015)