PROPOSITIONS
GRADUATE STUDIO
ARCH 672 PROPOSITIONS+MUD 732 STUDIO III: CLIMATEFALL/SUMMER 2024
PROFESSORS
María Arquero de Alarcón, Ryan Ball, Ayaz Basrai, Clément Blanchet, Lars Gräbner, El Hadi Jazairy, Mick Kennedy, Perry Kulper, Jose Sanchez, Geoffrey Thün, Claudia Wigger
ARCH 672 - PROPOSITIONS + UD 732 STUDIO III
FALL 2024PROJECTS
Akshita Mandhyan, Virginia Bassily, Haley Cope - Thirupudaimaruthur Bird Conservation Reserve
Deepa Bansal, Jay Nakrani, Yi Min Tan - Water Memories
THE RIVER WHISPERS OF BIRDS, TREES, TEMPLES, AND THEIR PEOPLE
Nurtured by the perennial waters of the Tamiraparani River, the Tirunelveli District is a continental migratory bird corridor and a nesting colony for local aquatic birds. Every year, the bountiful monsoon redraws the fertile Tamiraparani riverbanks, with the historic temples and the sacred rituals as the memory markers of a landscape always in shift. This riverine ecosystem is also home to an endless constellation of small towns and villages that have historically cultivated and worshiped land and water and the many forms of life they sustain. Recognizing the distinctive socio-ecological values of these natural and cultural landscapes, the Thiruppudaimarudur Bird Conservation Reserve (TBCR), was created in 2005. As we approach its 20th anniversary, what can we learn about the impact of this designation to steward the natural and cultural heritage in these living landscapes?
This joint MArch+MUD studio section collaborated with the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE), a nonprofit organization committed to environmental education and the co-production of community-based socioecological knowledge. After initial research on the TBCR and the Tamiraparani River, we traveled to the Agasthyamalai Community Conservation Centre to conduct field work with ATREE, further documenting onsite conditions. Building on different aspects of ATREE's regional socioecological work, students co-developed a series of design strategies for an interpretation and landscape observatory contributing to the ongoing investigation of a regional eco-tourism initiative.
STUDENTS
Akshita Mandhyan, Virginia Bassily, Haley Cope
PROFESSOR
María Arquero de Alarcón
Our project, the design of an interpretation centre for the Thirupudaimaruthur Bird Conservation Reserve (TBCR), reimagines interpretation in a way that is both meaningful and contextually appropriate for the local community, addressing the complex socio-ecological challenges of the village. By centering the needs of both the people and the environment, the design seeks to create a space that fosters deeper engagement with the landscape and its heritage. Our interpretation center is not a singular, permanent entity but a network of multiple centers—some static, some dynamic. We propose a mobile infrastructure which addresses pressing societal challenges, including infrastructure deficiencies, and accessibility barriers.
STUDENTS
Deepa Bansal, Jay Nakrani, Yi Min Tan
PROFESSOR
María Arquero de Alarcón
Nestled along the sacred banks of the river Tamirabarani, Water Memories is a tribute to the deep connection between water, people, and nature. The interpretative and interactive components are designed to celebrate the river’s cultural, spiritual, and ecological significance, bringing its presence back into everyday life. Through thoughtfully crafted landscapes, these create spaces for reflection and interaction while adapting to the river’s natural rhythms with sustainable, locally sourced materials. More than just a design, this project honors water as a living entity—one that nurtures, sustains, and connects all beings, inviting everyone to pause, appreciate, and cherish its timeless flow.
ARCH 672 - PROPOSITIONS
FALL 2024PROJECTS
Jonathan Bam Davis - Thermal Palimpsest
Brianna Kucharski - Cellular Dynamism
Welcome to Westerchester: Culture, Climate, and the Detail, Explored in 4 Acts
The role of architectural detailing today is often one of concealment. Have you ever noticed that we try to hide a lot of things within a wall? We don’t seem to like the messiness of all the active-systems technology that makes our buildings inhabitable. All of this hiding allows for a sleight of hand, to draw your attention away from what is really happening. However, given architects choose what to express and what to hide, detailing is highly political.
As a setting for this course, we will use the fictional (and climate fluid) American town of Westerchester as a backdrop to explore many issues linked to the embodiment of the American dream. In this context, the mis-direction detailing affords is often co-opted as a structural and political technique that underpins many of the challenges facing the US today: increasing inequality, systemic racism, climate change, housing unaffordability, among others. While architects are not in a position to offer policy solutions to these many issues, the act of detailing can be an effective political tool for a broader public engagement.
One of the biggest instigators of this noted architectural shift toward details of concealment is the widespread adoption of the rainscreen as the dominant construction method in the US and Northern Europe. The rainscreen requires that the aesthetics of an exterior cladding layer mask the internalized functional performance of the wall. It also has the effect of rendering its exterior homogenous, or disconnected. That is, climate can be instrumentalized as a representational ideal of performance, not necessarily responsive to context, let alone the current existential crisis. This shift to a representational materiality of architecture (and of climate), establishes a purposeful misreading, leaving an unresolved tension between these actors.
This course then, will use the detail as a site of investigation to intersect the expression of techno-performative issues of climate and building science with the formal agendas of popular culture vernaculars and futurisms.
STUDENT
Jonathan Bam Davis
PROFESSOR
Ryan Ball
By definition, temporary housing is designed for temporary occupancy. However, for people who have been displaced from their homes, “temporary” often fails to meet their needs. Our communal housing project explores how form can afford a space for collective living, capable of rapidly fluctuating levels of occupancy relative to community need. A shelter meant to become a permanent home but also a permanent home that can provide shelter. Three clusters, each with different formal languages overlapping at points of intersection and entry, all revolve around a collective green space, and central mission of providing housing to those in need.
STUDENT
Brianna Kucharski
PROFESSOR
Ryan Ball
Through a series of investigative ACTS, "Cellular Dynamism" explores bio-based motifs and processes in dialogue with contemporary layered construction assemblies. [II] Extracts a physical layered sample from generative digital textures. [III] Uses the metabolic processes of plants as a backdrop to stage mediated experiences between light, water, and digital systems through a catalogue of bio-active figures within an interactive diorama. [IV] Builds upon the accumulated research to propose a biophilic alternative to the double-envelope typology, utilizing an interior green zone coupled with an exterior responsive-patterned ETFG cushioning system to condition the interior environment and experientially communicate environmental conditions to occupants.
ARCH 672 - PROPOSITIONS
SUMMER 2024PROJECTS
Sami Darwish - Atelier 2050
Omar Shaikh - “Home” Coming
INDIA CRAFT FUTURES
India enjoys a deep, centuries-old connection with Craft. Historically, every Industrial Revolution has been mirrored by a parallel Crafts movement. This counterpoint is fuelled equally by Master Craftsmen, as well as the patronage systems that support them. Art Nouveau expressions, The Arts and Crafts and the American Craftsmen movement all created a rich counterpoint to profound societal shifts engendered by the Industrial revolutions. Once again we’re at the cusp of a massive technological revolution, with the rise of Artificial Intelligence, Automation and Machine Learning. How may we frame a counterpoint at this time of great flux? How may we deliberately and meaningfully align with the values espoused by Craft?
The India Craft Futures Studio will interrogate these inquiries within the Indian context, to speculate on ways that future hybridized modalities of making can inflect societal, ecological, and political change. India has a vast, deep, and extensive craft tradition that permeates everyday life. Craft is a distinct geographical signifier, within one of the most populous and culturally varied countries on the planet.
The India Craft Futures Studio will take a collaborative, speculative lens studying Crafts practices in Delhi, Jaipur, and Ahmedabad some of the most vibrant centres in India. We will then head to Goa, to assimilate, work hands-on and collaborate with visiting Craftspersons at our Studio and Research Lab. We will investigate how modern design approaches can interact, integrate and augment age-old Crafts practice to achieve new hybridized expressions.
STUDENT
Sami Darwish
PROFESSOR
Ayaz Basrai
This project takes the various notions of craft and their contexts and frames them within a specualtive future where the traditional meets modern fabrication and making. "Atelier 2050" acts as the moderator for the various communities, spaces, and tools to come together and create a new reality that is multidisciplinary, celebratory, and reflective. Exploring every aspect of the world around us, I question every facet of crafts and their contexts. As we move forward into a world of uncertainty, how does craft follow? What will we create around us as the world becomes more interconneted and tangled? "Atelier 2050" seeks to create a structure and set of values by which all crafts communicate to adapt to the changing world. Developing new ways of working and coexisting while remaining connected and respectful of the past. This remains an ongoing exploration of my own methods and approach to making and design.
STUDENT
Omar Shaikh
PROFESSOR
Ayaz Basrai
What does an object hold? Is it purely utilitarian? Or can it hold an entire culture?
Design through a craft tradition is not about oneself, it is an endless tapestry being continuously woven through the centuries, and our job designers not to make a garish mark of our own, but to pick up the threads left by our ancestors and continue weaving the narrative as it unfolds around us. The role of designers is to articulate these values of craft to empower the craftsmen through a collaborative approach that doesn’t treat the craftsmen as nameless piece of labor but as a partner in keeping this sophisticated, multifaceted approach to design its proper place as a bulwark against the contemporary world of hyper-capitalized consumerist design frameworks.