What should we be thinking about today?

This course will examine time in architecture and care in the extraction of material, to address sustainability as a basis of value. If we grasp the limitation of our time in relation to the eternity of the rock as a material, we might be able to design with a greater care for our environment.

At the cusp of the Anthropocene, we have begun to think differently about how materials are extracted and refined, and how they might repurposed in the future.  With the growth of the idea of circularity and reuse, buildings can be seen as a ‘pause’ in the circulation of materials from the sites of their extraction to further future use whose conditions are unknown. As allied with the Provenance Projected project, this studio will study the origins of materials and their potential use as poetic markers of our time.

The students will be asked to design a space that questions how we think about our time. The project should deal with rock as a material, either extracted and transformed or in a natural state. In juxtaposition to this, the students will be asked to pair this material with one that addresses a different perspective of time: something fluid, transformable, shifting or immaterial.

Our teaching method aims to see each individual in their search for meaning and purpose in their development of professional core values. We see  education as a time when students are able to develop ideas and meaning about their work and pay attention to what kind of architect and human being they would like to be. This requires independent thought, but also a sensitivity towards the fact that nothing is singular, but plural. For this reason, we see the studio as a whole group, and each project as a contribution to a larger discussion. We require the students to be involved in that common discussion.