Sweating Out The Toxins

Samuel Hunter

Studio Description

This semester engages an expanded cultural terrain shaped by iconic figures across architecture, art, philosophy, design, landscape, music, film, and literature. From the surreal to the naturalistic, the organic to the abstract, the romantic to the expressive, the constructed to the deconstructed—these figures work across extremes. Their work is not neutral. It provokes, unsettles, and above all, makes us feel.

These are my heroes. They are the figures I return to for energy, clarity, and resolve. They remind me what it means to be human. They fuel obsession, persistence, and refusal. They demand intensity. They push harder. They do not compromise. Through their work, they offer insight into the world we inhabit—and, at times, into worlds entirely of their own making.

They are not alone. There are many others, including those closer to home. But to begin, we must commit. These figures will define the semester. No substitutes. No dilution. To learn from them is to inhabit their position. To think as they think. To operate as they operate.

Studio Outcomes

You will construct a design agenda from their work. You will build for them an anti-institution: a new cultural academy, a contemporary Bauhaus, deliberately displaced. Not local. Not familiar. Not comfortable. Elsewhere. Global in ambition and outlook.

There will be no reliance on theory or rhetoric. No justification, no defense. Only mood, atmosphere, intuition, and raw emotion. We will focus on figures from the past two hundred years who exist in a liminal space-creators who resisted categorization, rejected labels, and defined their own genres, movements, and worlds. Figures who built their own strange, wild, and indisciplined territories.

For thirteen weeks, you will engage one figure at a time. You will draw them. You will read them. You will write them. You will design for them.

Your projects will be part folly, part monument, part landscape, all architecture. Most definitely, they will be a spatial extension of their creative practice. An embodiment of their personality, energy, and obsessions. Each proposal will house a curated collection of critical objects—artifacts that define their work and their worldview. The result must be unmistakable. It must belong to no one else.

Studio Leader/s

Sam joined Architecture Associates as co-director in 2022 after leaving a pivotal role as Principal at celebrated Australian practice Lyons. Sam has a keen interest in the cultural value embedded in architecture. He brings to all projects a deep understanding of education and community spaces, having recently delivered the award-winning University of Melbourne’s New Student Precinct and the Springvale Library while at Lyons. Sam’s unique ability to translate a client’s aspirational brief into new and exciting forms of architecture with an innate functional understanding is paramount to his success as a design leader. Sam is technically dexterous, his design process encompassing digital and physical processes. Sam’s interest in contemporary art and culture is critical to his approach to design, an approach that is open, curious and generous.

Readings & References

1. Frank Gehry, William Guilfoyle, Enric Mirralles, Bruce Goff, Bart Prince, Terunobu Fujimori, Takasaki Masaharu, Peter Wilson, Marion Mahoney, John Hejduk, Denise Scott Brown, Andreas Jacques, Douglas Darden, CJ Lim, Allan Wexler, Roberto Burle Marx, Catherine Mosbach, Odile Decq
2. Frank Stella, Bruno Munari, Max Ernst, Helen Frankenthaler, Paula Rego, Kay Sage, Philip Guston, Georgio de Cherico, Isamu Noguchi, Gordon Matta Clarke, Poly Borland, Mary Miss, Patricia Piccinini, Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen, Rei Kawakubo, Jorge Camacho, Henri Matisse, Patrick La Blanc
3. David Lynch, Jim Jarmusch, Walt Disney, Hayao Miyazaki, Haruki Murakami, George Harrison, Marina Abramovic, David Byrne, Thom Yorke, Damon Albarn, Laurie Anderson, Lou Reed, Nick Cave, Wes Anderson, PJ Harvey, Josh Holme, Tim Burton
4. Dr Seuss, Italo Calvino, Michael Sorkin, Patti Smith, Madelaine Gins, Joan Didion, Sarskia Sasin, Paul Sheppard, Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, Anthony Vidler, Walter Benjamin, Fran Leibowitz

Schedule:
Thursday 2:00pm-8:00pm


Off-site Activities:
TBA

Contact Handbook