Studio 05

ELS: Synthetic Crystalisation

Justyna Karakiewicz and Marco Poletto

This studio is available to students enrolled in  ABPL90143 Studio D and ABPL90115 Studio E.  
It is not available to students enrolled in ABPL90142 Studio C.

Studio Description

The Galapagos Islands inspired most notorious theory on Nature, Darwin's evolution by natural selection. Darwin's had the radical intuition that Nature's "intelligence" is not its own, and while nature's designs are brilliant, the "designers" are as uncomprehending as nature itself.

Today, in the age of ubiquitous computation, Darwin's radical perspective acquires yet another significance. The miniaturisation and distribution of digital systems has reached in-human complexity and unpredictability. Human creations such as urban infrastructures affect nature in ways that escape our rational comprehension and sensorial perception. Therefore and perhaps paradoxically in the Anthropocene Age we rely more than ever on non-anthropocentric mode of reasoning.

Within this conceptual framework, the notions of wastefulness and mindlessness take on a rather different meaning than in their common acception. In this studio we take on the challenge to explore these meanings while designing new Synthetic Landscapes within the Galapagos Islands' many topographic regions.

Once again we will turn the archipelago into an open air laboratory to study what we call evolution by anthropogenic selection, recognizing that even a remote archipelago is not immune to the forces of global urbanisation.

We will set approprate frame and resolutions to fine-tune our observations of these now hybrid ecosytems, taking off from the large satellite perspective to dive in all the way to the scale of bacteria and micro-plastic particles. A new bio-computational panorama will emerge and our task will be to actualize its affordances into actual landscapes and prototypical architectures.

Studio Outcome

The output of the studio will be:

• one large drawing (2x2m) for each group of students (2-3 per group)
• each drawing will be accompanied by one large bio_digital (mix-technique bio-plastic or CNC milled or 3D printed substratum.
• a final design report

Studio Leaders

Marco Poletto Marco, co-founder and director of ecoLogicStudio, is an architect, author and educator. After graduating with Honors from Turin Polytechnic in Italy, Marco moved to London to study at the Architectural Association. He would then spend more than 10 years at the AA, as a student, teaching assistant and finally as Unit Master. He also directed AA international workshops in Istanbul and Turin before founding one of the first ever AA Visiting Schools, in Milano in 2010. Marco co-found the ecoLogicStudio in 2005 in London with Prof. Claudia Pasquero. Over these past 12 years and under the direction of Claudia and Marco the ecoLogicStudio has built an international reputation for its pioneering work on bio-digital design, with projects ranging from temporary installations to the territorial scale proposals. Marco has been teaching and researching internationally; as Unit Master at the Architectural Association in London, as Senior Tutor at the IAAC in Barcelona, Visiting critic at Cornell University in Ithaca, Research LAB leader at the Bartlett School of Architecture in London, Distinguished Visiting Critic at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and Visiting Lecturer at the University of Innsbruck. In the past two years Marco has been also Adapt-r research fellow at the Aarhus School of Architecture. Marco has authored numerous papers and articles internationally and he is author of a book titled “Systemic Architecture – Operating manual for the self-organizing city” published by Routledge in 2012.

Justyna Karakiewicz is currently professor in architecture and urban design. She researches urban design and architecture through design in practice globally and by publication, including numerous design awards and an extensive record of exhibitions. Her work in sustainability was recognised by the Royal Institute of British Architects in 2008 in the Housing Design Awards 2008 Historic Awards for the design of Spinney Garden, constructed in 1986. Her book Promoting Sustainable Living: Sustainability as an Object of Desire, (Routledge, 2015) and Making of Hong Kong: From Vertical to Volumetric (Routledge, 2011) extend her work in this field. Her most recent co-edited book, Urban Galapagos: Transition to Sustainability in Complex Adaptive Systems in the Springer Social and Ecological Interaction in the Galapagos Islands Series (2019) considers the opportunities in coupled natural urban systems, engaging computer, social and economic sciences with design.

Schedule Weekdays Friday 31 January-Friday 21 February 09:00-12:00 and 14:00-17:00 in MSD Room 120

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